Noun

Singular creationism

Plural uncountable

creationism (uncountable)

1. The Catholic doctrine that each individual human soul is created by God, as opposed to traducianism
2. Any creationary belief, especially a belief that the origin of things is due to an event or process of creation brought about by the deliberate act of any divine agency, such as a Creator god.

   2006, Philip Clayton, Zachary R. Simpson, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199279276, page 735:

   Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact—fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc.

3. The creationary beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism or Islam.
4. The theological controversy concerning the origin of the human species, and other living beings, and especially questioning in what sense if any the creationary acts of God are considered a matter of historical fact
5. The subject of a debate concerning origins and the findings of science, focused on the degree to which the theory of evolution is compatible with religious belief in the Creator.

Antonyms

• traducianism

Synonyms

• intelligent design

Related terms

• create
• creation
• creationist
• creator
• cdesign proponentsists

Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in their original form by a supernatural being or beings, commonly a single deity. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of interpretations of beliefs that a supernatural force such as a deity intervenes, or has intervened, directly in the natural world. In relation to the creation-evolution controversy the term creationism is commonly used to refer to religiously motivated rejection of natural biological processes, in particular evolution, as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth. In the West such creationism is usually based on a literal reading of Genesis 1-2 but other religions have other deity led creation myths which may be quite different.

In many countries, belief in creationism has decreased as scientific theories have been presented that support more naturalistic explanations for the universe and for the life within, though not necessarily the basic tenets of their religion. Whilst some have tried to refute these theories, others believe in types of creationism that do not exclude all of these theories. When mainstream scientific research produces conclusions which contradict a strict creationist interpretation of scripture, some will reject the conclusions of the research and/or its underlying scientific theories and/or its methodology. Both creation science and intelligent design have been labeled as pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific community. The most notable disputes concern the effects of evolution on the development of living organisms, the idea of common descent, the geologic history of the Earth, the formation of the solar system, and the origin of the universe.