Another viewpoint in the Darwinian evolution controversy is the one held by many mainline Christians. This can be called “theistic evolution.”

Theistic evolution- the view that there is a God who created the universe and set everything in motion. The origin and development of life follows the natural system as given by the Darwinian model.

This is the official position of some Christian denominations. Generally theistic evolutionists would keep speaking of the miraculous in the private faith department and mutation and natural selection in the science department.

The challenge with theistic evolution is it really is simply Darwinian evolution in practice. The question is not, “Could a God have done the creating and continue to create through a Darwinian process?” but rather, “Are there difficulties with the evidence for the Darwinian model to begin with, whether you believe in a God or not?”