Inerancy

I’ll admit it.  I’m a perfectionist.  I hate mistakes.  If you want to drive me crazy¹, just show me a sign with an unnecessary apostrophe, use the phrase “between you and I,” or pronounce “poinsettia” as if it had only three syllables. 

__________

¹ (As my wife would say, “it’s not a drive, it’s a putt.”)

Sometimes, there’s a sense of irony attached to the mistake, such as when the error appears in a pronouncement touting the quality of the local schools.   Or when people use an erroneous understanding of inerrancy to perpetuate erroneous ideas. 

Random Thoughts

Where did the universe come from? How did life develop? Do we have a purpose?

To the philosophical naturalist, our existence is the result of pure accident – the product of a series of random events in a multitude of universes.

Most Christians would take the opposite stance:   that the universe reflects God's intentional and purposeful design.  After all, the concept of chance is inconsistent with an omniscient and omnipotent God. 


Or is it?

An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution: Encouraging Critical Thinking in Evangelical Churches: The Scientist as a Bible Teacher

I was recently invited to submit a guest post to an online series of articles on "Evangelicals, Evolution, and the Church".  My topic was the importance of, and what can be done to promote, critical thinking in churches:

An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution: Encouraging Critical Thinking in Evangelical Churches: The Scientist as a Bible Teacher

Maimonides, Monkeys, and Monet

Basic Teleology

There is a story, attributed to the 12th century Jewish teacher Moses Maimonides, in which he shows his students a beautiful landscape painting, and tells them that the painting was the result of someone bumping a table, and accidentally spilling paint on a blank canvas. As the students laugh at this preposterous claim, the teacher asks, “Then how can you believe that the complete cosmos, in which everything is held in perfect balance, appeared by chance?”

Mind the Gap!

If you've ever ridden the "Tube" in London, you've heard the warning "Mind the gap!" as you step from the train. But the warning to "mind the gap" is one that should also be heeded by those engaging in discussions of science and faith. A recent question about a new scientific discovery led to the following discussion of the "God-of-the-Gaps" fallacy, and why we should be careful to avoid such arguments: