OVERVIEW OF CREATION AND EVOLUTION

OVERVIEW OF CREATION AND EVOLUTION

Virgil Warren, PhD

   I. Preliminary Definitions and Concepts

            A.  God: label for ultimate reality

            B.  God’s relationship to the universe

                  1.   Natural imminence: God is not distinct in kind from the universe.

                *2.   Natural transcendence: God is distinct from the universe. Overlapping in immanence has to do with availability; overlapping in kind has to do with personal creation.

            C.  Change

                 1.  Modification: change without increasing the number of factors.

                *2.   Complexification: change with increasing the number of actors.

            D.  Causation

                  1.   Natural cause: an effect produced by a cause inside nature.

                *2.   Miracle: an effect produced by a cause outside of nature, above nature,                                                             supernatural; not just a different way, but different kind of way.

            E.   Creationism: complexification via factor(s) external to the natural realm.

            F.   Evolution: complexification via factor(s) internal to the natural realm.

                  1.   Micro-evolution: demonstrable change in matters of degree

                *2.   Macro-evolution: extrapolated change into matters of kind.

 II. Models of Creation

            Creation involves transcendent deity that, among other acts, brings mass/energy into existence from nothing (Hebrew 11:3) and complexifies by miracle irrespective of time rate. The natural order has a finite beginning and possesses order because of the common Mind that lies behind the origin of “parts” whether created directly from nothing (fiat) or using previously existing created mass/energy (progressive).

            A. Short-term creationism

                  1.  Type A: creation from nothing to final form in a week’s span; earth's age is in the order of 10,000 to 30,000 years.

                  2.   Type B: same as Type A except that the creative process occurred in unspecified length of time; the earth’s age is longer in varying degrees according to the theorist’s construction. The antiquity of humankind extends back to some degree, but the antiquity of non-human origins is indefinite.

            B.  Long-term creationism

             3.  Ruin-reconstruction: the present form of the earth is one of several destructions followed by new beginnings of divine creativity.

                  4.   Progressive Creationism Type A: polyphyletic

                  5.   Progressive Creationism Type B: monophyletic

 III. Models of Evolution

Evolution is endogenous complexification over time by laws operating without beginning or end.

            A.  Relative to God

                  1.   Theistic evolution: transcendent deity is only involved in the creation from nothing and by building into the natural order the potentials for nature’s complexifying itself.

                  2.   Atheistic evolution: mass/energy is eternal and self-complexifying. (If the view of God is not that of transcendent deity, then atheistic is the same as theistic (pantheism), but no external causation is involved; hence, it is not called “creation” even if something new comes about naturally.

            B.  As to pattern: assorted terms

                  1.   Emergent evolution

                  2.   Punctuated equilibrium

                  3.   Vitalism

            The creation-evolution controversy is important to Christians because evolution is an alternative, non-theistic explanation of cosmogony and cosmology, which if successful eliminates any need for a supernatural explanation of life. Furthermore, it reduces life to a materialistic base with implicit meaninglessness because of lacking purpose. Evolution is yet one more example of humans’ needless departure from a knowledge of the truth about God, nature, and humankind (Romans 1).

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