Key idea: There is no single answer, because people and religious bodies answer this question in different ways; what can be said clearly is what science does and does not test, and what named groups have actually stated.
Why this page is different
Most pages on this site explain a piece of science. This one does something else. It describes what people believe and what organisations have said, and it attributes each view to a named source. It does not argue for or against any religion, or for or against having no religion.
Readers of this site come from many traditions, and from none. Every view below is held by sincere and thoughtful people.
What science can and cannot address
Science works by testing explanations against evidence from the natural world. It can ask how species change, how old a fossil is, or how two animals are related. Those questions have answers that can be checked, and the evidence for evolution is covered across this site, starting with what is evolution.
Some questions cannot be tested that way. Does God exist? Does the universe have a purpose? What makes a life meaningful? No experiment can measure these things. People answer them through religion, philosophy, and personal reflection.
In 2008, the US National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine published a book called Science, Evolution, and Creationism. It said: “Science and religion are different ways of understanding the world.” The judge in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover court case, discussed on the page about irreducible complexity, made a related point. He wrote that science limits itself to natural explanations and does not address questions of meaning and purpose.
Not everyone agrees with this way of drawing the line. In a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, 59% of US adults said science and religion are often in conflict, yet 68% said their own religious beliefs did not conflict with science. Some believers see evolution as a direct challenge to their faith, and some non-religious people see science and religion as rivals. Those views are part of the range described below.
The range of positions
It is tempting to imagine just two camps. In reality, views spread across a wide range. Here are four common positions, each with a named example.
| Position | Example |
|---|---|
| Rejects evolution on religious grounds | Answers in Genesis, a Christian ministry, states that the days of creation in Genesis were six ordinary 24-hour days and that attempts to fit evolution into Genesis are incompatible with scripture. |
| Accepts evolution as the way God created | BioLogos, founded by the geneticist Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project, promotes what it calls evolutionary creation. |
| Accepts evolution and sees science and faith as different areas | The Clergy Letter Project’s Christian letter calls religious truth and scientific truth two different but complementary forms of truth. |
| Accepts evolution without religious belief | In the 2009 Pew survey below, 41% of US scientists surveyed said they believed in neither God nor a higher power. |
Many people hold views between these, and many change their views over a lifetime.
What religious bodies and leaders have said
The statements below are examples, not a full survey. Each tradition contains a wide variety of views, and no single statement speaks for every member.
Christian
The Catholic Church. In 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical called Humani Generis. It allowed the evolution of the human body to be studied and discussed, with conditions. On 22 October 1996, Pope John Paul II sent a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He said that new knowledge had led to recognising the theory of evolution as “more than a hypothesis”. In the same message he repeated the teaching, from Pius XII, that the human soul is created directly by God.
Protestant churches. Views vary widely. The United Methodist Church endorsed the Clergy Letter Project at its 2008 General Conference, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) endorsed it in 2016. Answers in Genesis, quoted above, takes the opposite view. A 2013 Pew survey found that 64% of white evangelical Protestants in the United States said humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time, compared with 15% of white mainline Protestants.
The Clergy Letter Project. This project was started in 2004 by the American biologist Michael Zimmerman. Clergy sign open letters supporting the teaching of evolution. Its website says more than 16,000 clergy have taken part. There are separate letters for Christian clergy, rabbis, Unitarian Universalist clergy, Buddhist clergy, and humanist clergy.
Jewish
In 1984, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinical body of Reform Judaism, passed a resolution on creationism in school textbooks. It said that the principles of biological evolution are basic to understanding science. The Clergy Letter Project’s letter for rabbis, signed by rabbis from several branches of Judaism, notes that the Bible’s creation account is open to interpretation, with some reading it literally and some figuratively. That note itself reflects the range of Jewish views: not every Jewish community or rabbi takes the same position.
Muslim
In 2013, Pew Research Center published a survey of Muslims in many countries. In 13 of the 22 countries where the question was asked, at least half said humans and other living things have evolved over time. The numbers varied widely. In Kazakhstan, 79% accepted evolution, and in Lebanon 78%. In Iraq, 67% said humans have always existed in their present form, and in Tajikistan 55% said the same.
Muslim scholars also disagree with each other. The Algerian astrophysicist Nidhal Guessoum, a professor at the American University of Sharjah, argued in his 2011 book Islam’s Quantum Question that evolutionary theory does not contradict core Muslim beliefs. Guessoum has also observed that even many educated Muslims reject the idea that humans share common ancestors with apes, which shows that his view is one among several.
Hindu
Hindu traditions are very diverse, so it is especially important not to generalise. The religion scholar C. Mackenzie Brown of Trinity University studied this question in his 2012 book Hindu Perspectives on Evolution: Darwin, Dharma, and Design. He describes ancient and classical Hindu ideas that include both creation by God and cosmic “evolution” that differs from Darwin’s theory. When Darwin’s ideas reached India under British rule, Hindu thinkers responded in many ways. Brown reports that relatively few rejected Darwinism outright, but argues that the often-claimed easy harmony between Hindu thought and Darwinian evolution is more complicated than it looks.
Buddhist
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, wrote about science in his 2005 book The Universe in a Single Atom. In an essay in the New York Times on 12 November 2005, he wrote: “If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.” In his book he described evolution as one of the key theories that any credible worldview must take into account. Other Buddhist teachers and communities may express this differently.
What scientific bodies have said
On 21 June 2006, the InterAcademy Panel, a network of national science academies, issued a statement on the teaching of evolution. More than 65 academies signed it, including the Indian National Science Academy, the Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology of Egypt, the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society in the UK, and the US National Academy of Sciences.
These statements are about science education. They describe evolution as well supported by evidence. They do not tell anyone what to believe about God.
What surveys show
Surveys give a picture of what people actually think, but the wording of the question matters a great deal.
- Scientists, 2009. Pew surveyed members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the United States. 97% said humans and other living things have evolved over time. 33% said they believed in God, 18% in a universal spirit or higher power, and 41% in neither.
- US public, 2013. Pew found that 60% of US adults said humans and other living things have evolved over time, and 33% said they have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.
- US public, 2019. Pew asked in a new way, with separate options for evolution guided or allowed by God. This time 81% said humans have evolved: 33% through natural processes alone, and 48% through processes guided or allowed by God or a higher power. 18% said humans have always existed in their present form.
The jump from 60% to 81% does not mean people changed their minds. It shows that many people who accept evolution also believe God was involved, and earlier wordings did not give them a clear way to say so.
Respecting different answers
When people talk about this subject, a few things tend to help:
- Describe what a person or group actually said, rather than what “a religion believes”.
- Keep scientific questions (what happened in nature and how we know) separate from religious or philosophical ones (why there is anything at all, and what it means).
- Remember that believers and non-believers are found on every side of this conversation.
Where to go next
To see why scientists call evolution a theory, read is evolution just a theory? To see why the origin of life is a separate question, read does evolution explain the origin of life? For the history of the idea itself, read Darwin and the history of the idea.