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.
Bigger Than We Think
My Hawking-induced crisis of faith spurred me to move beyond a "God of the gaps"—a shrunken deity enlisted merely to fill any remaining pockets of mystery that science has yet to illuminate. Indeed, my experience has been that recapturing the doctrine of Creation in its scriptural fullness points us toward a much more exciting understanding of creation. It points us toward a God for whom science is a gift rather than a stumbling block. And perhaps most importantly, it points to a Creator God who is worthy of worship, enjoyment, and trust.
Series: Searching for Motivated Belief
Over the next few months, with permission from Yale University Press, BioLogos will offer edited versions of chapters from John Polkinghorne's best books, Belief in God in an Age of Science and Theology in the Context of Science, in order to help readers delve more deeply into some of his most important ideas.
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.
Evolution and Christian Faith Grantees Announced
Congratulations to the 37 winners of the Evolution & Christian Faith (ECF) grants competition! ECF is a new BioLogos program designed to support projects and network-building among scholars, church leaders, and parachurch organizations.
Evolution, the Enlightenment, and Worldviews
In this video conversation, N.T. Wright discusses how the Enlightenment worldview -- which clearly separates God from the world -- has impacted our view of Scripture, and why cleaning the "spectacles" through which we view the world can help us see both Scripture and the world more clearly.
Science and the Bible: Assessing the Evangelical Encounter with Evolution
Having now completed our study of the five main views about “Science and the Bible” held by conservative Protestants, I conclude with a final column, assessing the whole situation as I see it today.
Why Strict Atheism Is Unscientific
Do you believe in God? If a cadre of outspoken, strong atheists wrote a litmus test for scientists, that might very well be question #1.
Series: Science and the Bible: Intelligent Design
In this series, Ted Davis identifies the history, core tenets and assumptions about the Intelligent Design view.
Series: Surprised by Jack: C.S. Lewis on Mere Christianity, the Bible, and Evolutionary Science
In this five-part series, David Williams responds to the book The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society by John West and the Discovery Institute, showing that C.S. Lewis was a very complicated thinker whose views are hard to line up exactly with any camp in the current debates over the compatibility of Christian faith and evolutionary science.
Surveying George Murphy's Theology of the Cross
If God himself is willing to die, particularly in such a gruesome way, then perhaps we should at least consider the possibility of God allowing the death of other creatures, too. But would this really be compatible with what we know of God through Scripture?
Series: Behe, Lenski and the “Edge” of Evolution
In this series, we reexamine the claim made by Intelligent Design proponent Michael Behe to have found a limit to “Darwinian” evolution in light of recent results from the laboratory of Richard Lenski.
Can Science Ever Know Enough?
To say something is poetic is not to declare it ultimately untrue, futile and meaningless—it is to say it is more profound and meaningful and true than many other modes of expression.
Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Science
While the lack of complete certainty is perceived by critics as a weakness, the dynamic nature of science is actually a great strength; new discoveries produce feedback that enables us to reassess, and if necessary, modify our assumptions.
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.
Willing to be Wrong
The debate is often not about evidence, but about making sure that others do not transgress our interpretive boundaries and insist that we're wrong. We've bitten from the tree of knowledge and we love its taste.
Series: Decoding ENCODE
The BioLogos Foundation explains to the findings of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project and responds to the claims that its discoveries challenge the theory of evolution, especially regarding so-called "junk DNA".
Freedom and Grace in Tennessee
Towards the end of the last school year, the Tennessee legislature passed the Teacher Protection Academic Freedom Act, a law that became more popularly known as the “Monkey Bill.” I was doing research in a Tennessee high school biology classroom the morning that I learned that the bill had passed.
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.
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