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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.
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.
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.
Are You There God? It's Us, Scientists (Infographic)
The BioLogos Forum is pleased to present this infographic about religious belief among scientists. The graphic uses data from the Pew Research Center, Rice University, and quotations from scientists assembled in a recent Huffington Post article.
What is Scientism?
Scientism is a rather strange word, but for reasons that we shall see, a useful one. Though this term has been coined rather recently, it is associated with many other “isms” with long and turbulent histories: materialism, naturalism, reductionism, empiricism, and positivism.
Jefferson’s Bible and the Tears of Christ
Predictably, "Jesus Wept" did not make into the Jefferson Bible. John 11 was cut out entirely, falling onto the floor of his Monticello home and discarded, along with Martha's confession.
Series: What Scientists Do
Steve Benner, a Distinguished Fellow of The Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Fla., looks at what the role of a scientist should be. Benner looks specifically at "falsifiability", the acceptance of uncertainty, and the place of the scientist in public discourse.
Series: From ID to BioLogos
In this series, Dennis Venema describes his personal journey that took him away from the Intelligent Design arguments toward the evolutionary creation worldview. Through careful and honest research, he discovered ID scientific reasoning to be analogy-based, in sharp contrast to evolutionary science, which was supported by concrete data. After accepting this view, God’s presence ever strengthened him as he explored the compatibility between the Bible and God’s creative mechanism.
Series: Reviewing "Why Evolution is True"
In this three part series, Robert C. Bishop provides a helpful review for Evangelicals of the book Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. He first debunks many outdated ideas and myths about the theory of evolution and its implications. He then goes on to critique Coyne’s conclusions about God as a “bad designer.” He further addresses how Christianity and science overlap as well as how to have a meaningful discussion between two individuals with radically different views.
The Crutch
Providing the crutch for non-believers to lean on is a well-intentioned strategic error that has no benefit and likely does much harm. However, I am even more concerned about something else related to our construction of these crutches.
Engaging Today's Militant Atheist Arguments
In this paper, MIT professor Ian Hutchinson addresses the question of how to engage arguments put forward by the New Atheists. In doing so, he offers a critique of scientism, the assumption that scientific knowledge is all the real knowledge there is.
Series: Design in Nature
In this series, Oliver R. Barclay examines the idea of God as Designer. He concludes that God did indeed design creation, and that the “state of the world is evidence not only for the existence and power of God but for his kindness and care for his creation.” Barclay then goes on to investigate the arguments for Intelligent Design which attempt to prove that certain examples of design necessarily imply direct intervention by a Great Designer. He points the flaws of such an argument and discusses its implications.
Series: Hutchinson on Atheism
Ian Hutchinson draws a sharp line between science and scientism. Scientism holds that all truth emerges from scientific study and explanation. Hutchinson, however, disagrees as he points to science’s inability to establish truth about, for example, the events that have occurred in humanity’s history on earth. He specifically engages Richard Dawkins assertions (from the book The God Delusion) that God is a scientific hypothesis that has been essentially disproved by science and that evolution explains religion as nothing more than a natural phenomenon.
Series: Addressing Christian Concerns about the Implications of BioLogos’ Science
In this series, Ard Louis addresses concerns that Christians may have about the BioLogos view that stem from specific misconceptions. Among these are misunderstandings about the nature of science, God’s action in the universe, and natural theology. In addition, there is unwarranted mistrust towards the academic world. Finally, he encourages the BioLogos team to carefully confront “the ways we in the church have all been shaped by the spirit of the age” and to patiently listen and speak about these issues.
Series: John Polkinghorne on Natural Theology
Polkinghorne discusses the origins and aims of natural theology in this series. It does not offer truth, but rather a “best explanation” for the world, answering primarily meta-questions. Two such questions asked by Polkinghorne are, “Why is science possible at all?” and “What makes the universe so special?” To explore the answers, he looks at the ability of human minds to penetrate mysteries of the natural world as well as the fine-tuning of the universe necessary to produce the fruitfulness of life.
Darwin: The Father of Modern Racism?
Alexander notes that while the biological theory of evolution is not itself an ideology, it has been used for ideological purposes since 1859 to defend everything from eugenics to capitalism to racism to atheism.
Ard Louis on Intelligent Design
In this short video, physicist Ard Louis expresses some doubts about Intelligent Design, noting that his primary resistance to the movement is based on theological grounds rather than science.
Through a Glass Darkly
BioLogos enthusiastically endorses the idea that the universe is intelligently designed and we certainly believe that the creator of the universe is intelligent. I want to acknowledge the real similarities between fine-tuning arguments and arguments made by ID.
Intelligent Design and Me, Part 1: In the Beginning
When the ID movement first burst on the scene in the mid-1990s, it lacked the amateurishness of the creation-science movement while at the same time making its main goal to unseat philosophical naturalism. As a philosopher who had critiqued one sort of naturalist project in his doctoral dissertation, ID intrigued me.
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