B. B. Warfield on Evolution and Theology

Evangelicals wanting good precedent to embrace evolutionism alongside a robust doctrine of biblical authority often cite Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield as their prime example. J. I. Packer called him a theistic evolutionist, but Warfield in his day expressly refused that position, finding it insufficiently supernaturalistic and impossible to square with scripture on key points. His qualified acceptance of biological evolution is the subject of renewed interpretive disagreement today, and requires careful discrimination of concepts and terms—but the larger and more interesting story concerns the pervasive developmentalism in his theology.

Biography

Bradley Gundlach (PhD University of Rochester) is Professor of History at Trinity International University. He serves as director of the division of Humanities and as book review editor for Fides et Historia. He is the author of Process and Providence: The Evolution Question at Princeton, 1845-1929 (Eerdmans, 2013).