Theistic evolution and progressive creation are two different views that try to combine evolution and creation into something that pleases both sides of the evolution vs. creationism debate. Theistic evolution says that God, in a sense, created evolution by designing a few creatures and giving them the ability to evolve into better versions of themselves. Progressive creationism, on the other hand, teaches that God didn’t create all the required creatures at the same time, but instead created them over time to fill in gaps that the evolution of the other creatures left.
Theistic evolution, which is arguably the better of the two, paints a picture of a God who favored natural selection as a means of bettering the creation that He imperfectly designed in hopes to “see what happens.” The things God created were required to fight each other in order to secure the survival of the fittest and the betterment of nature. This doesn’t seem to match with God’s loving character and His description of His creation as “good” and pleasing. After all, why would a loving God promote the killing of the weak in order to promote the power of the strong.
Progressive creation takes theistic evolution and changes the timeline of the creatures that God created. Instead of creating everything at once and letting evolution further the complexities, God instead chose to create things here and there whenever He felt like intervening and designing a new creature. In essence, progressive creation is saying that God created a handful of things, watched them evolve and fit for dominance, and created a few more things to “fill in gaps” or out of boredom. Consequently, God goes from a loving and wise Creator to a confused and bored fool who has to jump in to redirect His creation whenever it begins to go downhill.