Can a Christian Accept Evolution? Theistic Evolution, Intelligent Design, and the Orthodox View

Many Christians carry a quiet worry. They were taught that God made the world, and they were also taught, in school or at university, that living things share common ancestors and have changed over a very long time. Some were told they must choose. Others were told the conflict is imaginary. Few were shown how the Church's own tradition might help them think it through.

This article asks whether a Christian, and in particular an Orthodox Christian, can accept biological evolution. It sets out the three main positions held by Christians today: evolutionary creation (often called theistic evolution), Intelligent Design, and young-earth creationism. It then looks at what the Church Fathers actually said about creation and Genesis, and at the real range of views among Orthodox scientists, theologians and monastics. The site has a separate article on Genesis and the age of the earth; this one concentrates on evolution and on the Orthodox discussion.

The question reaches beyond biology, to how we read Scripture, who Adam was, and why there is death in the world.

In brief

The Orthodox Church has no conciliar dogma about biological evolution. What it confesses is that God is "Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible," that He created freely and out of nothing, that human beings bear His image, that humanity fell, and that Christ the New Adam heals and saves. Within those boundaries Orthodox Christians hold different views. The geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, an Orthodox believer, called himself "a creationist and an evolutionist." Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) argued that the evolution of man from a lower animal "cannot be harmonized" with the patristic view of man's creation. Outside Orthodoxy, BioLogos accepts evolution as God's means of creating; the Discovery Institute's Intelligent Design movement disputes that unguided processes explain living things; young-earth creationists reject common descent and deep time. The Fathers did not know Darwin; both sides draw on them, and they also assumed things, such as the fixity of kinds, that modern biology does not.

Thesis: An Orthodox Christian may accept the scientific account of evolution without denying any dogma of the faith, provided evolution is not turned into a godless philosophy and the doctrines of creation, the image of God and the fall are kept whole; but how to reconcile Adam and the origin of death with evolutionary history remains an open and debated question among faithful Orthodox.

First, what does "evolution" mean?

One word covers several claims. Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, in the 2017 volume Theistic Evolution, distinguished three meanings: change over time, universal common descent, and the claim that natural selection acting on random variation can explain the appearance of design without any designing intelligence. According to Denis Lamoureux's review, Meyer wrote that the book does not criticize theistic evolution "where evolution is defined as meaning merely 'change over time.'"¹

The Discovery Institute's own frequently asked questions make the same distinction. If evolution means change over time, "or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory." What ID challenges is the claim that the process is unguided and purposeless.²

Keeping these senses apart helps. Meyer himself accepts an old earth, though, as Lamoureux notes, he rejects universal common descent; young-earth creationists alone reject both deep time and common descent. The deepest disagreement is about the third sense, and it is partly scientific and partly philosophical.¹

Three Christian answers today

Evolutionary creation (theistic evolution)

BioLogos was founded by the geneticist Francis Collins, who led the international project that first mapped the human genome and later directed the National Institutes of Health. His 2006 book The Language of God told of his journey from atheism to Christian faith, and the response to it led him to found BioLogos.³ BioLogos states its view this way: "We fully affirm that the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God. We also accept the science of evolution as the best description for how God brought about the diversity of life on earth." It also "emphatically rejects Evolutionism," which it defines as the atheistic worldview that often travels with the science.⁴

On Intelligent Design, BioLogos says that it believes "our intelligent God designed the universe," but sees no "scientific or biblical reasons to give up on pursuing natural explanations for how God governs natural phenomena."⁴ In other words, it locates design in the whole order of nature rather than in particular gaps.

Intelligent Design

The Discovery Institute defines the theory this way: "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."² ID advocates insist this is an inference from evidence in nature, not from a religious text, and that science alone cannot say whether the intelligent cause is supernatural. The site's infographic on design as an inference sets out that reasoning.

In 2017 ID scholars and theologians published a thousand-page critique, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique, edited by J. P. Moreland, Stephen Meyer, Christopher Shaw, Ann Gauger and Wayne Grudem.⁵ In its theological section Wayne Grudem lists twelve claims about origins that he believes theistic evolution cannot keep, beginning with "Adam and Eve were the first human beings" and "Human death began as a result of Adam's sin."¹

The critiques run both ways. The National Academy of Sciences says: "Intelligent design is not a scientific concept because it cannot be empirically tested," and that "There is no scientific controversy about the basic facts of evolution."⁶ Denis Lamoureux, a professor of science and religion at the University of Alberta and an evolutionary creationist, titled his review of the 2017 book "Intelligent Design Theory: The God-of-the-Gaps Rooted in Concordism," arguing that ID reads modern science into Genesis and stakes faith on unexplained phenomena.¹ ID's defenders reply that they argue from positive evidence: certain kinds of information, in our experience, arise from an intelligent cause.² One test case is weighed in the debate over the bacterial flagellum. Here it is enough to say that {{debated: the claim that particular biological features are best explained by an intelligent cause is contested, and the National Academy of Sciences rejects it as science}}.

Young-earth creationism

Answers in Genesis, the best-known young-earth organization, teaches that the days of Genesis "are six consecutive, 24-hour days of creation," with "approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ." Its statement of faith calls theistic evolution and other attempts to fit evolution or long ages into Genesis "incompatible with Scripture," and holds that all animal death, disease and extinction "entered this world subsequent to, and as a direct consequence of, man's sin."⁷ Its motives, reverence for the plain words of Scripture and the conviction that death is an enemy, are serious ones that Orthodox readers will recognize.

A note on Catholic teaching

Rome has spoken more formally. In Humani Generis (1950), Pius XII allowed research into "the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter," while insisting that "souls are immediately created by God"; in the next paragraph he ruled out polygenism, the view that humanity does not descend from one Adam.⁸ In 1996 John Paul II told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that new knowledge led to recognizing in the theory of evolution "plus qu'une hypothèse," more than a hypothesis.⁹ Orthodox Christians are not bound by these statements, but they show the Catholic Church judging that evolution of the body can be compatible with faith, within limits it sets.

What the Fathers said about creation and Genesis

No Father knew modern biology, so none should be recruited as an evolutionist; nor did they all read Genesis in one way. What follows are passages opened for this article. (For the Fathers themselves, see the Church Fathers explorer.)

St Basil the Great: a lasting command, and fixed kinds

St Basil's Hexaemeron, nine homilies on the six days, is a classic Greek commentary on Genesis 1. Basil was wary of fanciful allegory: "For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense."¹⁰ Those who favor a literal reading rightly quote it.

Yet Basil also read God's commands as setting up a lasting order in nature. On "Let the earth bring forth," he wrote that "the voice that was then heard and this command were as a natural and permanent law for it; it gave fertility and the power to produce fruit for all ages to come." Later in the same homily: "This short command was in a moment a vast nature, an elaborate system."¹¹ Evolutionary creationists see here God working through powers He gave creation. Genesis itself has the earth "bring forth the living creature according to its kind" (Genesis 1:24, NKJV).

Honesty requires the other half. The same homily says the command acted "in a moment," and in his ninth homily Basil taught that "Nature always makes a horse succeed to a horse, a lion to a lion, an eagle to an eagle," keeping each kind unchanged "to the end of all things."¹² {{strong: Basil saw God's creative word as a permanent law working within nature, but he also assumed that the kinds of living things stay fixed}}, which modern biology does not accept. He was not answering Darwin's question, and neither side should claim him outright.

St Gregory of Nyssa: "an ascent as it were by steps"

St Gregory of Nyssa wrote On the Making of Man to complete his brother Basil's work. Explaining why man was made last, he wrote that "nature makes an ascent as it were by steps (I mean the various properties of life) from the lower to the perfect form."¹³ The Greek Orthodox writer Dr Alexander Kalomiros quoted this passage to Fr Seraphim Rose and asked, as Jesse Dominick reports it, "What is all this if not evolution?"¹⁴

Rose, as Dominick summarizes him, answered that Gregory was describing the structure of human nature, which shares the vegetative and sensitive powers with other living things, not a history of descent, and that Gregory taught Adam's body and soul came into being together.¹⁴ Read in context, the passage concerns the order of the powers of life, so the claim that {{debated: Gregory of Nyssa's "ascent by steps" anticipated biological evolution}} reads more into the text than it says. It does show that a great Father could see the lower forms of life as a ladder leading to man, which is at least congenial to an evolutionary picture.

St Athanasius: mortal by nature, kept by grace

The hardest question for an Orthodox evolutionist is death. Scripture says "God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living," and "through the devil's envy death entered the world" (Wisdom 1:13; 2:24, RSVCE). St Paul writes that "through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Romans 5:12, NKJV).¹⁵

St Athanasius adds a point often missed. He wrote that "man is by nature mortal, inasmuch as he is made out of what is not," and that humanity would have escaped its "natural corruption" by the grace of the Word had it remained in communion with God.¹⁶ He speaks of human beings, not animals, but his view that created nature left to itself tends toward corruption, while grace gives incorruption, is a resource for thinking about death before the fall. The site's article on what the fall did to human nature treats the Orthodox understanding of inherited mortality in more detail.

The Orthodox Church: no dogma, a real range of views

{{strong: No Ecumenical Council or pan-Orthodox synod has defined a dogma for or against biological evolution}}, and Orthodox Christians in good standing hold opposing views.

The nearest thing to an official statement comes from the Russian Orthodox Church's Basis of the Social Concept, adopted by its Bishops' Council in 2000. It does not mention evolution. It says that science and religion "can come in touch and overlap, but cannot oppose each other, because the natural science contains no atheistic or religious theories, but more or less authentic theories."¹⁷ The scholar Teresa Obolevitch, in a journal study of Russian debates since Darwin, concluded that "the Russian Orthodox Church has never condemned the evolution theory itself, although some of her theologians have been criticizing some of its aspects."¹⁸

Orthodox Christians who accept evolution

Theodosius Dobzhansky, the geneticist, wrote the famous 1973 essay "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution." In it he said: "It is wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives. I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's, method of Creation."¹⁹ The historian Christopher Howell calls him "a confessed Eastern Orthodox Christian, though one with an idiosyncratic take on the faith," so he is a witness that a leading biologist could be both, not a model of Orthodox doctrine.²⁰

Alexander Kalomiros, a Greek Orthodox writer, argued in letters to Fr Seraphim Rose that Adam's body came from earlier creatures and that man became a rational being when God breathed His Spirit into him; Dominick quotes him writing that "Adam is the evolved beast who receives in its innermost being the divine breath."¹⁴

Gayle Woloschak, a molecular and radiation biologist who teaches bioethics at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, published "The Compatibility of the Principles of Evolution with Eastern Orthodoxy" in St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly in 2011, and co-edited Science and the Eastern Orthodox Church (2011).²¹

Orthodox Christians who reject evolution

Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) (1934-1982), an American monk of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, gathered patristic texts on creation in lectures and letters that were published after his death as Genesis, Creation and Early Man (2000).²² He wrote: "The idea of the 'evolution' of man from a lower animal cannot be harmonized with the Patristic and Scriptural view of man's creation, but requires a sharp break with it." He also asked, pointing to the Church's worship: "What of the Orthodox feast devoted to Adam and the other Forefathers?"¹⁴ Rose did not see himself as a Protestant-style literalist; in a 1973 letter he wrote that "we certainly are not fundamentalists," and he described evolution as "a rival thought-pattern to Orthodoxy, not just another idea."²³

Rose's book also gathers modern Orthodox critics of evolution, among them St Justin Popovich.¹⁴ The Mystagogy Resource Center, an Orthodox blog run by John Sanidopoulos and itself critical of Darwinism, answered a reader in 2009 that the Church has no "official" scientific position because the topic belongs to science, yet admitted that "the great majority of Orthodox scholars believe in Theistic Evolution," often, it complained, mixing Orthodox theology with "Darwinian philosophy."²⁴ That is one blog's impression, not a survey, but it agrees with Obolevitch that the debate is real and ongoing.

What all of them share

Both sides confess the Creed. Both hold that the world exists by God's will; that humans are made in God's image, a gift the site discusses in what it means to be made in the image of God; and that Christ came to restore what was lost and lead humanity to theosis, union with God by grace. "You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the earth" (Psalm 104:30, NKJV). The disagreement is about how God created, not whether He did.

The hard questions

Adam. The Church commemorates Adam and Eve among the Forefathers and recalls their expulsion from Paradise on Forgiveness Sunday.¹⁴ Some Orthodox who accept evolution, like Kalomiros, keep a real Adam who became fully human when God breathed His Spirit into him. Other theistic evolutionists, Dominick notes, treat Adam and Eve as symbols of a first human population. Rose and his followers see any such proposal as a break with the Fathers. The Orthodox stress on inherited mortality rather than inherited guilt, explained in the site's article on ancestral sin, does not by itself settle when or how Adam lived.

Death before the fall. Fossils show animal death long before any humans. Young-earth Christians conclude that the fossil record must be young. Christians who accept evolution often answer that Wisdom and St Paul speak of human death, and an Orthodox writer may add Athanasius's point that created nature apart from grace is already subject to corruption. Neither answer has been received by the whole Church, and Rose and others judge them inadequate.

Purpose. If evolution means a purposeless process, no Christian can accept it. But science, as the Russian Church's document says, contains no "atheistic or religious theories"; purposelessness is a philosophical addition, not a biological finding.

The strongest objections

From young-earth Christians and Orthodox traditionalists: "The Fathers read Genesis as history. Accepting evolution means trusting modern science over the Church's saints." This deserves respect. The Fathers who addressed the question treated Adam as the first man, made directly by God, and Basil assumed fixed kinds. The reply is that the Church distinguishes the faith the Fathers confess together from their views on natural philosophy, which reflected the science of their day. The Church has never made the age of the earth or the mechanism of speciation a matter of dogma, and Orthodox who accept evolution argue they are applying the Fathers' own method of reading nature and Scripture together. Whether that application is faithful is precisely what is debated.

From Intelligent Design: "Theistic evolution concedes too much. If unguided processes explain everything, design becomes invisible and God unnecessary." Evolutionary creationists answer that they reject unguided "evolutionism" and see God's design in the lawfulness of the whole, not in exceptions. Orthodox readers may add that the Greek Fathers distinguish God's essence from His energies, by which He is present and revealed in the whole created world; Obolevitch notes that this is why Orthodox theology can receive scientific theories within their proper limits.¹⁸ On that view God's action neither depends on nor is excluded by gaps in natural explanation.

From mainstream scientists: "ID is not science." The National Academy of Sciences says so plainly, and a Christian should not pretend otherwise. ID's own claims are best rated as debated. A Christian can believe that God designed the world without staking that belief on any one disputed scientific argument; the article Has Science Disproved Christianity? discusses why methodological naturalism in science does not entail atheism.

From skeptics: "If evolution explains life, God is idle." That follows only if God is one cause among others, competing for the same job, rather than the Creator of nature itself. The same National Academy site states that "Acceptance of the evidence for evolution can be compatible with religious faith."⁶

What we can say confidently

• The Orthodox Church has no conciliar dogma on biological evolution; its dogma concerns God as Creator, the image of God, the fall and redemption in Christ.
• Orthodox Christians in good standing, including scientists, theologians and monastics, hold views ranging from full acceptance of evolution to firm rejection.
• Basil the Great described God's command as a lasting law within nature, and also assumed the fixity of kinds.
• Major Christian bodies hold all three main positions: evolutionary creation (BioLogos), Intelligent Design (Discovery Institute) and young-earth creationism (Answers in Genesis).
• The National Academy of Sciences accepts evolution and rejects ID as science, while saying acceptance of evolution can be compatible with religious faith.

What remains disputed

• How to reconcile a historical Adam and the fall with evolutionary history.
• Whether animal death before humanity contradicts the teaching that "God did not make death."
• Whether the Fathers' consensus on Adam's direct creation binds Orthodox Christians today, or reflects the natural philosophy of their time.
• Whether ID arguments offer genuine evidence of design or rely on present gaps in knowledge.
• How widely each view is held among Orthodox clergy and faithful; no reliable survey was found.

Conclusion

Can a Christian accept evolution? On the evidence of the Church's own dogma, yes, provided he does not accept with it the philosophy that the world is purposeless and godless. Can he do so without difficulty? No. The questions of Adam and of death are real, and the Orthodox who answer them differently are not enemies of the faith. Fr Seraphim Rose and Theodosius Dobzhansky both called themselves Orthodox and reached opposite conclusions.

The Orthodox way is to hold the Creed firmly and our theories humbly. Basil looked at grass and fish and saw a "vast nature, an elaborate system" set going by God's word. Whatever biology finally says about how that system unfolded, the Christian confession stands: all things were made through the Word, and in Christ, the New Adam, God is renewing the face of the earth.

Notes

1. Denis O. Lamoureux, "Intelligent Design Theory: The God-of-the-Gaps Rooted in Concordism," review of Theistic Evolution, ed. J. P. Moreland et al., Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 70, no. 2 (June 2018): 113-132, quoting Stephen C. Meyer's introduction and Wayne Grudem's list of twelve claims. The 2017 book itself was not opened; Meyer's and Grudem's words are quoted as Lamoureux gives them. ↩
2. Discovery Institute, Center for Science and Culture, "Frequently Asked Questions," discovery.org/id/faqs; the same definition appears at intelligentdesign.org/whatisid. ↩
3. BioLogos, "Francis Collins" (staff profile), biologos.org/people/francis-collins. ↩
4. BioLogos, "How is Evolutionary Creation different from Evolutionism, Intelligent Design, and Creationism?" Common Questions, biologos.org (text read from the Internet Archive copy, 2025). ↩
5. J. P. Moreland, Stephen C. Meyer, Christopher Shaw, Ann K. Gauger and Wayne Grudem, eds., Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), bibliographic details from the publisher's page and Lamoureux's review. ↩
6. National Academy of Sciences, Evolution Resources, "Science and Religion" and FAQ sections, nationalacademies.org/evolution/science-and-religion; see also National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, Science, Evolution, and Creationism (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2008), doi:10.17226/11876. ↩
7. Answers in Genesis, "Statement of Faith," answersingenesis.org/about/faith. ↩
8. Pius XII, Humani Generis (12 August 1950), §§36-37, vatican.va. ↩
9. John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (22 October 1996), §4, French text at vatican.va; English rendering ours. ↩
10. Basil the Great, Hexaemeron 9.1, trans. Blomfield Jackson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF), 2nd series, vol. 8 (1895), newadvent.org/fathers/32019.htm. ↩
11. Basil, Hexaemeron 5.1 and 5.10, NPNF 2nd series, vol. 8, newadvent.org/fathers/32015.htm. ↩
12. Basil, Hexaemeron 9.2, NPNF 2nd series, vol. 8. ↩
13. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 8.7, trans. H. A. Wilson, NPNF 2nd series, vol. 5 (1893), newadvent.org/fathers/2914.htm. ↩
14. Jesse Dominick, "Fr. Seraphim (Rose)'s Teaching on the Creation of Man in Genesis," OrthoChristian.com, 4 September 2023 (a chapter of his M.Div. thesis at St Tikhon's Seminary), quoting Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation and Early Man, p. 219, and Alexander Kalomiros's letters ("God's Breath in Ape's Body"). Rose's and Kalomiros's words are quoted as Dominick gives them. ↩
15. Wisdom 1:13 and 2:24 (RSV Catholic Edition); Romans 5:12 (NKJV), biblegateway.com. ↩
16. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 4.6 and 5.1-2, trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF 2nd series, vol. 4 (1892), newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm. ↩
17. Russian Orthodox Church, The Basis of the Social Concept (2000), XIV.1, Department for External Church Relations, old.mospat.ru/en/documents/social-concepts/xiv. ↩
18. Teresa Obolevitch, "Russian Orthodox Church and science. Debates on the theory of evolution in 19th and 20th Centuries," Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce 41 (2007): 91-124, doi:10.59203/zfn.41.267 (English abstract; article in Polish). ↩
19. Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution," The American Biology Teacher 35, no. 3 (March 1973): 125-129, at 127. ↩
20. Christopher Howell, "Between Darwin and Dostoevsky: The Syntheses of Theodosius Dobzhansky," Christian Perspectives on Science and Technology, n.s., 1 (2022): 28-45, doi:10.58913/LGSN7318. ↩
21. Gayle E. Woloschak, "The Compatibility of the Principles of Evolution with Eastern Orthodoxy," St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 55 (2011): 209-231; Daniel Buxhoeveden and Gayle Woloschak, eds., Science and the Eastern Orthodox Church (Ashgate, 2011). Details from her curriculum vitae at svots.edu; the article itself was not opened. ↩
22. Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2000; 3rd ed. 2024); dates of Rose's life from OrthodoxWiki. ↩
23. Seraphim Rose, Letter 121 to Alexey Young (April 1973), as published in "'We Are Not Fundamentalists': How Fr. Seraphim Rose Navigated the Evolution Debate," Orthodox Ethos, orthodoxethos.com. ↩
24. "Q: Why Is There No Official Orthodox Position on Evolution?" Mystagogy Resource Center (blog of John Sanidopoulos; the answer is unsigned), November 2009, johnsanidopoulos.com. ↩

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Athanasius. On the Incarnation of the Word. Translated by Archibald Robertson. NPNF 2nd series, vol. 4. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.
• Basil the Great. Hexaemeron. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. NPNF 2nd series, vol. 8. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.
• Gregory of Nyssa. On the Making of Man. Translated by H. A. Wilson. NPNF 2nd series, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.
• The Holy Bible, New King James Version (1982); Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (for Wisdom).

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Dominick, Jesse. "Fr. Seraphim (Rose)'s Teaching on the Creation of Man in Genesis." OrthoChristian.com, 4 September 2023.
• Rose, Seraphim. Genesis, Creation and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision. Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2000; 3rd ed., 2024.
• Rose, Seraphim. Letter 121 to Alexey Young, 1973. In "'We Are Not Fundamentalists': How Fr. Seraphim Rose Navigated the Evolution Debate." Orthodox Ethos.
• Russian Orthodox Church. The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church. Moscow: Bishops' Council, 2000. Section XIV.
• Mystagogy Resource Center (John Sanidopoulos). "Q: Why Is There No Official Orthodox Position on Evolution?" November 2009 (unsigned answer).
• Woloschak, Gayle E. "The Compatibility of the Principles of Evolution with Eastern Orthodoxy." St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 55 (2011): 209-231.

Other scholarship

• Dobzhansky, Theodosius. "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution." The American Biology Teacher 35, no. 3 (1973): 125-129.
• Howell, Christopher. "Between Darwin and Dostoevsky: The Syntheses of Theodosius Dobzhansky." Christian Perspectives on Science and Technology, n.s., 1 (2022): 28-45.
• Lamoureux, Denis O. "Intelligent Design Theory: The God-of-the-Gaps Rooted in Concordism." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 70, no. 2 (2018): 113-132.
• National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine. Science, Evolution, and Creationism. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2008. With the NAS "Evolution Resources" website.
• Obolevitch, Teresa. "Russian Orthodox Church and science. Debates on the theory of evolution in 19th and 20th Centuries." Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce 41 (2007): 91-124.

Sources from the traditions being discussed

• Answers in Genesis. "Statement of Faith." answersingenesis.org.
• BioLogos. "How is Evolutionary Creation different from Evolutionism, Intelligent Design, and Creationism?" biologos.org.
• Discovery Institute. "Frequently Asked Questions" (Intelligent Design). discovery.org.
• John Paul II. Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 22 October 1996. vatican.va.
• Moreland, J. P., Stephen C. Meyer, Christopher Shaw, Ann K. Gauger and Wayne Grudem, eds. Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017.
• Pius XII. Humani Generis. 12 August 1950. vatican.va.