"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned."
â Romans 5:12
Quick Answer
Many faithful, Bible-believing Christians hold that God created life through a guided evolutionary process, while others believe this compromises the plain reading of Genesis and Paul's teaching on a historical Adam (Romans 5:12-19). The view is compatible with core Christian doctrine so long as it upholds God as personal Creator, a real fall into sin, and humanity's unique bearing of his image.
Defining the Term Carefully
Theistic evolution, often called evolutionary creationism today, is the view that God created and sustains the entire universe, and that he brought about the diversity of life, including the human body, through a guided evolutionary process unfolding over long ages. This is sharply different from purely naturalistic, atheistic evolution, which explicitly excludes any divine involvement or purpose. Theistic evolutionists insist God is neither absent nor passive; he is the sovereign author of the process from beginning to end, not merely an observer of blind chance.
Because the label 'evolution' carries so much baggage from the atheistic version popularized in secular contexts, many Christian proponents prefer the term evolutionary creation, emphasizing that creation, not naturalistic chance, remains the central theological claim.
The Case Some Christians Make For It
Proponents argue this view takes the convergence of genetic, fossil, and comparative anatomical evidence seriously without denying Scripture. They point out that Scripture regularly describes God working through ordinary secondary means: he forms each person in the womb through biological processes (Psalm 139:13), yet Scripture still credits him fully as the one who knit them together. In the same way, they argue, God could have ordained an evolutionary process as the means through which he formed life, without that process being any less his own sovereign creative act.
Scholars associated with organizations like BioLogos, founded by geneticist Francis Collins, argue this view honors both the authority of Scripture and the weight of the scientific evidence, refusing to force a false choice between the two.
The Concerns Other Faithful Christians Raise
Other sincere believers raise serious concerns. The central worry involves the historical Adam and the origin of death. Paul's argument in Romans 5:12-19 explicitly ties the entrance of death into the world to one man's sin, and builds an extended parallel between Adam bringing death and Christ bringing life (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). If death and predation existed for millions of years among animals, and even among humanlike ancestors, before a historical Adam, some argue this strains Paul's theological logic at a foundational point.
A related concern involves population genetics, since some evolutionary models suggest humanity descended from a group rather than a single original pair, raising questions about how to understand Adam and Eve as the historical first parents of the whole human race, a point Scripture treats as significant (Acts 17:26).
Where the Line Must Be Held, Regardless of View
Whatever position a Christian holds on the mechanism of biological origins, certain commitments are not negotiable if the view is to remain recognizably Christian. God must be affirmed as the personal, active Creator, not a distant deistic force who set up a process and stepped back. Humanity must retain unique, God-given dignity as image bearers, categorically distinct from the animal kingdom (Genesis 1:27). And a real historical fall must stand behind humanity's need for a real historical Redeemer, since the logic of the gospel depends on it (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
A version of theistic evolution that denies any of these anchors has drifted from historic Christian doctrine; a version that carefully preserves them remains within its bounds, even while other believers continue to find the young earth or old earth creationist alternatives more faithful to the text.
Charity in a Genuinely Secondary Matter
This is a question on which committed, inerrancy-affirming Christians sincerely disagree, and it should be treated with the humility a secondary matter deserves, quite differently than how a Christian would treat denial of Christ's resurrection or deity. You can hold your own convictions firmly while extending grace to a brother or sister who has thought carefully and lands somewhere else.
What unites all faithful believers here, whatever their view of biological mechanisms, is confidence that you were made on purpose, by a God who knows you, loves you, and sent his Son to redeem you from real sin.
How Some Have Tried to Bridge the Positions
Some scholars attempt a middle path, arguing for a historical Adam who was specially created directly by God, or specially chosen and endowed with his image from among a larger population, in an attempt to hold together mainstream genetic evidence for a larger ancestral population with Scripture's insistence on a real Adam through whom sin and death entered humanity. Others resist any such blending, insisting Scripture's genealogies and Paul's argument require a single, directly formed first couple with no evolutionary ancestry at all (Genesis 2:7).
These mediating proposals illustrate just how seriously many theistic evolutionists take the Romans 5 concern rather than brushing it aside, even while their critics remain unconvinced that any blended model fully satisfies the text. The ongoing conversation, however imperfectly resolved, reflects a shared commitment among all sides to take both Scripture and evidence seriously rather than simply picking whichever is more convenient.