Since there has been so much discussion lately about what these "labels"
mean (YEC / OEC / PC / TE), I thought I'd dig up a post that I sent to an
origins discussion group about 8 months ago.  This may not be an
exhaustive glossary, but I hope it's helpful.

       I want to give a flavor of the RANGE of opinions.

Note 1:  Like Terry Gray, I prefer the term "evolutionary creationist" to
"theistic evolutionist," but I use "TE" here because it's more common.

Note 2:  Many people don't fall into any one category below, but allow for
some range of possibilities, and a mixture of scenarios.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

1a.  Recent Creation:  Appearance of Youth.
  The Genesis 1-2 account of creation is literally historically true; the
  earth and the universe are a few tens of thousands of years old.
  Although some "appearance of age" may have been included in creation
  (e.g. active stars, light from the stars "on its way" to earth), proper
  scientific measurements would yield ample evidence that the earth and
  life were recently created.

1b. Recent Creation: Created with Apparent Age.
  The Genesis 1-2 account of creation is literally historically true; the
  earth and the universe are a few tens of thousands of years old.
  However, the universe and the earth were made to "appear" several
  billion years old.

1c. Recent Creation: Apparent Age Due to the Fall.
  The Genesis 1-2 account of creation is literally historically true; the
  earth and the universe are a few tens of thousands of years old.
  However, due either to the fall of man or the fall of Satan, the earth
  was made to appear "old."


2a. Progressive Creation with Special Creation of Each Lifeform.
  The earth and the universe are several billion years old.  At various
  times during the creation period, God performed a distinctive miraculous
  creation to produce each new lifeform.  (_de_novo_ creation or
  supernatural transformation of an existing lifeform.)

2b. Progressive Creation.
  The earth and the universe are several billion years old.  At various
  times during the creation period, God performed distinctive miraculous
  acts to produce lifeforms with certain new features or increased
  complexity.  (Microevolution can produce some amount of species
  diversity, but novel biological or biochemical structures were
  specially and miraculously created at the appropriate times.
  (e.g. perhaps through miraculous genetic transformations in zygotes.))

2c. Progressive Creation through "Miraculous" Evolution.
  Creation occured through evolution, but the success of evolution is
  "surprising;" that is, one would not have expected the evolutionary
  process to be as successful as it has been.  Thus God must have been
  "directing" the evolutionary process, perhaps arranging (or
  pre-arranging) for the process to travel along preordained paths,
  leading to much better-than-expected outcomes.


3a. Theistic Evolution with Special Creation of Life.
  Creation occured through evolution and there is nothing surprising about
  its success -- we would expect evolution to produce something like what
  we see.  Nevertheless, creation occurred at God's hand and evolution was
  the tool.  However, the fact that evolution got started in the first
  place is surprising.

3b. Theistic Evolution.
  Creation occured through evolution and there is nothing surprising about
  its success; nor is it surprising that evolution got started in the
  first place.  We would expect abiogenesis and evolution to produce
  something like what we see.  What is surprising is that the laws of the
  universe and physical constants are just right for giving conditions
  conducive for a successful evolutionary process.

  3b1. Theistic Evolution with Designed Outcome.
    The laws which govern biochemistry and biological evolution are
    designed to ensure that life will "self-organize" into certain kinds
    of lifeforms.  (Existing lifeforms being analogous to "strange
    attractors" in phase space.)  God ordained and intended our existence,
    and designed the process to achieve it.

  3b2. Theistic Evolution with Determined Outcome.
    Biological evolution could, in theory, have followed many different
    paths with divergent outcomes.  However, the _exact_ path which
    evolution took on earth, and the final outcome we see today, were
    entirely ordained by God, since every event which appears to be
    "chance" to us is actually determined by God.

  3b3. Theistic Evolution with Flexible Outcome.
    The exact path which evolution took on earth, and the final outcome
    we see today, were not entirely predetermined by God; rather, God gave
    his creation a certain degree of "freedom."  God also knew that this
    process would eventually produce intelligent, personal creatures to
    whom he could reveal Himself.

3c. Theistic Evolution Known only through Special Revelation.
  The fact that "the laws of the universe gave rise to a successful
  evolutionary process" is not really surprising.  Nevertheless, we
  believe that creation occurred through God's hand because of God's
  special revelation.


4.  Deistic Evolution.
  God created the universe and the laws of nature, "set them in motion,"
  and let them "do their thing" without any intervention.


5.  Atheistic Evolution.
  The universe is self-existing; there is no creator.  (This could be
  further subdivided, but I'll leave that for someone else to do.)


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"There's nothing more exciting than science. You get  |
 all the fun of sitting still, being quiet, writing   |         Loren Haarsma
 down numbers, paying attention. Science has it all!" | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu
            --Principal Skinner  (_The_Simpsons_)     |


On Wed, 21 Feb 1996, Steven Fawl wrote:

> I have a bone to pick,
> 
> >1a.  Recent Creation:  Appearance of Youth.
> >  The Genesis 1-2 account of creation is literally historically true; the
> 
> 
> 
> >2a. Progressive Creation with Special Creation of Each Lifeform.
> >  The earth and the universe are several billion years old.  At various
> 
> You have set up a situation where, if you do not believe that the creation
> is recent, then you do not believe that Genesis 1-2 is literally
> historically true.  I would think that many in this group would disagree
> with you (including myself).  I am afraid I didn't read the rest.  I
> couldn't get past this point.


Sorry about that.  "Sewing terseness often reaps confusion."

I know that many PCs (and one or two TEs) argue (convincingly) that their 
position IS a "literally historically true" reading of Genesis 1-2.
The Hebrew terms, IMO, do allow for this.

On the other hand, a fair number of PCs do NOT hold to a "literally 
historical" hermeneutics of Genesis 1-2, or at the very least say that it 
is not _necessary_. 

YEC positions have a fairly uniform Genesis hermeneutics, so I mentioned it.
PC and TE positions have a range of Genesis hermeneutics among their 
advocates, so I said nothing about it those definitions.

I should edit my definitions to avoid confusion in the future.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 "I made no attempt to be innacurate,              |
  but I want to make it clear that I               |         Loren Haarsma
    was not attempting to be precise."             | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu
     --Josh Steiner, Treasure Dept. Chief of Staff |


Thanks to everyone who replied to my "taxonomy of creationists" post.
(I've been too busy preparing for, and recovering from, a job interview to
reply during the past week.)  I especially liked Keith Miller's
explanation of how theistic evolution/evolutionary creationism differs
from deism:

KM> Scripture is very
> clear in stating that _all_ events are under God's providential control
> and occur in response to His will.  That is, even when we can determine a
> complete series of physical cause-and-effect processes, God still upholds
> those processes.  If this were not the case there would be no reason for
> most prayer.  Why would I pray for a drought to end if I did not believe
> that God was in providential control of the weather?  Yet, we can describe
> the series of cause-and-effect meteorological events responsible for
> changing whether.  Because we can describe a process, does not make God
> unnecessary.  Scripture declares that God brings the rain and drought,
> feeds the birds, plants the trees, shelters the animals, etc.  God declares
> that I was created in my mother's womb, yet we can observe and describe
> conception and birth as a series of uninterrupted cause-and-effect
> biological processes.
>
> Similarly, random or chance events are explicitly described in scripture
> as under God's control.  That understanding of God's providence is what
> underlies the casting of lots for example.  The death of Ahab is described
> as a result of the random act of shooting an arrow into the air, yet it
> occurred in direct response to God's will.  According to scripture
> nothing occurs autonomously.
>
> Theistic evolution is simply a specific application of this scriptural
> understanding of reality.  Evolution is our cause-and-effect description of
> the Earth's biological history.  But God's providential control underlies
> the whole process (including its random aspects) in a way invisible to our
> observation.  God is as much the creator life and its diversity as He is
> my creator.  He knit me together in my mother's womb!

Amen!


Juli Kuhl also asked:

JK> I guess I'm revealing that I don't believe in evolution of species,
> although there's certainly a lot of evidence of change in the natural
> world.  Are all you specialists trying to say that change *is*
> evolution?  If so, why didn't you say so in the first place?  Why use a
> "loaded" term like evolution and creatively (pardon the pun) develop new
> terms with evolution in it?  Seems like a bit of unnecessary red-flag
> waving, or something like that.
>
> I seem to be asking the centuries-old plea: would you define your
> terms 'cause this is what I mean by "xxx".

That's an excellent question.  Why use the terms "theistic evolution" or
"evolutionary creationism"?  Why use the emotionally loaded term
"evolution" at all?

"Evolution" has a technical meaning outside of the biological origins
debate.  For example, astrophysicists use the term "stellar evolution" to
describe the entire (empirically understood) process starting from the
gravitational coalescing of a protostar, through the fusing of hydrogen
and heavier elements in the star's core, to the final nova and collapse.
(Sort of a "generic history of a star.") "Stellar evolution" is not
generally considered a "loaded term."

Within the biological origins debate, "evolution" is used in many ways.  I
like to distinguish three uses:  "Microevolution" (the empirical study of
how populations of plants or animals change as a result of mutations and
environmental pressures), "Macroevolution" (a theory of common descent
through modification --- for practical purposes, it is an extrapolation of
microevolution over all of biological history), and philosophical
"Evolutionism" (philosophical arguments that macroevolution IMPLIES that
there is no Creator and no purpose to human existence).

"Evolution" is a loaded term partly because some pundits leap too quickly
from microevolution to macroevolution, but MOSTLY because some pundits
make the appalling _non_sequitur_ of leaping from macroevolution to
evolutionism.  The answer, I think, is not to drop the term "evolution"
--- which still has useful technical meanings --- but to expose that
philosophical _non_sequitur_ for what it is.

"Theistic evolution" and "evolutionary creationism" are an attempt to
understand the theory of (macro)evolution in its PROPER context:  within
Christian theism, as a possible mechanism of God's creative activity.


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"... Another casualty of applied metaphysics."  |            Loren Haarsma
               --Hobbes  (_Calvin_and_Hobbes_)  |    lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu