I would like to thank Ken Keathley, Clay Carlson, Michael Ruse and Michael Wittmer for their helpful comments and insights, some of which might need a whole new book to address adequately, but I will do my best here in the space available. On the topic of books, I should first mention that I have…

Denis Alexander is a rare double threat: an eminent scientist who writes extremely well. Genes, Determinism and God contains an array of scientific studies and theories, all clearly explained so the uninitiated can follow along. Alexander’s main point is that while our genetic code sets some of life’s parameters, we still retain significant freedom within…

Why is it that I am the way I am? This is a question we all face eventually. Sometimes it will arise at the outset of life, when a young person considers their gifts, talents, interests, and formation while reflecting on vocation. For others, the question echoes around the empty house during retirement as they…

In 1997 Tom Wolfe wrote an influential article entitled “Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died.” Quoting E. O. Wilson, he declared: Every human brain . . . is born not as a blank tablet (a tabula rasa) waiting to be filled in by experience but as “an exposed negative waiting to be slipped into developer…

I teach theology at a Christian liberal arts college. My students often hear me long for those halcyon days when theology reigned as Queen of the Sciences. To have colleagues from non-theological disciplines bowing down and kissing my ring—ay, there’s tenure worth having! I crash-landed in reality, however, as I worked through these insightful essays…

The use of inheritance, and then later the use of genetics, to argue for determinism, has waxed and waned over the history of biology. Reviewing some of this background is important for understanding where we are today. Some Historical Background Overall it was the philosophers of earlier centuries who established powerful arguments in support of…

A study in genomic sciences that was on most counts not newsworthy has made big headlines in recent days, both in the media’s initial declarations and in the ensuing reaction. The cynic in me suspects that the whole thing was predictable from the very get-go. The study, published in The American Journal of Human Genetics,…

I am grateful to Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight for their work in Adam and the Genome, and I am also thankful for the engagement provided by the scholars who have contributed to this symposium. This conversation is exactly the sort of forthright, well-informed, and charitable discussion that the church needs, and it is just…

Adam and the Genome reviews selected highlights in the scholarly discussion about human evolution and Scripture. In what follows I focus on Venema’s approach to arguing support for evolution, and McKnight’s claims about a literary vs. historical Adam. Challenges with Venema’s Method The first chapter emphasizes predictive power and independent lines of evidence as strategies for…

In Adam and the Genome, my friend Scot McKnight presents his biblically rooted case for claiming that the term historical Adam is really about a literary or archetypal Adam. It is the argument of Chapters 5-8. To drive the point home the term historical is placed in quotes (“historical”) as he introduces the topic (p….

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that evangelicals are embroiled in a lively debate about Adam and Eve. On one side are those who insist that Adam and Eve were the first and sole progenitors of the entire human race. The other side cautions against reading too much dogma into Genesis 2-3;…