Week 5 - 'Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary thought and natural theology'.

A brief summary of a book called 'Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary though and natural theology'. I am looking at chapter 8: 'The concept of creation: reflections and reconsiderations'.

- Christianity insists that god is involved in the creation and evolution of the earth.

- 'How can the agency of creative action be transferred from God to the created order itself, without implying the conceptual redundancy of God?' (McGarth, AE 2011, p.233)

- Theists generally believe that God is the primary cause for any event.

- God is also understood to work through nature/natural causes in what is defined as a secondary matter.

- Debates whether God is violating the laws of nature by interfering with the process.

- Charles Darwin uncovered the laws of evolutionary biology.

- 'Either God is everywhere present in nature, or He is nowhere' ( McGarth, AE 2011, p.235). This is basically saying, the view is either black or white on whether God exists, not whether he exists but in no ways interferes in the progress of nature,

Reference:

McGrath, AE 2011, Darwinism and the divine. evolutionary thought and natural theology, Oxford ; Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell.