well theistic evolution actually can
be a number of different distinct
ideas because the term evolution can
have a number of distinct definitions so
if you think of the most basic
definition of evolution is just being
change over time there are a couple
different senses in which that's true
one is the idea that that organisms have
the organisms we see on earth today are
different than the ones that are tested
in the fossil record so we've seen
change over time in that sense we also
see small scale variation within the
limits of a genome for example what's
called micro evolution again another
change over time a good example that
might be the Galapagos finches the beaks
of which gotten smaller and larger in
response to varying weather conditions
in the Galapagos or the
peppered moths whose wings went dark to
light and dark again or light to dark
and dark whatever they changed back and
forth between light and dark or
antibiotic resistance these are
well-established observable senses in
which we've seen change over time so
that's a definition of evolution you
could conjoin with theism and say well
God causes change over time
nobody really disputes that idea
Christians don't dispute the idea that God is
causing change over time biologists
don't dispute the idea that change over
time is happening at least within limits
and has happened over time so that's one
sense of the term evolution and one
therefore corresponding sense of the
term theistic evolution second idea of
evolution is the idea that that change
over time has been continuous and
gradual and has been occurring
essentially without limits so that the
picture of biological history is best
represented by Darwin's figure of the
the tree of life that all the branches
on the tree represent the forms of life
we see today and each one of those forms
has arisen through slow small gradual
changes going back to one simple form at
the very beginning maybe the trunk or
the root of that tree so you start with
a one-celled organism and then that
morphs and incremental change
accumulates over time and it
eventually causes a diversification of
all the disparate forms of life we see
today so that's a theory of biological
history sometimes called monophyly or
one family that everything's
connected by common ancestry and that's
a second sense of evolution and many
theistic evolutionists are simply people
who think that God caused that
continuous and gradual change and that
everything is is linked together and
that's the right picture of biological
history a third meaning of evolution
corresponds to a third idea of theistic
evolution and that's probably the most
contentious notion and that's the idea
that the process of natural selection
and random mutation and other similarly
undirected natural processes have
produced all that change implied by the
Tree of Life and so that all the forms
of life we see today are the result of
this purely natural mechanism
called natural selection and random
mutation and some others perhaps
supplementing that and that that
mechanism has been sufficient to produce
all the forms of life we see today that
it's therefore creative and that it also
explains the appearance of design that
all biologists recognize in living
organisms
Richard Dawkins says that biology is the
study of complicated things that give
the appearance of having been designed
for a purpose and the key word for him
is appearance things look designed but
they're not really designed because this
purely naturalistic unguided mechanism
has produced that appearance or illusion
but that mechanism
merely mimics the powers of a designing
intelligence it is not accomplishing the
goals of an intelligence it's not goal
driven or purpose driven so that third
meaning of evolution is standard
neo-darwinian theory today almost
all evolutionary biologists adhere to
that idea that a purely natural process
natural selection random mutation and
maybe some other evolutionary mechanisms
have produced everything we see today
and theistic evolution embraces that
mechanism as a creative process and then
says in some unspecified way God is
behind it or part of it or upholding it
or they may say that
the mutation selection mechanism is
God's means of creativity so that that
would be the third meaning of evolution
third meaning of evolution third 
possible sense of theistic evolution
