Topic 32 of 33 - Your Place in the Learning Journey
Evolution and Christian Faith
The relationship between evolution and Christian faith is more complex and more interesting than the culture war framing suggests. The public debate is dominated by two extreme positions - young earth creationism, which rejects evolutionary biology on the basis of a literal reading of Genesis, and atheistic scientism, which treats Darwinian evolution as a sufficient explanation of life that renders God unnecessary. Between these extremes, a wide range of thoughtful Christian positions have been developed by serious scholars, scientists, and theologians.
Theistic evolution - the view that God created the world through the process of evolution - is held by large numbers of evangelical, Catholic, and mainline Protestant thinkers. On this view, there is no fundamental conflict between evolutionary biology and Christian faith because they are addressing different questions. Evolutionary biology describes the mechanism by which biological diversity developed over time. Christian faith claims that this process, however it worked, was not purposeless but was the means by which the Creator brought about a world capable of sustaining life, consciousness, and relationship with God. The BioLogos Foundation, founded by geneticist Francis Collins, has been a significant advocate for this position within evangelical Christianity.
Intelligent Design argues that the complexity of biological systems cannot be explained by undirected evolutionary processes and requires the inference of an intelligent cause. The scientific community has largely rejected this argument, and the theological concerns about intelligent design are significant: a God whose existence depends on gaps in scientific explanation is vulnerable to every new scientific advance.
Young earth creationism, which holds that the earth is roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years old and that evolution is false, is a minority position among professional scientists, including Christian scientists, but is widely held in certain evangelical communities. Most scientists - including most Christian scientists - find this position scientifically untenable, but its proponents are often motivated by a genuine concern to maintain the integrity of biblical authority rather than anti-intellectual impulse.