Howard J. Van Till (born 1938) is an American physicist and emeritus professor of physics at Calvin College, where he taught for 31 years. His research included solid state physics and millimeter-wave astronomy. He is also noted as a writer on science and Christianity. [1]
Van Till was born in 1938 and grew up on a farm. When he was a child, he took a bottle of turkey medication from his parents' farm, mixed it with some mineral powders, and shook it; this resulted in the bottle exploding, causing him to lose a considerable amount of blood from his jugular vein. [2]
Van Till was brought up as a Calvinist, and known for such beliefs for much of his life. He has been active in writing and speaking on the interaction of science and Christian belief, for example as a member of the editorial boards of Science and Christian Belief and Theology and Science , and working with the Templeton Foundation. [1]
In 2006 he gave a presentation to the Freethought Association of West Michigan in which he recounted that he had less certainty than before on some religious questions. [1] [3] He now attends a more liberal church. [2]
In 1986 Van Till published The Fourth Day, which sought to reconcile Christianity with Darwinist science. Writing in 2006, Russell D. Moore described this work as "monumental", and Van Till as "the most lauded and prolific defender of theistic evolution among American evangelicals". [4]
In 1988 Van Till co-wrote Science Held Hostage: What's wrong with creation science and evolution with Davis A. Young and Clarence Menninga. [5]
He was publicly accused of heresy after the issue of The Fourth Day, [2] and Van Till's professorship was subject for four years to a monthly review of his beliefs and eligibility to teach at Calvin College. He continued to teach until 1999, but his Calvinist faith was affected by the inquiry. [6]
An article of his in 1996, claiming that theistic evolution was compatible with the teaching of renowned church fathers Augustine and Basil, [7] drew rebuttals from Jonathan Wells [8] and John Mark Reynolds, [9] to which Van Till responded in turn. [10]
Ronald L. Numbers in 1998 stated that Van Till is a devout Christian who sees little or no evidence of God in nature and whose view is a good example of "theistic evolution". However, Numbers records that Van Till prefers the term "creationomic perspective" over "theistic evolution". [5]
In a February 2016 article in Theology and Science: "SOBIG; A Symposium on Belief in God", [11] he now describes his theological and philosophical view as "a comprehensive but non-reductive naturalism".
Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. In its broadest sense, creationism includes a continuum of religious views, which vary in their acceptance or rejection of scientific explanations such as evolution that describe the origin and development of natural phenomena.
Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, a schism in the Western Church. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental, Presbyterian, and Congregational traditions, as well as parts of the Anglican and Baptist traditions.
Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism, also known as theological determinism.
Perseverance of the saints, also known as preservation of the saints, is a Calvinist doctrine asserting that the elect will persevere in faith and ultimately achieve salvation. This concept was initially developed by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century, who formulated the idea of predestination by predeterminism. In the 16th century, John Calvin and other reformers integrated this idea into their theological framework. The doctrine of perseverance of the saints is rooted in this understanding of predestination and continues to be a central tenet of Reformed theology today.
Predestination is a doctrine in Calvinism dealing with the question of the control that God exercises over the world. In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, God "freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass." The second use of the word "predestination" applies this to salvation, and refers to the belief that God appointed the eternal destiny of some to salvation by grace, while leaving the remainder to receive eternal damnation for all their sins, even their original sin. The former is called "unconditional election", and the latter "reprobation". In Calvinism, some people are predestined and effectually called in due time to faith by God, all others are reprobated.
Theistic evolution, alternatively called evolutionary creationism, is a view that God acts and creates through laws of nature. Here, God is taken as the primary cause while natural causes are secondary, positing that the concept of God and religious beliefs are compatible with the findings of modern science, including evolution. Theistic evolution is not in itself a scientific theory, but includes a range of views about how science relates to religious beliefs and the extent to which God intervenes. It rejects the strict creationist doctrines of special creation, but can include beliefs such as creation of the human soul. Modern theistic evolution accepts the general scientific consensus on the age of the Earth, the age of the universe, the Big Bang, the origin of the Solar System, the origin of life, and evolution.
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was an American professor of Reformed theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. He served as the last principal of the Princeton Theological Seminary from 1886 to 1902. After the death of Warfield in office, Francis Landey Patton took over the functions of the office as the first president of seminary. Some conservative Presbyterians consider him to be the last of the great Princeton theologians before the split in 1929 that formed Westminster Theological Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Theistic science, also referred to as theistic realism, is the pseudoscientific proposal that the central scientific method of requiring testability, known as methodological naturalism, should be replaced by a philosophy of science that allows occasional supernatural explanations which are inherently untestable. Proponents propose supernatural explanations for topics raised by their theology, in particular evolution.
James Orr was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and professor of church history and then theology. He was an influential defender of evangelical doctrine and a contributor to The Fundamentals.
Eternal security, also known as "once saved, always saved" is the belief providing Christian believers with absolute assurance of their final salvation. Its development, particularly within Protestantism, has given rise to diverse interpretations, especially in relation with the defining aspects of theological determinism, libertarian free will and the significance of personal perseverance.
Norman Leo Geisler was an American Christian systematic theologian, philosopher, and apologist. He was the co-founder of two non-denominational evangelical seminaries.
Christian apologetics is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity.
Neo-Calvinism, a form of Dutch Calvinism, is a theological movement initiated by the theologian and former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper in the first years of the twentieth century. James Bratt has identified a number of different types of Dutch Calvinism: The Seceders, split into the Reformed Church "West" and the Confessionalists; the neo-Calvinists; and the Positives and the Antithetical Calvinists. The Seceders were largely infralapsarian and the neo-Calvinists usually supralapsarian.
David Charles Haddon Hunt was an American Christian apologist, speaker, radio commentator and author. He was in full-time ministry from 1973 until his death. The Berean Call, which highlights Hunt's material, was started in 1992. From 1999 to 2010, he also hosted Search the Scriptures Daily radio ministry alongside T.A. McMahon. Hunt traveled to the Near East, lived in Egypt, and wrote numerous books on theology, prophecy, cults, and other religions, including critiques of Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism, and Calvinism, among others. Hunt's Christian theology was evangelical dispensational and he was associated with the Plymouth Brethren movement.
Deistic evolution is a position in the origins debate which involves accepting the scientific evidence for evolution and age of the universe whilst advocating the view that a Deistic God created the universe but has not interfered since. The position is a counterpoint to theistic evolution and is endorsed by those who believe in Deism, and accept the scientific consensus on evolution. Various views on Deistic evolution:
The history of the Calvinist–Arminian debate begins in the early 17th century in the Netherlands with a Christian theological dispute between the followers of John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius, and continues today among some Protestants, particularly evangelicals. The debate centers around soteriology, or the study of salvation, and includes disputes about total depravity, predestination, and atonement. While the debate was given its Calvinist–Arminian form in the 17th century, issues central to the debate have been discussed in Christianity in some form since Augustine of Hippo's disputes with the Pelagians in the 5th century.
Classical theism is a theological and philosophical form of theism that conceives of God as the ultimate, transcendent reality, characterized by attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness. Rooted in the ancient Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, classical theism presents God as a being who is immutable, impassible, and entirely self-sufficient. This understanding of God emphasizes divine simplicity, where God's essence and existence are identical, making Him fundamentally distinct from all created beings.
The theology of creation and evolution is theology that deals with issues concerning the universe, the life, and especially man, in terms of creation or evolution.
Although biological evolution has been vocally opposed by some religious groups, many other groups accept the scientific position, sometimes with additions to allow for theological considerations. The positions of such groups are described by terms including "theistic evolution", "theistic evolutionism" or "evolutionary creation". Of all the religious groups included on the chart, Buddhists are the most accepting of evolution. Theistic evolutionists believe that there is a God, that God is the creator of the material universe and all life within, and that biological evolution is a natural process within that creation. Evolution, according to this view, is simply a tool that God employed to develop human life. According to the American Scientific Affiliation, a Christian organization of scientists:
A theory of theistic evolution (TE) — also called evolutionary creation — proposes that God's method of creation was to cleverly design a universe in which everything would naturally evolve. Usually the "evolution" in "theistic evolution" means Total Evolution — astronomical evolution and geological evolution plus chemical evolution and biological evolution — but it can refer only to biological evolution.
Sovereignty of God in Christianity can be defined as the right of God to exercise his ruling power over his creation. Sovereignty can include also the way God exercises his ruling power. However this aspect is subject to divergences notably related to the concept of God's self-imposed limitations. The correlation between God's sovereignty and human free will is a crucial theme in discussions about the meaningful nature of human choice.