Here’s a potpourri of recent noteworthy posts, news, and arguments on faith and science topics. Of course, these links aren’t meant to endorse everything on the other end.

Provocative

Randal Rauser (who teaches at Taylor Seminary) claims “most of those theologians laboring in the theology/science dialogue made peace with Darwin long ago”, gives names, and wishes more people would join them.

Do Atheists Live with Purpose?

Interesting survey data says that atheists are less likely to be interested in making a difference in the world, or to have a purpose to their lives.

Science and Politics

Jim Manzi claims politicians abuse science, and that evolution doesn’t remove a need to posit God.

In the News

As I mentioned last time, there’s been a lot on the question of Adam’s historicity recently: an NPR story, a Christianity Today piece, and a prominent resignation.

(There’s more on the historical Adam discussion on our website here and here.)

A Sinful Evolved Nature?

David Nilsen talks about evolution and sin. His post is worth a look, since it illustrates one way theistic evolutionists try to deal with the question of the origin of sin in an evolved world—arguably one of their biggest theological problems. I’ll say a few words in response.

Nilsen suggests that our God’s moral call on us conflicts with tendencies natural selection has programmed into us, and that all sin arises from habits that would help increase our evolutionary fitness. But this last claim is pretty dubious: after all, it’s a sin to dedicate your life to getting alcohol, but alcoholism doesn’t increase our reproductive fitness. Nor, I think do quite a few other sins (like many kinds of overreaching pride, which just annoys other people).

Still, I think that Nilsen’s thoughts here illustrate an interesting way of tackling the question of sin from a theistic evolutionary perspective; perhaps much of it could be attributed to traits picked up via natural selection that God now calls us to overcome. It doesn’t address all the questions in this area (what about ‘Original Sin’ and the headship of Adam?), but it’s a good start.

Grace and peace; feel free to post any interesting links you’ve found in the comments section.

Tags: Links, sin, Adam, evolution, atheism