This series on evolutionary biology (1st post, 2nd post, 3rd post, 4th post) was prompted by some reader questions on the blog, but in parallel I was discussing some of the same issues via e-mail with theologian Mike Stell. Mike is an ESN contributor. He and I met in person at last summer’s BioLogos conference, and we struck up a correspondence on some of the topics that came up at that meeting. Last week’s post covered our conversation on humanity’s creation in God’s image. This week is our exploration of original sin. I make a couple of references to Nevin; that’s John Williamson Nevin and I’m referring to quotes I read here.
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biological evolution
Science Reader Question: Becoming Made in God’s Image
This series (1st post, 2nd post, 3rd post) was prompted by some reader questions on the blog, but in parallel I was discussing some of the same issues via e-mail with theologian Mike Stell. Mike is an ESN contributor. He and I met in person at last summer’s BioLogos conference, and we struck up a correspondence on some of the topics that came up at that meeting. For a change of pace, I thought I’d address the image of God question with some excerpts from that e-mail conversation.
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Science Reader Question: Fugue in the Key of Adenine
This month, we’ve been addressing some reader questions on the topic of evolution. Having looked at how God’s intentions could be realized via a process that leaves degrees of freedom for creation, and how those intentions could be communicated and realized in a way that is not coercive, I want to elaborate on the source and nature of variation in evolution. This whole conversation started when I brought up research findings that indicated a retroviral sequence plays a role in human embryonic development. If evolution is just one mutation after another, and if the human genome is cobbled together from whatever viral parts or other tidbits are lying around, then aren’t we just pastiches and not original creations?
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Science Reader Question: Seated at the Right 01101001 of God
Last week I started a series responding to reader questions about evolution. I explored the idea that God expresses his creativity by defining relationships while leaving matters of form at least partially open for creation to work out. If God does create that way, then an evolutionary process seems plausible as a method for creation. However, I can see where my description of God specifying requirements might seem at odds with my claim that God is continually creating and instead raise questions about deism. Indeed, such questions seem to arise whenever an evolutionary process is proposed for creation. If life is evolving “on its own” then whatever role God might have had, wasn’t it in the distant past? What is there left for God to do now?
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Science Reader Question: Evolutionary Project Management
A few months back, I received some questions here on the blog about evolutionary biology and its implications for Christian theology. They probed broadly and deeply, covering original sin, the problem of evil and many of the topics everyone asks about and indeed have been asking about since long before anyone conceived of a theory of evolution. These questions warrant more detailed answers than a few comments can provide, so I will be taking a look at them in some depth over the next few weeks. Looking ahead, I expect that will include some discussion of the upcoming film X-Men: Apocalypse, since Apocalypse is obsessed with survival of the fittest and since the film declared its theological ambitions already. I’ll start this series with the questions I received previously, but feel free to chime in with others as we go along.
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