By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 Why focus on emergentism, a term obscure to most people who profess interest in science? Many initially profess their interest in science. When interested adults discover…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 One colorful English language word has become obsolete as a scientific term. Vitalism was never a theological term used to describe the essence of life God…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 Broad topics should be approached with cautious care. Scientific reductionism is such a topic. Characteristics of living things is a multidimensional topic often connected with the…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 Hebrew scholars have identified 754 uses of the noun nephesh in scripture. A majority of these uses are translated soul in our English Bible. There are…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 The concept of soulishness in animals other than humans has become a source of personal study and fascination. In several posts during the past few years,…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, our church congregation was treated to an inverted treatment of the text of Psalm 65. Verses 9-13 contain Thanksgiving imageries of…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 The words nature, natural, naturalist, and naturalism are English terms sometimes surrounded by confusion. Nature refers to the physical world including plants, animals, landscape, and other…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 A miracle is an effect which is not reproducible by the operation of “natural” causes. Each day of our lives hundreds of effects result from causes…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 The popular catch phrase of creationists the past few decades is “fine tuning.” Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents sometimes use the term to strengthen belief in…
By: Jim Virkler; ©2013 Life, especially human life, is balanced “on a razor’s edge.” The characteristics enabling life to exist in our universe are numerous and incredibly complex. Imagine the…