What Is the Difference Between Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design?

by Jimmy Akin
Strange Notions

What's the difference between creation, evolution, and intelligent design?

Creationism, Evolutionism, and Intelligent Design are three of the major positions on the question of how we got here.

What’s the difference between these positions?
That seemingly straightforward question proves surprisingly controversial.
Let’s take a look at it . . .

The Basic Question

The basic question at issue in the contemporary origins debate is whether or not the world was created.
It could be tempting to simply put participants in the discussion into two groups—creationists and evolutionists—and leave it at that.
Some on both sides of the issue would like to do exactly that.
In fact, some of the people who most readily identify themselves as creationists or evolutionists often speak as if these are the only two options.

Name Calling

Some creationists dismiss everyone who doesn’t hold their view as an “evolutionist” (using this term in a negative sense).
Some evolutionists dismiss everyone who thinks that the world was created as a “creationist” (using this term in a negative sense).
When this happens, the two camps are using prejudicial language. They’re calling each other names, and that doesn’t advance the discussion.
They’re also distorting the issue, because there are clearly middle positions on this question. In fact, there’s a spectrum of them.

The Spectrum

It’s possible to divide up that spectrum in different ways. In fact, it’s possible to divide it into a mind-numbing array of fine-tuned categories.
That gets unwieldy, though, and it seems that, today, most participants in the origins discussion would say that they advocate one of four major positions:

• Creationism
• Intelligent Design
• Theistic Evolution
• Atheistic Evolution

How can we describe these positions?

Creationism

The people most likely to identify themselves as “creationists” seem usually to endorse some or all of the following claims:

• There is a God.
• The world was made in a period of six, twenty-four hour days.
• The world is only a few thousand years old.
• God specially intervened to create the life forms on earth, without using prior, extinct life forms to do so.
• The majority viewpoint in the natural sciences on the age of the world and the origin of present-day life forms is mistaken.

Intelligent Design

The people most likely to identify themselves as advocates of “intelligent design” seem usually to make the following claim:

• The world (either the whole cosmos or just the life on earth) shows evidence of a scientific nature that suggests it was intelligently designed.

Most advocates also seem to hold the following proposition:

• God exists and is the intelligent designer of the world.

This view, however, is not essential to their position.

Theistic Evolution

The people most likely to identify themselves as “theistic evolutionists” seem usually to endorse some or all of the following claims:

• There is a God.
• The world developed over a longer period of time than six, twenty-four hour days.
• The world is much more than a few thousand years old.
• God used prior, extinct life forms to produce the life forms we see today.
• The majority viewpoint in the natural sciences on the age of the world and the origin of present-day life forms is correct.

Atheistic Evolution

The people most likely to identify themselves as “atheistic evolutionists” seem usually to endorse some or all of the following claims:

• There is no God or, at least, we do not have good reason to believe that there is a God.
• The world developed over a longer period of time than six, twenty-four hour days.
• The world is much more than a few thousand years old.
• The life forms we see today arose from prior, extinct life forms.
• The majority viewpoint in the natural sciences on the age of the world and the origin of present-day life forms is correct.

Additional Positions

It is possible to carve out additional positions as well.
As with any spectrum, it’s hard to draw exact lines between them (e.g., where, exactly, on the color spectrum does red become orange?).
For example, some who would describe themselves as creationists (i.e., “old earth creationists”) would hold that the earth is much more than a few thousand years old but otherwise agree with much or all of the creationist viewpoint described above.
And there are other positions yet, but most people in the present discussion seem to advocate a variant on one of the basic four described above.

What Bugs Me

What bugs me is the way that advocates of these different positions often dump on each other:

• Creationists often dump on the other three positions as lacking a sufficient appreciation of the Bible and as being either compromised by or completely sold-out to faithless, atheistic evolutionism.
• Atheistic evolutionists often dump on the other three positions as lacking a sufficient appreciation of modern science and as being either compromised by or completely sold-out to anti-intellectual creationism.
• Atheistic evolutionists and theistic evolutionists sometimes dump on intelligent design as being just a shill for creationism.
• Advocates of intelligent design and theistic evolution, not wanting to be identified with creationism, sometimes dump on advocates of that view.
• Creationists and advocates of intelligent design sometimes dump on theistic and atheistic evolution as ignoring scientific evidence that they believe undermines the idea that the world and life forms arose without outside intervention.

Of course, each of these schools of thought is different from the others, and people who hold different views inevitably have lapses in charity when discussing each other.
But it seems that there is a huge amount of heat that is brought to this discussion, and at times the origins debate seems to degenerate into a mutual snarkfest.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Of course, people coming from different viewpoints will not agree with each other. That’s why their viewpoints are different.
It’s also natural and healthy for advocates of the different views to make their case and to cross-examine the positions of others.
That’s how we get at the truth.
But we can treat each other with respect and charity as we do so.
What would that mean in practice?

Recognizing the Differences

A first step is recognizing that there are, in fact, more than just two views here.
Talking as if there are only two views—creationism and evolutionism—and then using the name of the position that isn’t yours as a swear-word does not help the discussion.
It also does not respect the people you’re talking about.
It fails to recognize differences in their positions and it lumps them under a single, pejorative label.
That’s true whether it’s a creationist calling everyone else evolutionists or an atheistic evolutionist calling everyone else creationists.

No Shoehorning

A related step is not shoehorning everybody into one of these four categories.
If an old-earth creationist were to say, “Please don’t lump me in with the young earth creationists,” I would say, “No problem! The categories I have proposed here are purely for purposes of convenience. We can easily add new categories, based on who is participating in the discussion. Tell me what you believe and why and let’s talk about it.”
Similarly, if someone came from an entirely different religious perspective and said, “I don’t believe in any of the four views articulated here. I think that the universe was produced in a giant conflict between Apsu and Tiamat and Marduk,” my response would be the same.
The questions of how, when, why, and by whom (if anyone) the world came to be are all separate questions and can be answered different ways.
There are, in fact, a vast number of possible views, and I want to treat everyone with respect, regardless of their position.
The four positions articulated above are just four positions that happen to be common in modern American culture. They are by no means the only possible positions.

Good Will

Another step in treating each other with respect is presupposing each other’s good will.
It’s easy for people of different perspectives to suspect each other of having bad motives.
That’s a tendency that we have to check—and check sharply.
It is inconsistent with the Golden Rule, because if we want others to presume our good will, in spite of our disagreements, then we should presume their good will as well.

We’re All Human Beings

Something that may help us treat others with respect as we discuss the question of origins is recognizing the fact that we are all human beings.
None of us are members of a master race because of our view of the origins question.
There have been both geniuses and simpletons who have held each of the positions we’ve looked at in this piece. Holding a particular position does not make us innately superior or inferior to others.
Keeping that fact in mind can help us counter the tendency to look down on others because their views are different.

We’re All Fallible

Of course, we also all make mistakes, and that’s going to happen in the origins discussion as well.
We will, at times, use bad arguments, accept bad data, and have lapses of charity toward one another.
That’s par for the course.
But if we want others to treat us with respect and charity in spite of our lapses then we should strive to do the same for them.
What do you think?

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Written by Jimmy Akin

Jimmy Akin is a Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a member on the Catholic Answers Speakers Bureau, a weekly guest on the global radio program, Catholic Answers LIVE, and a contributing editor for Catholic Answers Magazine. He's the author of numerous publications, including the books The Fathers Know Best (Catholic Answers, 2010); The Salvation Controversy (Catholic Answers, 2001); and Mass Confusion: The Do's & Don'ts of Catholic Worship (Catholic Answers, 1999). Follow Jimmy's writing at JimmyAkin.com.