Series: Excerpts from "Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design"
These excerpts from Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, written by BioLogos president Deborah Haarsma and her husband Loren Haarsma, offer a sampling of the book's many topics, from exploring our disagreements and agreements on origins as Christians to explaining scientific processes to looking at how we read Genesis.
Does Evolutionary Psychology Explain Why We Believe in God? Part 1
When we look across times and cultures and find very similar beliefs concerning the nature of physical, biological, and psychological reality, those similarities cry out for some explanation. Since these different individuals have a very diverse range of experience, something other than common experience alone just might account for the similarities of belief. In some cases we can fairly conclude that there is a common nature – some fundamental similarity in how human cognition works – that underlies broadly shared beliefs.
Denis Alexander on Understanding Creation Theology
In this video Conversation, Denis Alexander asserts that contemporary Christians are not taking the early chapters of Genesis seriously enough.
A Scientific Commentary on Genesis 7:11
Although committed to the principle of sola Scriptura, Calvin recognized that the Bible would have been written in terms its original recipients would have understood. Calvin inherited the medieval cosmology of his time, a way of viewing the world heavily influenced by Greek thought and one which was about to receive shocks from astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo. But not just yet.
Augustine of Hippo and Two Books Theology, Part 2
Augustine had a great deal to say about those chapters in Genesis that are especially controversial within Christianity today.
Series: To Serve and Preserve—Genesis 2 and the Human Calling
In this series, David Buller pays careful attention to the original language and cultural context of Genesis 2, revealing that our responsibility to care for creation is a sacred task given to us by God, not merely a modern secular activity. By taking Scripture seriously, we learn that we have a God-given mandate to be diligent stewards of His creation.
Southern Baptist Series: Evolution and the Problem of Evil
Were one to propose creation by means of theistic evolution, some of the presuppositions for these responses to the problem of evil no longer function. Therefore, advocating some form of theistic evolution poses problems for standard explanations of the problem of evil.
Series: “And God Saw That It Was Good”: Death and Pain in the Created Order
The tension generated by our understanding of God’s character, as revealed in the Bible, and by the reality of the natural world around us has been the focus of much debate within the Christian church since the first century. This series examines critically several of the proposed solutions to this problem, viewing them from the perspective of a geologist, paleontologist, and orthodox evangelical Christian.
Series: Genesis Through Ancient Eyes
In this talk, originally delivered at the BioLogos President's Circle meeting in October 2012, Dr. John Walton discusses the origin stories of Genesis 1-3, and why their focus on function and archetypes mean there is no Biblical narrative of material origins.
Series: Pre-Modern Readings on Genesis 1
Many people assume that until Darwin came along, devout Christians everywhere read and understood Genesis in the same way. But Dr. Pak points out that some of the most revered figures in Christian history--Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin--offered insightful but distinctive interpretations of the text that are often overlooked today. First presented at a symposium in Raleigh, NC, Dr. Pak's paper is presented here as a three part series.
Series: Shaping the Human Soul
In Washington DC, Church of the Advent teamed up with The Trinity Forum to offer a series of lectures exploring the synergy between modern science and Christian Faith. This presentation by psychiatrist Curt Thompson and philosopher James K.A. Smith addressed the process of Christian discipleship and spiritual formation through the lens of neuroscience.
Science and the Bible: Theistic Evolution, Part 3
As I stressed in my column about the YEC view, creationism is ultimately about theodicy—it’s not only about theodicy, to be sure, but the belief that animals must not have suffered and died before Adam and Eve committed the first sin is crucial to the “young” in Young Earth Creationism. To a significant degree, Theistic Evolution is also about theodicy.
Dispatches From the Physicalist Frontier, Part 1
I’m a physicalist when it comes to human persons. I believe, in other words, that we are wholly physical objects. I don’t believe there are non-physical souls in the natural world. So I don’t believe that we are or have such non-physical souls as parts. I believe we are through-and-through physical.
Rediscovering Human Beings, Part 1
That we are animals is something we hardly needed Darwin to tell us. It is obvious from the fact that, like other animals, we have stomachs and skin, eyeballs and ears, limbs and teeth, muscles, brains, and other organs. Yet it doesn’t follow that we are mere animals.
Body and Soul, Mind and Brain: Pressing Questions
“Bit by experimental bit,” writes philosopher P. Churchland, “neuroscience is morphing our conception of what we are.” For many, this includes dispensing with the “soul” in favor of biologically anchored processes.
Series: Southern Baptist Voices: Evolution and Death
This exchange brings together related essays on death in light of evolution and Scripture from Southern Baptist theologian Dr. John Laing. Laing argues that evolutionary theory requires death to play a central role in the creation of new life, but sees Scripture depicting death only "as an invader, disturber of peace, and a force of evil." A BioLogos response is given by Dr. Jeff Schloss.
The Questions Update: Did death occur before the Fall?
Today’s post features a preview of the updated Question, "Did death occur before the Fall?", revised by Senior Web Consultant and Writer Deborah Haarsma. This question provides an overview of the issue and points readers to more resources within and beyond the BioLogos website.
Series: Asa Gray and Charles Darwin Discuss Evolution and Design
Many Christians believe that they face a painful choice-- either life was designed by God or it is an evolutionary product of natural selection. Charles Darwin himself believed in this dichotomy, and people ever since have felt the need to "choose sides". However, looking back at history, we find that one of Darwin's chief scientific colleagues, Asa Gray, did not share this perspective. In this three-part essay, part 1 charts the relationship of Asa Gray and Charles Darwin. Part 2 describes Darwin's struggle with the problem of natural evil and design in nature, and part 3 explores how Asa Gray was able to embrace evolution without rejecting the idea of design.
Science and the Bible: The Framework View
Although the Framework View has existed for about ninety years, its attitude toward the Genesis “days” is similar to that held by Augustine. He taught that God created all things at once and told us about it in the pattern of six days, in order that we could understand it. The days themselves, however, were “unknowable” and not meant as a “literal” description of the passage of time.
Series: The Meaning of mîn in the Hebrew Old Testament
The related ideas of the “fixity of species” and “natural kinds” have been prominent in the science and faith conversation. Some Christians take Genesis to mean that God created (bara) fixed species (mîn). But does the text truly indicate such a concept? Biblical scholar Dr. Richard Hess looks at the Biblical context and meaning of the Hebrew mîn, and suggests that when Christians use it to frame our understanding of the entire created order, we may be asking too much of this single word.
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