POSITION
DESCRIPTION
Naturalistic evolution (NE)
Universe and life originated and developed fully naturally, with God playing no part. Universe and Earth billions of years old. Includes Materialist, Idealist and Dualist versions of Naturalism.
Deistic evolution (DE)
Universe created by God. Thereafter, life originated and developed fully naturally, with God playing no part. Also referred to as Theistic Evolution (TE) or Evolutionary Creation (EC). Age as per NE.
Theistic evolution (TE)
As per Deistic Evolution (DE), except that God supernaturally intervened in the origin of life and/or the origin of humans. Age as per NE and DE.
Old-Earth Creation (OEC)/
Progressive Creation(PC)
As per DE and TE, in God creating the universe, with emphasis on it being immediate
(i.e. ex nihilo - from out-of-nothing). As per TE, God supernaturally intervened in the
origin of life and also the origin of humans, but also progressively in the origin of life's major
groups. This supernatural intervention may have been immediate (i.e. ex nihilo) or mediate
(i.e. through the use of existing materials and natural processes). Age as per NE, DE and TE,
i.e. Old-Earth Creation (OEC).
Note that one could hold an Old-Earth/Young Adam position, i.e. believe that the Earth was
billions of years old, and also believe that man was comparatively young - of the order of tens
of thousands of years. Therefore the 1991 Gallup poll
finding that "45% of [American] respondents chose `God created human beings pretty
much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so,' [my emphasis] the
statement that most closely describes biblical creationism," probably includes many (if not most)
OEC/PCs, especially since the only alternatives were versions of "evolution".
Fiat Creation (FC)/
Young-Earth Creation (YEC)
As per OEC/PC, except that all `basic kinds' were created ex nihilo by God as whole organisms, and the Earth (and usually the Universe) are only of the order of thousands of years old.