It needs to be more widely known that the “history of the conflict between religion and science” essentially originates in one book of that title of 1875, with encouragement from a History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom in 1897. War between science and religion is “the Read more
I wrote a while ago about a biblical way to construe AI. It’s an analogy, and it goes like this. Just as God made humans to be his image in the world and exercise God’s loving power on his behalf, so we invent tools to take our own God-bearing image Read more
At a fresh reading, the account of the Magi visiting the Christ child in Matthew’s Gospel seems bizarre. Wise men from a faraway land observe such a significant star that they set out for Jerusalem with gifts for a prince. Urged on to Bethlehem by a quote from prophecy (Micah Read more
If you read the passages about wisdom in the Bible as I do, you probably have a sense of a vibrant, intriguing personality whose presence is to be found in all kinds of exciting places. She was there rejoicing at the Creator’s side as he made the Earth, unfurled the Read more
What is artificial intelligence? The rapid spread of ChatGPT and its competitors is accompanied by a widespread view that AI is an artificial form of intelligence. This phrase might seem innocuous, but I believe it’s both misguided and dangerous. We commonly take intelligence as an indicator of sentience, because until Read more
The revolution being brought about by generative artificial intelligence (“genAI”) is a profound one. The advent of writing tools like ChatGPT is having far-reaching impacts in many areas of the economy and our societies. Workers can now generate the text of emails, internal reports and even publications in seconds by Read more
What are universities for? There may be more answers to this question than there are academics in a typical philosophy department. And surely we do need different answers according to who asks the question. The challenge to justify the existence and importance of my academic activities has confronted me increasingly Read more
“If it is to be governed essentially by the ground motive of the Christian religion, a scientific practice of economics should not be limited to the field of so-called economic policy. It needs to start with a reformation of the foundations of economic theory itself.”[1] So said Herman Dooyeweerd in Read more
This is the text of a sermon I preached at our university chapel recently (with slight modifications for context). What do Moses and Daniel have in common? Reading the account of the birth and upbringing of Moses in Exodus chapter 2 recently made me see a connection with the life Read more
I’d like to share a great blog post by Adam Mastroianni at Experimental History. Entitled “There are no statistics in the Kingdom of God“, it naturally caught my attention, and held it even once I realised that it wasn’t seeking an authentic Christian perspective. No stats in the Kingdom of Read more