A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Science and Religion

  • Is theistic evolution incoherent?

    At the First Things blog, Joe Carter has a post challenging the coherence of “theistic evolution.” This view, held by people like Kenneth Miller, accepts the orthodox Darwinist position that the evolution of human beings did not require any special intervention by God (contra both old-school creationists and Intelligent Design proponents). Further, according to an Read more

  • This is your brain on God

    Marvin hits the nail on the head here: just because an experience can be artificially reproduced doesn’t mean it isn’t genuine or veridical when it occurs under other circumstances. Why would we expect that religious or mystical experiences, if genuine, would bypass the brain anyway? In fact, why would we even think that’s possible? Read more

  • God and the multiverse

    An interesting article dealing with how some religious believers are dealing with the idea, suggested from some of the more speculative corners of contemporary physics, that our universe is simply one part of a vast “multiverse” (via the First Things blog, I think). Among other things, the multiverse hypothesis seems to pose a challenge for Read more

  • BSG and green anarchy

    An interesting–though somewhat spoiler-y!–analysis of some of the themes in the Battlestar Galactica finale. (Via Jim Henley; also see Jim’s thoughts here.) Read more

  • Salvation as re-creation

    A while back I wrote about Keith Ward’s understanding of how God acts in the world, as explained in his book Divine Action. Later in the book he devotes a chapter to the incarnation and offers an interpretation of the atonement. Ward argues that Jesus is properly seen as the enfleshment or embodiment of God’s Read more

  • Ward on God’s action in the world

    I’ve been reading side-by-side Arthur Peacocke’s Theology for a Scientific Age and Keith Ward’s Divine Action. While they construct similar positions, they have some important differences. Peacocke, for instance, argues that God acts on the universe in a “top-down” fashion that sets the parameters of what happens in the world, even while at the same Read more

  • What could Jesus have been wrong about?

    One Christian anti-evolution argument that I came across recently goes something like this: evolution can’t be true because Jesus believed in a historical Adam and Eve, a historical fall, etc., and this is incompatible with evolution. Clearly this is an argument aimed only at convincing other Christians. What’s interesting here is the implicit view of Read more

  • Asking the right question

    In comments to my previous post, John corrected my understanding of Dennett’s views. It’s not, apparently, that Dennett denies that theism is logically compatible with evolution, it’s just that theism doesn’t explain or add anything to our understanding of evolution. But I’m not sure this is really a bad thing. I’m perfectly content to assume Read more

  • Evolution, creation, and human uniqueness

    There’s an account making the rounds of a recent debate between atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett and Christian theist Alvin Plantinga. One of the issues that comes up is the compatibility between Christianity (or theism more generally) and evolution, a perennial topic of interest here at ATR. Dennett seems to see them as incompatible. Plantinga not Read more

  • Darwin and the deity

    Check out Kim Fabricius’s ten propositions on the subject. Read more