Reuniting Facts and Values
A review of the book,Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity. Published in Origins n. 58.
A review of the book,Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity. Published in Origins n. 58.
Design in nature can be detected using criteria similar to those for searching for extraterrestrial life, such as purpose, extreme improbability, or specification. Published in Origins n. 56..
There is more to design than complexity. I am proposing that it is time to advance beyond an analysis of complexity, fruitful though that has been. We are able to expand the scope of design arguments to include the existence of beauty, which points to design of a different kind.
Did God create the world and its environs in six days or did He use a natural process through billions of years? Two studies help to answer this question: an examination of methodological naturalism in the light of recent contributions made by the Intelligent Design movement and an examination of Scripture as revelation.
A review of the book, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. Published in Origins n. 55.
Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil. Published in Origins n. 55.
Creationism is a robust paradigm, fully capable of undergirding the scientific enterprise in the new millennium. Wider acceptance of creationism by the scientific community in the future will depend, in part, on how well theologians can convince scientists of the priceless value of revealed information.
While Christians may be convinced that design in nature points to a Creator-God, the general scientific community has not been persuaded. Perhaps more scientifically respectable work on intelligent design of the kind done by Behe and Dembski will encourage evolutionary scientists to look beyond purely naturalistic mechanisms to explain the complexity and meaning of life.
The molecules of life suggest no need for Christians to become sycophants to materialistic philosophy posing as science. On the contrary, science liberated from the artificial constraints of materialism provides an elegant mechanism for study of the creation and logically points to a wonderful Creator.
Animals can change in small or even large ways to adapt to their surroundings, but humans were created as God’s perfect climax to all that had thus far been created.
The Intelligent Design movement is crucially important for all Adventist educators, especially for those in science, in the integration of faith and learning in their classrooms.
Review of the book, Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution. Published in Origins n. 53.
How does one account for bird migrations? Why do they migrate at all? How do they know when it’s time to begin the long journey? What guides their flight path and direction? How do they know their destination, and how do they prepare for the trip?
Trilobites are complex, elaborately segmented forms with jointed appendages and swimmerets, antennae, compound eyes, and cephalized, or head-to-tail, nervous systems.
Origins may sometimes be a contentious issue in science and faith because of differing presuppositions about God's relationship to nature. An argument has been presented here that it is eminently reasonable to believe that direct supernatural action was involved in the origins of the universe, life, and humanity, and that a scientific process restricted to observable physical mechanisms is inadequate to discover and explain our origins.
Seventh-day Adventist schools and colleges were founded by a church concerned to provide an education that did not alienate its children from their Biblical beliefs and Christian worldview. I believe that Adventist educators must become evangelists for Biblical theism.
Zoology and genetics are required courses for biology majors. Both subjects are usually structured around the theme of the theory of evolution. A careful examination of the scientific basis of these disciplines shows that the evolutionary framework doesn't fit with a lot of their fundamental aspects, however. Some of these topics even constitute strong evidence in favor of intelligent design.
The integration of Bible and science is an uphill work that requires careful reading of both the Bible and of scientific data. Because no other natural science has traveled so great a distance down an anti-biblical road, no other science requires this corrective procedure more than biology.
If the stranglehold of naturalism can be weakened enough for open discussion of the philosophical issues, the resulting open-minded discussion of design vs. chance will be very beneficial to science. There is a great need of this openness in science. Science should be an open-ended search for truth, rather than a closed system that will not consider certain ideas.
Science/religion issues are important because they have to do with ultimate realities, with whether to "worship" the Creator or the creature (creation), with whether a supreme being is above the creation and can supernaturally intervene.