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
Understanding is a wonderful thing! I hope you’ve had many light-bulb moments in your past education, and that you continue to have moments of stunning insight in your current work. I don’t have such moments as much as I’d like, and my scientific research has never yielded a significant breakthrough. Read more
Steve Bishop writes about his recently-published paper on Kuyper. Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch statesman, a theologian, a church reformer, a journalist and more. The recent project to translate his work into English has provided a stimulus for renewed interest in and work on Kuyper’s thought. Kuyper is also one Read more
Can Christian thinking enhance academic work? It’s our conviction, at Faith-in-Scholarship, that it can. I believe that worshipping and following Jesus Christ as lord of creation and saviour of the world should enrich all kinds of activities – including academic work, from maths to literature. But a lot of the time this conviction Read more
We posted on the secularization of science last summer, in connection with Herman Dooyeweerd’s essay of that title. Like me, you may have been surprised to learn that for Dooyweerd, the ‘secularization of science’ reached its culmination around the Renaissance, just as theology began to be marginalised in Western culture. This might seem to belittle the Christian faith and piety Read more
My post on Revelation and Science has raised quite a lot of interest. Even before I finished it I thought of some further important things to say, and further conversations with friends have revealed (if that’s the word) other important points. One basic point is that a Christian who isn’t a realist about scientific knowledge Read more
Where does scientific knowledge come from? Today I want to share some thoughts on this and to reflect on the surprisingly widespread view among Christian thinkers that science is a form of divine revelation. God is the sole sustainer of His creation, which includes everything that is not God. So we might Read more
Liza Lansang Espinoza shares her reading of The Secularization of Science by Herman Dooyeweerd, which will be the focus of the first All of Life Redeemed webinars on 4 and 11 June. (See this post for the flyer, including the email address for signing up.) Dooyeweerd begins by stating his belief that religion (true or apostate) Read more
Recently I wrote about my impression of a predominance of religious worldviews and practices among the most celebrated mathematicians. I concluded by indicating that I wouldn’t be surprised if religious worldviews were more conducive to great advances in maths and other disciplines, because of the way that faith and imagination are involved Read more
I’ve always felt sad at the passing of Christmas Day: at how quickly the world moves on to Boxing-Day sales, extinguished fairy lights, discarded fir trees and raucous New-Year revelries. Perhaps it’s partly nostalgia, but I yearn for those past times when the twelve days of Christmas were celebrated in full. Read more