I was in fact searching for another paper (“The Informed Universe and the Existence of God” by John Haught, actually a chapter of an edited volume), when I stumbled upon this paper (link to pdf below) by Swinburne. There’s no reference to date or place, unfortunately, but the text offers an interesting read. Although I have some […]
Making is Finding. A Poem on Theological Anthropology by Alan Nordstrom
One of the most important theological resources for my PhD-research is Philip Hefner‘s theological-anthropological work, mainly his concept of ‘created co-creator’. Perhaps one of the most captivating introductions to this concept has been written by Alan Nordstrom, in his poem ‘Making is Finding’. It has been published in Zygon, just over ten years ago, as […]
Cultural Niche and Education
One of the things that interested me in the study of culture by use of evolutionary models, was the concept of “niche construction”. I still think this concept offers possibilities to imagine how education should be done. After having read both Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett on meme theory, I wasn’t convinced that memes could fully explain […]
Our Kinship With Nature
There are, I think, two possible interpretations of evolutionary history. The first, which I call the small one, sees evolutionary history as a gradual process of progress. Life started out very simple, but slowly gained in complexity. At one point in time, the human species emerged, with the ability to create culture. This implied, a small interpretation […]
Science, Religion and Theology: Two Lumberjacks and a Carpenter?
I think we could see both religion and science as a lumberjack, delivering tree trunks as the raw material for theology, the carpenter, to make pieces of furniture with, turning a building, i.e. the world, into a house, i.e. a habitable place. The tree trunks are the results of either scientific research, like theories, data analyses, […]
About Pigeon Holes
I have been writing on this blog on and off for more than a year now. Unfortunately, I never managed to get myself to publish regularly. In an attempt to change that, I turned to 750words.com. My writing will start there, every day. And some of that writing will be published here. What will I […]
Looking back on a year of blogging: 2014 in review
2014 has been a busy year. Although I didn’t blog as much as I planned to, way back in January 2014, I managed to post at least some of my ideas, thoughts and reflections, as this little review shows. I wish you all, dear readers, a happy 2015, with great discoveries, loads of interesting questions, […]
Why Science Does Not Break the Spell of Religion
This morning I made a note on a quote by Philip Hefner, from his “The Human Factor” (p. 86): “Jesus caressed and pressed things until they began to resist, and at that point, his experience moved him to utter “Abba, Father” — the significance being not that “Father” is masculine, but that “Father” is personal. […]
The Way We Were: Why Remembering Matters
I wrote a new blogpost for the group-blog of the Anthropos Research Group. What I try to do, is to suggest a link between an evolutionary perspective on the development of cultural traditions, and a theological perspective on tradition. You can read the full post here, of course. Or you could just skip to the part where […]
The Beauty of Theology
Using academic vocabulary is sometimes perceived as being elitist, ‘ivory tower talk’. And sometimes such criticism is justified. But then there’s this perspective on theological jargon… Source: Vítor Westhelle, Zygon, vol. 39, no. 4 (December 2004), p. 750. What do you think? Do you regard the vocabulary of your discipline, or concepts specific to it, as […]
Weekly Gardening 