What Are the Beliefs of Evolutionism?

Evolutionism

When people think of evolution as moving from a lower life form to a higher life form or the development from a primitive ancestor to a specialized state, they are now in the realms of Evolutionism. This generally involves a long gradual process with the formation of life starting about 3.5 billion years ago. More formally, Evolutionism is a belief that organisms increase in complexity over time and improve through progressive inherited change.

Darwinism is possibly the most abused term in this short list because Darwinism and Darwinist are incorrectly used in a derogatory way to refer to athiestic evolution. In reality, the term actually has a long history of use. In 1860, Thomas Huxley introduced the term ‘Darwinism’ in regards to Darwin’s book. A few years later, Herbert Spencer summed up Darwinism with the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ – how natural selection is most commonly known today. If a proper definition can be given to Darwinism, it would probably be similar to ‘biological evolution by natural selection’. This is a view which few, if any, hold and it is not to be confused with the modern Evolutionary Synthesis.

Evolutionism is often associated with many other concepts. It carries with it some of the philosophical presuppositions of Naturalism and Materialism in which only the physical aspects of the universe exist or are considered as relevant. It typically includes the Big Bang Theory ofOrigins for the appearance of the Universe. It implies a uniformitarianview of Earth’s history for the formation of the planet we now see. It is also, by necessity, connected with abiogenesis – the idea that life had to come from non-living matter at some point so the evolutionary process could begin. These concepts blur the lines between science and philosophy, but in real life such worldviews must be dealt with.

When dealing with topics that can be viewed in theology, science, andphilosophy one must be careful not to confuse the issues. It is not unusual to see the Theory of Evolution (a scientific inquiry) and Creationism (a belief) compared and discussed with almost chaotic results. Instead, Creationism should be compared with Evolutionism and the scientific Theory of Created Kinds should be compared to the Theory of Evolution. This helps maintain a balanced and fair examination of the topics being discussed. This is easier said than done when the same word(s) can have so many different uses and meanings.

This page is under construction. My apologies for any misspellings, repeated text, missing references, etc. Please visit again later for a more complete treatment of this topic.