Instead of the supernatural work of God in the special creation of all things in six days, the theory of evolution said that all life evolved spontaneously through the processes of natural selection and the survival of the fittest over billions of years. In time, the primary support for the theory of evolution came from the geological record of fossil remains. From the fossil record geologists constructed a geological table, complete with dates and names for various ages, that traced the evolution of life from its lowest forms to man himself. It also produced a problem for evangelical Christians who were scientists and who desired acceptance in the scientific community, yet who also professed faith in the Bible as the word of God. The answer to this dilemma was the theory of theistic evolution.
Theistic evolution is a compromise between Newtonian science and the Biblical text.
It states that God is the Creator of all things, as the Bible says, but that evolution is the means that God used to bring about the complexity of life and the variety of species. Theistic evolution became very popular both within the Christian scientific community and within the church. It is still widely held today. The purpose of Genesis 1 and 2 is to reveal God as the Creator of all things, including man and man's home, the earth. The Biblical doctrine of creation is foundational to our understanding of God, of man, and of God's covenant with man.