Topic

Creation and Evolution

How the Genesis creation accounts relate to modern science: the age of the earth, common descent, and whether God created through evolution.

The debate grew after Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and sharpened in the twentieth century. Young Earth Creationism reads Genesis as a recent six-day creation. Old Earth Creationism accepts an ancient earth but rejects or limits common descent. Evolutionary Creation accepts mainstream evolutionary biology and sees it as the way God creates. Many churches have no official position, and all three views are held within several traditions.