Greek Period
Greek philosophers from the time of Plato had various ideas about the eternal state of nature and its role in origins.

First Millennium
Christian theologians during AD 300-500 introduced Greek and evolutionary thoughts into Christian beliefs.

Second Millennium
Later Christian theologians and men of science incorporated naturalism and evolutionary mechanisms into their beliefs about origins.

Darwin period
Contemporaries of Darwin introduced key ideas and expressions that Darwin incorporated into "his theory."

Most people are unaware that the concept of evolution is not a modern theory; it is an idea that did not originate with Darwin. Evolution as a religious philosophy possibly had its post-Flood roots in the culture of Babel about 4500 years ago. According to Scripture and other sources, Nimrod was the founder and first king of Babel (Genesis 10:10). He would have been the political and religious leader of the resurging world possibly within the first hundred years after the Flood. The astrological systems of early cultures seem to have a common source in some early civilization where the people worshipped the heavenly bodies and even built towers for their religious practices. Here we find the first post-Flood evidence of mankind worshipping the creation rather than the Creator.

Alexander Hislop saw a common source for idolatry of later times in his study of various pagan religions. He refers to them as "Mysteries" which reminded him of the language used in Jeremiah 51:7 "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine, therefore the nations are mad."

A great discovery was uncovered in the ancient document called the Enuma Elish that came from Babylon. It relates the materialistic view of the earth's origin starting with a primordial state and pervading all aspects of the universe including life and society. All things have evolved from water under the influence of natural processes or the actions of gods and goddesses. Thus, we see the polytheistic or pantheistic explanation of the universe.

Beneath these systems is the belief that order came from chaos and eternal matter. In Scripture the creation began with God who created the mass-time-space continuum and then water; with evolution water came first.

Two predominant schools dominated Greek philosophy: Milesian and Socratic. Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes represent the sixth century B.C. Milesian thought, and Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle represent the fifth century B.C. Socratic view. The Milesian view was materialistic and was expressed as the atomist school; it continued up to the Roman period. On the other hand, the Socratic view held there was a First Cause but the world never had a beginning and life arose spontaneously.

Greek philosophy was also intermixed with Christian thought such that compromises were made to accommodate Scripture to intellectual pressure. Although the biblical cosmology prevailed for some time after Christ, evolutionism in its various forms survived the ages. Even Christian thought was laced with evolutionary components as found in the writings of St. Gregory (AD 331 - 396), St. Basil (AD 331 - 379), St. Augustine (AD 353 - 430), and St. Thomas Aquinas (AD 1225 - 1274). The pagan cosmologies remained alive and in use between the time of Aristotle and the Renaissance (A.D. 1300 - 1500). These were experienced as philosophical pantheism, popular polytheism, and occult supernaturalism. All are evolution-based and contrary to biblical Christianity with its recent creation ex nihilo.

Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (1731 - 1802), had put forth many of the salient points of evolution in his day. And others such as Wells, Pritchard, and Laurence wrote on natural selection in 1813. So for Charles to claim these ideas were "my theory" was quite presumptuous. Even Lamarck (1744 - 1829) had presented a well-developed theory of evolution by acquired characteristics (1809); Darwin used some of Lamarck's ideas in the "Origins" book. Also the phrase of "survival of the fittest" was first stated by Herbert Spencer (1864), a contemporary of Darwin.