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Evolutionary creationism encompasses the concept of theistic evolution, a synthesis of the religious belief in a creator God with the scientific theory of evolution. It holds that these two beliefs are not incompatible, and that the acceptance of evolutionary biology is not fundamentally different from the acceptance of other sciences, such as astronomy or meteorology.
Spectrum of viewpoints
Evolutionary creationism is a variant of creationism which accepts microevolution and macroevolution while retaining a theistic interpretation of evolution. Theistic evolution is accepted (or at least not rejected) by major Christian churches, including Roman Catholicism, some Judaism denominations and other religious organizations that lack a literalist stance concerning holy scriptures. With this approach toward evolution, scriptural creation stories are typically interpreted as being allegorical in nature.
While some religious organizations accept evolutionary theory, their related theological interpretation varies. Additionally, individuals or movements within such organizations may not accept evolution, and stances on evolution may have adapted (or evolved) throughout history.
Deism is belief in a God or first cause based on reason, rather than on faith or revelation. Most Deists believe that God does not interfere with the world or create miracles. Some deists believe that a Divine Creator initiated a universe in which evolution occurred, by designing the system and the natural laws, although many deists believe that God also created life itself, before allowing it to be subject to evolution.
One good example of this is the recent (December 2004) conversion to deism of the former atheist philosopher Professor Antony Flew, who now argues that recent research into the origins of life supports the theory that some form of intelligence was involved. Whilst accepting subsequent Darwinian evolution, Flew argues that this cannot explain the complexities of the origins of life. He has also stated that the investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce [life], that intelligence must have been involved."
Other variants
Another perspective is that a Divine Creator engineers quantum events, in a manner which is apparently random, thus exercising authoritative power over nature.
Alternatively, a Divine Creator may intervene through miracles, in the creation of souls, in an afterlife, or ways beyond known physics.
- Church of England [1] (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=evolution+site%3Acofe.anglican.org)
- Roman Catholic Church [2] (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html) [3] (http://www.cin.org/jp2evolu.html) In 1950, Pope Pius XII, in the papal encyclical Humani Generis, advised "the greatest moderation and caution" regarding evolution as a "hypothesis" that relates to church doctrine that is based on scripture. Informed research and discussions regarding the "origin of the body as coming from pre-existent and living matter" were allowed, with the stipulations that souls are direct creations of God, and all true humans are descendants of a particular individual, Adam. In 1996, Pope John Paul II stated that "new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis," and again concluded that "if the origin of the human body comes through living matter which existed previously, the spiritual soul is created directly by God."
- Eastern Orthodox Christianity, for the most part, has no arguments with science. It feels that the Genesis text does not have to be taken literally even if formally it recognizes Adam and Eve as the first Humans and features them in icons of the Resurrection. There is also a strong tendency in the church to ignore these kind of arguments as meaningless; the same applies to questions of interpretation of the book of the Apocalypse; unimportant to our salvation.
Many Muslims believe in evolutionary creationism, especially among Sunni Muslims and the Liberal movements within Islam. More literalist Muslims, including followers of Wahhabism reject any form of evolution as incompatible with the Qur'an. However, even amongst Muslims who accept evolution, many believe that humanity was a special creation by God. For example, Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, an American Muslim and specialist in Islamic law has argued in Islam and Evolution (http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/nuh/evolve.htm) that a belief in macroevolution is not incompatible with Islam, as long as it is accepted that "Allah is the Creator of everything" (Qur'an 13:16) and that Allah specifically created humanity (in the person of Adam; Qur'an 38:71-76).
One of the main criticisms of evolution by Muslims is their assertion that it was created by and supports atheism, and so it is argued that it should be rejected (see for example, Why Darwinism is Incompatible With the Qur'an (http://www.harunyahya.com/incompatible02.php)). Nonetheless, a sizeable minority of Muslims can be described as evolutionary creationists.
In general, the major Jewish denominations accept evolutionary creationism, with the exception of some Orthodox groups. The general approach of Judaism is that the creation account in the Torah is not to be taken as a literal text, but rather as a symbolic or mythical work. Indeed, Maimonides, one of the great interpreters of Torah in the Middle Ages, wrote that if science and Torah were misaligned, it was either because science was not understood or the Torah was misinterpreted. Maimonides argued that if science proved a point, then the finding should be accepted and inform the interpretation of scripture.
Evolutionary biologists who were also theists
Although evolutionary biologists are often atheists (most notably Richard Dawkins) or agnostics, there are nontheless others who have a belief in some form of theism. These have included Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 — 1913), who in a joint paper with Charles Darwin in 1858, proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. Wallace was effectively a deist who believed that "the unseen universe of Spirit" had interceded to create life as well as consciousness in animals and (seperately) in humans.
Both Ronald Fisher (1890 — 1962) and Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900 — 1975), were Christians and architects of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Dobzhansky wrote a famous 1973 essay entitled Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution espousing evolutionary creationism:
- "I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's, method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way.
- Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. ...the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness."
More recently, Kenneth R. Miller professor of biology at Brown University , has written Finding Darwin's God in which he states his belief in God and argues that "evolution is the key to understanding God". Other Christian evolutionary creationists include Derek Burke, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick and R J Berry, Professor of Genetics at University College London, who has written extensively on the subject.
Criticisms of theistic evolution
The major Atheistic criticism of evolutionary creationism is that of all forms of creationism: the belief in a supernatural creator, which violates both the naturalism and falsifiability requirements of scientific philosophy (see also rationalism). Another criticism of some forms of evolutionary creationism (especially those of deists) are that they are simply a belief in a God of the gaps, where anything that cannot currently be explained by science is attributed to God. For example, the physicist Dr Paul Davies has stated: "I flatly reject the argument that the origin of life was some sort of miracle. To be sure, we don't yet know how it happened, but that doesn't mean a cosmic magician is needed to prod atoms around."
Young Earth creationists criticize theistic evolution on theological grounds (see External links).
See also
References
External links
Proponents of theistic evolution
Opponents of theistic evolution
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