creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

, special creation is a belief that the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...

and all

life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

in it originated in its present form by

fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...

or divine

decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

uses the phrase "special creation" in two different senses: * in the context of

theistic evolution Theistic evolution (also known as theistic evolutionism or God-guided evolution) is a theological view that God creates through laws of nature. Its religious teachings are fully compatible with the findings of modern science, including biological ...

to refer to the "special creation of humans", a point of

hominization Hominization, also called anthropogenesis, refers to the process of becoming human, and is used in somewhat different contexts in the fields of paleontology and paleoanthropology, archaeology, philosophy, and theology. Paleontology , paleoanthro ...

where evolved near-human animals were given

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

s by God, and became fully human; this belief is also called special transformism by some scholars. * to refer to the doctrine of immediate or special creation of each human soul

Creationism

In creationism, "special creation" is a

literal interpretation Literal and figurative language is a distinction within some fields of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics. *Literal language uses words exactly according to their conventionally accepted meanings or denotation. ...

of the

Genesis creation narrative The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. The narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first, Elohim (the Hebrew generic word ...

, viewing it as an accurate description of the

creation Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing * Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it * Creationism, the belief tha ...

of the universe in essentially its present form over the course of six 24-hour days.

Duane Gish Duane Tolbert Gish (February 17, 1921 – March 5, 2013) was an American biochemist and a prominent member of the creationist movement. A young Earth creationist, Gish was a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR ...

of the

Institute for Creation Research The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas, that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical ...

defined "special creation" as being creation using

supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...

processes:

Dennis Jensen Dennis Geoffrey Jensen (born 28 February 1962) is a former Australian politician. He was elected to the House of Representatives at the 2004 federal election, winning the Division of Tangney for the Liberal Party. Jensen lost Liberal preselect ...

of the American Scientific Affiliation states that special creation means that complex living things did not descend from simpler ones but were created independently. James B. Stenson writes that for

fundamentalists Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishing ...

, special creation follows from a literal reading of the Genesis creation narrative. There is a "special creation" of each separate '' kind'' in six 24-hour days, starting a few thousand years ago.''EVOLUTION: A CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE''
James B. Stenson, Catholic Position Papers, Series A, Number 116, March, 1984, Japan Edition, Seido Foundation for the Advancement of Education, 12-6 Funado-Cho, Ashiya-Shi Japan. In ''The Mystery of Life's Origin'', Charles B. Thaxton argues for "Special Creation by a Creator beyond the Cosmos", and asserts that special creation holds "that the ''source that produced life'' was intelligent".

In Catholicism

The

Pontifical Biblical Commission The Pontifical Biblical Commission () is a pontifical commission established within the Roman Curia to ensure the proper interpretation and defense of the Bible. Since 1988, it has been closely attached to the Congregation for the Doctrine of t ...

issued a decree ratified by

Pope Pius X Pope Pius X ( it, Pio X; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 to his death in August 1914. Pius X is known for vigorously opposing modernist interpretations of C ...

on June 30, 1909, mentioning special creation only in relation to humans, not to the other species. In 2004, the International Theological Commission, then under the presidency of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (soon to be

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...

), published a paper in which it accepts the current scientific accounts of the history of the universe commencing in the

Big Bang The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...

about 15 billion years ago and of the evolution of all life on earth including humans from the microorganisms commencing about 4 billion years ago. The

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

teaches that God acted indirectly through causal chains operating from the beginning of cosmic history, which prepared the way for the moment of transition to the spiritual with the special creation of the human soul. This special creation, the Vatican says, established the basis for a divine intimacy which embraces every single human person from the first moment of his or her existence.Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God
(July 23rd 2004), International Theological Commission, La Civiltà Cattolica 2004, IV, 254-286

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Special Creation Creationism Creation myths Young Earth creationism