Tag Archives: creation

No Need to Fear Evolution

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An excellent blogger on science and religion issues, who goes by the handle RJS, has just posted an introduction to my first BioLogos blog (Why Christians Don’t Need to Be Threatened by Evolution) on the website Musings on Science and Theology. RJS’s posts are then re-posted on the Jesus Creed website, where comments are allowed (Jesus Creed is a blog run by New Testament scholar Scot McKnight; it is hosted by Patheos, which hosts a variety of religion blogs).

The post by RJS is called No Need to Fear and it goes beyond introducing my BioLogos blog. It goes on to explain (very well) my argument about Genesis 1 and what it means to be made in God’s image from my book The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1.

But then RJS has blogged about The Liberating Image before in no less than nine posts! And I did an invited follow-up post on how my thinking about the imago Dei has developed since the book. RJS also did a nine-part series on my more recent book A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology. (For anyone who doesn’t have time to read either book, these blogs give a pretty accurate portrayal of my argument).

Having done my introductory BioLogos post on my approach to evolution (Why Christians Don’t Need to Be Threatened by Evolution) and then a second post on cosmic creation (The Ancient Universe and the Cosmic Temple), my next post will be on what it means to be created in God’s image according to the Scriptures and how that might intersect with what science is telling us about human evolution.

Interestingly, the blog by RJS (No Need to Fear) introduces some of the themes I will touch on in my third BioLogos post. So you can check it out if you want an advance taste of what I might say on that topic.

The Ancient Universe and the Cosmic Temple

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My first BioLogos post, Why Christians Don’t Need to Be Threatened by Evolution, laid out my assumptions concerning Scripture and science. This has generated a lot of discussion, especially on Facebook pages where the post was shared (one page has generated well over a hundred comments or responses, including responses to responses).

As promised, I will now begin to explore various issues at the intersection of biblical faith and contemporary science. The first such issue is how we think about the relationship of Genesis 1 (in the context of other references to creation in the Bible) to a very old and very large universe.

This post, called The Ancient Universe and the Cosmic Temple,  is now available.

It addresses cosmic creation, though not yet biological evolution (which is more controversial for many Christians). I’ll get to the Bible and evolution explicitly in the posts that follow.

 

Why I’m Blogging on Biblical Faith and Evolution

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My first blog post for BioLogos, entitled Why Christians Don’t Need to Be Threatened by Evolution, has been getting lots of comments, not only on the BioLogos website, but also on my Facebook page, and on other Facebook pages which have shared the post.

I added a comment to one of these pages, where the discussion was becoming a bit heated. This is what I posted:

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Perhaps I should make it clear that my BioLogos blogs are not written to try and convince anyone who is adamantly opposed to my views. I have been both a philosopher and a teacher for long enough to know that two people with adamantly divergent positions who simply want to win an argument can’t have a genuine conversation.

I am writing for those who want a genuine conversation, where all conversation partners respect the others. I’m especially addressing those who both trust the Bible as the source of revelation and who also want to take science seriously. Among such persons are those like myself who wonder about some points of seeming tension between what we take the Bible to be saying and what science seems to be saying.

So my blog postings are not apologetics for a particular position. They are meant to help those who want to think with me on these issues. If you’re not open to the conversation, there is no need to read on.

I have to admit that I find grandstanding and absolutist claims to be right quite unhelpful. Of course we all think we are right (unless we have some genuine perplexity about an issue). The question is can we listen (genuinely listen) to another point of view, including why the person holds that point of view?

So if you really want to think with me about, for example, how the understanding of God’s creation of the cosmos (heaven and earth) in Genesis 1 and other biblical texts relates to the scientific picture of a very ancient and immensely large universe, click on The Ancient Universe and the Cosmic Temple,  which will take you directly to the post on the BioLogos website.