ISCAST fellow, Richard Prideaux, has recently co-authored with Dr Tony Peppe a book called "Science + Faith: What is the Problem?".

Wheaton College's John Walton on why Genesis 1 shouldn't be read as a science text but taken seriously for what it is.

John Walton is Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton college and author of numerous books including The Lost World of Genesis One. He is a specialist in comparing the literature and culture of the Bible with that of the Ancient Near East. 

He sat down with CPX to discuss approaching the Bible's creation story from an Ancient Near Eastern perspective.

Yes, writes Owen Gingerich.

"Frankly," Gingerich writes, "I am psychologically incapable of believing that the universe is meaningless. I believe the universe has a purpose, and our greatest intellectual challenge as human beings is to glimpse what this purpose might be."

"My belief is not the result of a blinding flash of a road-to-Damascus revelation. Nor is it the imprint of a nurturing home environment. Kindergartners in their simplicity ask many profound questions, but the purpose of the universe is rarely among them. Maturing teenagers in their angst may ask, "What's the meaning of it all?" The question is existential, but the answer is subtle. Understanding emerges not in thunder, earthquake and fire, but in the still small voice of the universe itself."

Peter G.H. Clarke explores the controversy around the Libet experiment.

Abstract: A famous experiment of Benjamin Libet and his colleagues has been interpreted as showing that our brains initiate voluntary movements before we are aware of having decided to move, and that this calls into question the efficacy of our wills.These claims have contested by many neuroscientists and philosophers. 

We shouldn't be obsessed with finding a theory of everything, says Lisa Randall, one of the world's most prominent theoretical physicists

An excerpt published on the BioLogos Forum of Loren Haarsma's essay, 'Evolution and Divine Revelation: Synergy, not Conflict, in Understanding Morality', asks whether evolution compromises human morality.

Once we have a scientific hypothesis for how something exists, it is tempting to make the philosophical inference that this is also why it exists. Richard Dawkins (1976), as well as Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson (1993), do this in the evolution of human morality. 

Denis Alexander writes on the Biologos Forum on the theological implications of human genomics.

The tenth anniversary of the human genome has been marked by some striking new genetic insights into human evolution and diversity. Do these new discoveries have any significance for the dialogue between science and religion in general, or for our sense of human uniqueness in particular?

Does it matter that people who have had near-heaven experiences are confused theologically, so long as good news is preached?

Mark Galli writes in Christianity Today, "This to me is the great redeeming characteristic of near-heaven experiences. Despite their varied accounts and sometimes confused theology, there are moments when it is apparent that many of these people have had a remarkable encounter with the living God revealed in Jesus Christ."

The 2012 Gifford Lectures featuring Denis Alexander are available to view online.

George F. R. Ellis, Denis Noble and Timothy O'Connor discuss top-down causation.

This issue of the journal is focused on ‘top-down (downward) causation'. The words in this title, however, already raise or beg many questions. Causation can be of many kinds. They form our ways of ordering our scientific understanding of the world, all the way from the reductive concept of cause as elementary objects exerting forces on each other, through to the more holistic concept of attractors towards which whole systems move, and to adaptive selection taking place in the context of an ecosystem.