Concept
Creationism

Overview
Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation, and is often pseudoscientific. In its broadest sense, creationism includes various religious views, which differ in their acceptance or rejection of modern scientific concepts, such as evolution, that describe the origin and development of natural phenomena.
The term creationism most often refers to belief in special creation: the claim that the universe and lifeforms were created as they exist today by divine action, and that the only true explanations are those which are compatible with a Christian fundamentalist literal interpretation of the creation myth found in the Bible's Genesis creation narrative. Since the 1970s, the most common form of this has been Young Earth creationism which posits special creation of the universe and lifeforms within the last 10,000 years on the basis of flood geology, and promotes pseudoscientific creation science. From the 18th century onward, Old Earth creationism accepted geological time harmonized with Genesis through gap or day-age theory, while supporting anti-evolution. Modern old-Earth creationists support progressive creationism and continue to reject evolutionary explanations. Following political controversy, creation science was reformulated as intelligent design and neo-creationism.
Mainline Protestants and the Catholic Church reconcile modern science with their faith in Creation through forms of theistic evolution which hold that God purposefully created through the laws of nature, and accept evolution. Some groups call their belief evolutionary creationism. Less prominently, there are also members of the Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu faiths, among others, who are creationists. Use of the term "creationist" in this context dates back to Charles Darwin's unpublished 1842 sketch draft for what became On the Origin of Species, and he used the term later in letters to colleagues. In 1873, Asa Gray published an article in The Nation saying a "special creationist" who held that species "were supernaturally originated just as they are, by the very terms of his doctrine places them out of the reach of scientific explanation."
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
who saith, But the earth was invisible, and without form, and darkness was upon the deep; that is, "that corporeal thing that God made, was as yet a formless matter of corporeal things, without order, without light." Another he who says, The earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep; that is, "this all, which is called heaven and earth, was still a formless and darksome matter, of which…
of Hippo Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine
States what Creationism is; the author is tied to Creationism in the knowledge graph.
(“Continuation of the exposition of Genesis i, 1; it contains the mystery of the Trinity, and a type of the formation, extension, and support of the Church.”) (xxxii) 47. Thanks to Thee, O Lord. We behold _the heaven and earth_, whether the corporeal part, superior and inferior, or the spiritual and corporeal creature; and in the adorning of these parts, whereof the universal pile of the world, or rather the…
of Hippo Augustine, Confessions of St. Augustine
States what Creationism is; the author is tied to Creationism in the knowledge graph.
Now we can see according to this view that a foot might be selected with longer and longer bones, and wider connecting membranes, till it became a swimming organ, and so on till it became an organ by which to flap along the surface or to glide over it, and lastly to fly through the air: but in such changes there would be no tendency to alter the framework of the internal inherited structure.
Charles Darwin, The Foundations of the Origin of Species Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844
Opens on Creationism; names Creationism.
Philosophers who discussed Creationism
- Julian Baggini
- Richard Dawkins
- Philip Kitcher
- Hugo Grotius
- Robert T. Pennock
- Michael Foster (philosopher)
- Anne Conway (philosopher)
Related ideas
- Globe Pequot Publishing Group
- Aristotelian physics
- Belief
- Armenia
- God in Christianity
- Faith
- Genesis creation narrative
- Falsifiability
- BBC News
- Adam and Eve
- Greek language
- Greece
- Anglicanism
- Harvard University Press
- Mary Baker Eddy
- Book of Genesis
- Hungary
- Holy See
- Hebrew language
- Establishment Clause
- Springer Science+Business Media
- History of science
- Atheism
- Vedas
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Cosmology.