“Thanks for drawing that to my attention. I have no reason to question what you’re saying here.” - James McKay
You’re welcome. Thanks for the trust. I’ve been mistaken for a “creationist” far too many times, yet people are always surprised to hear there’s another way to discuss & explore the topic. It was outside of N. America that I discovered the limits of the N. American conversation on this topic, and that people in other parts of the world don’t have to face the YECism here (I’m in Canada).
Discussing “evolutionism” with YECists is usually just too boring and repetitive, as they often flat-out refuse to recognize their own “New Age Christian” ideology, which is born out of their local “pastor(s)” preaching biblical literalism & Sola Scriptura at them regularly, which serves to make them authorities over Scriptural interpretation in their own minds & hearts.
“I would imagine that it is very, very different from how YECs use the word.”
There’s some similarities and some differences. Some YECists have used expressions of “evolutionism” from “mainstream science” (though it denotes ideology, not science) & criticize that. When they do it in a proper, rigorous and balanced way, then I don’t have a problem with their anti-evolutionism, just as I’m thankful that BioLogos rejects “evolutionism”. It’s when YECists do exactly the same thing that IDists do, blaming Darwin or “evolutionary biology” for far too many “sins” of contemporary society, that they demonstrate their ideological fanaticism and myopia in their eisegesis of Scripture, and problems quickly arise among fellow “believers”.
For example, take Sanderson, Carneiro & Claessen, top of the “evolutionism” list in GoogleScholar, they all use the term “evolutionism” to simply mean “accepting the theory of biological evolution”, like some dictionaries say. Thus, they leave out the ideological meaning of “evolutionism” entirely, while perpetuating that ideology itself in their over-extension of the term “evolution” in fields like politics, economics, sociology, & (cultural) anthropology.
In the N. American case, a fault line exposing ideological evolutionism runs through “anthropology” between the “biological anthropologists” and the “cultural anthropologists”, as you can see in the reference to Leslie White in GoogleScholar. The Lowie-White exchange in 1947 American Anthropologist is excellent to frame the conversation. To be clear, I’m on Lowie’s side here. Notice how one used “evolution”, while the other responded with “evolutionism”. Why? What’s the difference?
“Do you know if mainstream writers have a precise definition of the word “evolutionism,” and if so, do they use it consistently?”
I would not say there is a single “precise definition” of “evolutionism”, but rather several (Edit: & usually not “precise”). Often it’s possible to distinguish atheistic evolutionism (AEism) from theistic evolutionism (TEism), but not always on the surface. There’s also a strand of “Catholic evolutionism”. A former president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences even endorsed “evolutionism”.
One can quite easily see how the Catholic Church gets this wrong here, in confusing ideology with natural science: “the encyclical Humani Generis treated the doctrine of “evolutionism” as a serious hypothesis”. - John Paul II
Yet there is no mention of “evolutionism” in Humani Generis, only “evolution”. Pope Piux XII had written in Humani Generis:
“fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.”
Thus Piux XII was attacking ideological existentialism, rather than addressing “evolutionism.”
He continued:
“the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.”
Fr. Doru Costache splits this difference quite clearly, as quoted above:
“Christians do not believe in creationism; they believe in creation. Scientists do not believe in evolutionism; they believe in evolution.”
To me, this seems quite helpful already, to help move beyond “creationism” and “evolutionism”. Does it come across that way to you also, or resonate differently?
