What is Theistic Evolution?

INTERVIEWER: What do you say is theistic evolution? How would you describe theistic evolution? And do you think it is biblically compatible with the account in Genesis?

DR. CRAIG: I guess I would say that theistic evolution would be the view that God creates biological complexity on this planet through the mechanisms and processes that are described in standard evolutionary biology, so that God is ultimately behind it, but that science gives an accurate description of the series of secondary causes. Now, I don't think theistic evolution excludes that God might intervene at particular points in the process to do something miraculously, but basically it would accept the explanatory mechanisms that are postulated by contemporary evolutionary biology. I think that once you give up the view that Genesis 1 teaches that the world was created in six consecutive 24-hour days, it's striking that it does not say anything about how God created the plants and animals. In fact, when God creates the plants on the third day, it's very striking. God doesn't say, “Let there be vegetation and fruit trees on the earth, and it was so.” What it says is, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, and it was so.” The earth brought forth these things. And similarly for the animals – the earth brought them forth. So I think there's already an intimation there by the author that God's creation of these plants and animals is fully compatible with identifying natural secondary causes that are involved in their development and origin.