Are those (such as myself) who hold to theistic evolution, nonetheless creationist also in the sense that evolution was part of God’s creation plan? After all such a view still ascribes God as the reason how the universe and life in it came to be as it is to-day. The main reason why there is a dichotomy between theistic evolution and creationism is that, creationism generally indicates to most people only Young Earth Creationism rather theistic evolution (or in these terms evolutionary creationism) or old earth non-evolutionary creationism and those who hold to theistic evolution usually don’t want to be associated with them. Thoughts?
Obviously they are Creationists in that they think there is a creator who created what exists now but in the sense that typically raises the hackles of scientific types they’re not. Theistic evolutionists can claim everything that happened and can be observed is part of God’s plan for the universe. Scientific types will argue that if there’s no evidence of a creator and a creator doesn’t need to be posited to explain the universe then there’s no real point to theistic evolutionism. I doubt however it annoys the average scientifically minded person as much as the wilful ignorance and manipulation of information that young earth creationism requires.
I went to Catholic school as a child. We had 45 min of religion each day and they taught the bible, Adam and Eve etc. We also had science class and they talked about evolution. I don’t remember anyone questioning this but it would have been interesting. Most Catholics I know accept evolution but teach their kids the bible fully knowing it is just bible stories with a moral to a story. From what I remember the Catholics seemed to focus more on the new testament but I could be wrong.
Theistic evolutionists have a belief in (a) God and believe that God is the Creator. However, they do not presume to make any claims that we can know the point at which God acted. Theistic evolutionists explicitly accept scientific explanations regarding the physical world.
Creationists, (with a capital C), believe that God explicitly acted to create the world as we know it. Regardless whether they are Young Earth Creationists who believe in an earth that is 6,016 years old, (or 5,773 years old), or Old Earth Creationists who believe that the world is thousands of years older, they are distinguished from evolutionists of any persuasion by the belief that God has acted instead of permitting evolution to occur.
Within the realm of science, a Theistic Evolutionist will not have a conflict with anyone else who studies evolutionary theory while a Creationist will come into conflict with evolutionary studies at numerous points. Noting that Theistic Evolutionists believe in a Creator and, ultimately, in a creation is little more than a semantic game to either include or exclude Theistic Evolutionists in regard to various social groups that have nothing to do with actual belief on one side or actual science on the other.
Do theistic evolutionists believe that evolution takes place without divine intervention (i.e. only by natural selection, genetic drift, etc.), or do they believe that one or more gods has magically altered one or more organisms every so often?
The general belief is that God (et al.) is not doing day to day interfering in the development of life, but maybe created the process of evolution. NOT ID.
I guess that technically speaking theistic evolutionists are creationists, but it is a very different thing from what most people (both for and against it) think of as creationism. That generally means the truly nutty “young Earth” version of creationism these days, but even “old Earth” creationists, who hold that each of the seven days of Genesis did occur as described, but may each have been millions of years long, reject evolution (at least as the main engine for the origination of species), and are far more literalist about the Bible than theistic evolutionists tend to be. As I understand it, theistic evolutionists accept the general picture of the history of life that we get from science, but just see God as nudging the process of natural selection in His preferred direction occasionally (and also, of course, of having created a universe, and laws of nature, such that the conditions conducive to life and its evolution would occur). I am not sure whether they accept the idea of abiogenesis, or think God must have directly created the first living things (very likely there are theistic evolutionists on both sides of this question).
Pretty much every member of my family with the exception of me is a theistic evolutionist and as far as I can tell, they think god twiddled the dials of the universe until all the constants worked out, lit the fuse on the big bang and then got out of the way until it was time to chuck souls at homo habilis.
As long as you accept all the science on the subject, and don’t believe that any religious dogma can invalidate the science, then any religious interpretation you may add on top is of no concern, from my point of view. It may technically be called “creationism,” if you squint hard enough and look at it sideways, sure. But if it isn’t the enemy of science, then it isn’t what people understand by that term, and using it without explanation is liable to lead to misunderstanding.
Yes, you are a Creationist. But this is my take on the matter:
Image that I cannot post for reasons I will never understand
Catholics aren’t like fundamentalist in that they don’t take the bible literally. According to various papal authorities there is no conflict between Catholicism and evolution. So they don’t have to accept evolution “but” teach the bible. They can accept evolution and teach the bible.
Creationism as it is popularly used in the United States has a specific meaning. Typically it refers to those who have a literal interpretation of the biblical story on the origins of life and the universe. No, I wouldn’t classify theistic evolutionist as creationist.
Let’s assume the bible is true, or at least divinely inspired.
We now know that the Earth is certainly not flat, nor does the sun revolves around us, the center of the universe. Since the time of the bible being written (and edited ad nauseum) new diseases have appeared, plants and animals have changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
Why couldn’t god think that we weren’t ready for everything yet and then let us discover it as we go along and let us discover evolution as part of his plan? I have yet to hear a creationist say that god keeps active and invents new things all the time, so evolution is bunk. Perhaps god gave us evolution as one of his gifts where we could really understand how the strong survive? Maybe as a proof that god and all his creations really are that complex?
For one example, I cite the chicken, from Unca Cece. There is also evidence that the chicken evolved from the red & grey junglefowl in parts of Asia. This may be closer to a YEC type of explanation, as it doesn’t go so far back as 150 million years ago.
For any believer, I don’t see why it’s so hard to accept some type of divinely-inspired evolution.
Ever heard of “process theology”? I was told of it by a woman in theology school who I dated once. IIUC, a pop-theology version of this concept produced the bumper sticker “Be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.”
Yes, just what I was looking for. Was this woman a creationist?
No— she was a Chicana Catholic peace activist. Soon after I met her she went to Nicaragua for the Witness for Peace program (this was in the '80s when there was trouble there).
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
I have asked this question before, and no “theistic evolutionist” has ever attempted to answer:if there is a god that has “guided” evolution, how can such obvious failures such as sickle cell anemia, which causes half of the children in a malaria-infested area to die miserable deaths by, usually, five years of age, in order that some of the adults are partially protected- not fully protected, they still get sick, they just don’t die of malaria before reproducing- be deserving of admiration, not to mention worship?
I am a theist, and an evolutionist, and while I can understand saying that a theistic evolutionist is a creationist, I have two objections to using that term to describe my beliefs. For one, perhaps most relevant to other people and debate, it has baggage attached to it. If someone says creationist, one will most likely assume Young Earth Creationism, at best some form of Old Earth Creationism or Intelligent Design or whatever. So it essentially poisons the well if someone wants to just talk evolutionary theory or just talk origin theories, it can only get in the way trying to apply that technicallity.
The second reason, and more important to me personally, is that creationism also implies to me that creation is done. That at some point in the past, God did his thing in creating us and we were more or less complete. I much prefer the idea that creation is an ongoing process, and that calling the first moment of life, or going farther back, time as the moment of creation is like saying the first note in a symphony is the creation of that piece. In the same vein that a symphony as a whole is the creation, we are not in a completed, created state except in the context of all space and time. It also doesn’t jive as well with a lot of the consequences of that sort of view either.
So, I guess if all you take creationism to mean is the belief that there is some external force that somehow influenced the universe into being, then I guess I fall under that, but that then isn’t really any different than just saying that one believes in God. But I almost always see the term being applied to either say we came into being exactly as we are, or at least of the same type, and it’s the primary modern “opponent” idea to evolution. Because I don’t have any issue or argument with evolutionary theory, it just doesn’t seem to make much sense to apply that label to my beliefs.
Posts #16 and 17 (although I might misunderstand the latter): a core belief of theistic evolution is that it is either not guided, or if it is we have no way of knowing that it is. I’ve never bought the theological argument, used both by the faithful and a/nontheists that God either doesn’t exist or must be cruel because there is suffering in the world. If God does exist, do you think he is looking at us through billions of magnifying glasses, and personally cursing you for shits and giggles, or is blessing your high school football team/rap career through personal intervention?
If you look through the lens of theistic OR regular evolution, sickle cell exists because it either causes an advantage or at least no disadvantage towards the propagation of genes. God is not part of the argument about why x exists normally in either system.
Re: chicken. That species wasn’t created by humans? And of course, lots of those YEC guys accept microevolution, perhaps that wolves became chihuahuas (or is that too far?) They don’t accept that dinosaurs “became” birds, and often that the two existed side by side.
That’s kind of the point. If theistic evolutionists worship a god that they claim is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, why would it design (through “guided evolution”)
a system as cruel and basically pointless as sickle cell anemia? After all, they believe that their god “guided” the evolution of several million insect species that don’t carry human diseases; why not “guide” the evolution of mosquitos in the same way? And if they don’t believe that their god is all powerful and all loving, it isn’t the Xian god as described in the bible that they’re worshiping. And, to quote Epicurus once more, if it is neither powerful or benign, why call it god?
Do the “theistic evolutionists” in this thread also consider themselves “theistic biogeographers” or “theistic ecologists” or “theistic geologists”? Why is it necessary to qualify your acceptance of evolution as the explanation for the development and diversity of life with “theistic”, but not those other fields? To me, the mere fact that you feel the need to qualify it means you are not, in fact, an evolutionist - you believe that God has played a more significant role in evolution than He has in geology or biogeography or physics or chemistry. That makes you some flavor of creationist, as far as I can tell.
If you don’t feel that God (or gods) has played a role in driving evolution, then there’s no point to adding the “theistic” qualifier. Evolution is evolution, whether you also happen to believe in God or not. If God is mucking about, then it’s not evolution.