Some comments on the creation week: Day 3

A while back, I taught a short series on creation for my Sunday school class. It was supposed to last for the summer and I had planned on covering several topics like the role of creation in evangelism, various ways some Christians reinterpret Genesis in order to fit it with popular scientific theories, and how to answer some of the more common objections people raise against creation. One lesson I had planned was to cover the days of the creation week, giving a short description on what happened each day. However, there were so many questions asked and such interest shown that the single lesson I had planned ended up being stretched over 5 lessons.

It was during that time that I realized that, even though the language of Genesis 1 is straightforward and easy to read, many Christians don't stop to consider the full impact of what is happening on each day – not so much from a spiritual perspective but rather from a physical one. To that end, I thought it would be worthwhile to have a short series of posts, each covering one day of the creation week. This isn't meant to be a treaty on the subject. Instead, I hope to simply open a few eyes to the realization that what is being described were real events that literally shaped the world. Even so, the posts will be a little longer than usual.  I apologize in advance and only say that I will do my best to make them worth the while to read.

In this post, we’ll be looking at the events of Day 3.

Genesis 1:9-13, And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

The creative acts of this day can be divided into two major categories: the creation of the dry land and the creation of vegetation. A lot could be said about each category, though, so we'll break it down verse by verse.

v. 9a, And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,

One interesting - and rather glaring - detail mentioned in this verse is that all the waters were “gathered unto one place.” Such wording strongly suggests there was initially only one ocean and, therefore, could only be one continent. Modern scientists, of course, have recently come to this same conclusion via scientific inquiry. In the 1920s, scientists began to suggest all the modern continents were once joined in a single super-continent dubbed, Pangea. More recent theories speculate there may have also been other super-continents.

Of course, the Bible does not need to be affirmed by science. Indeed, I feel the opposite is true – the clear wording of the Bible seems to affirm that the scientific theory of Pangea is correct. At the initial creation, there was a single continent.

What is not clear from the text is the initial ratio of land to sea. If I consider only the text and nothing else, I would probably guess that it was about 50/50. When I further consider that God intended the land to be man's domain and that He wanted the earth filled with people, I might then suggest there was probably more land than sea. After the Flood, when subterranean waters had been released, we are left with the present ratio of mostly water. The oft repeated criticism of “where did the flood water go” is a canard; it's still here.

v. 9b, and let the dry land appear

We're not sure exactly how the land “appeared.” There seems to be a sense of the land rising and the water running off it into the one place. Alternatively, God could have miraculously parted the water and created the dry land in the gap. If the land has risen out of the sea, we might even see signs of erosion as the waters rolled off and were gathered together.

This would have been the primordial earth. Since there has not been any living thing before this point, there cannot be any fossils found in the rocks. Later though, it may have happened that burrowing insects and other creatures were trapped in this rock and became fossilized.

v. 10, And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

We may take note  that God did not pronounce the division of the waters to be “good” at the end of Day two. However, the phrase “it was good” is used twice on Day 3. What conclusions might we draw from this?  Perhaps that could mean that the division of the waters and creation of the air (Day 2) and the creation of the land (Day 3) were sort of a single continuous act that lasted all of Day 2 and just now ended on Day 3. It's just a thought.

Old earth creationists should take note that the Bible clearly states the sea existed first and land was created afterward. This is directly the opposite of secular theories on the creation of the earth which says the earth was initially a hot rock and oceans came later.

v. 11, And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

Here God creates plant life. From the text, there seems to be three classifications of plants which are distinguished by the seed:

1. Grass. The seed is not mentioned here because the seed is not obvious. This group probably includes flowers as well.

2. Herbs, where the seed is obvious as in wheat or corn.

3. Trees, which yield fruit which carries the seed in itself.

Certainly this single sentence is not intended to be a scientific treaty on the classification of every type of plant. Something like grapes, for example, aren't trees but do yield fruit whose seed is in itself. Instead, it's likely intended to be a broad generalization that says God created all kinds of plants.

One thing not mentioned here is marine plants. Did God create those here or on Day 5 with the other marine life? Also, what about things like mushrooms? I believe the wording of the text is such that it could include all non-animal, terrestrial creatures. Personally, I would include marine plants as being created on Day 5.

v. 12, And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

The plants seem to appear out of the ground at God's command – not as sprouts but as fully mature plants already yielding seed and ready to be eaten. We will see later that God intends all His living creatures to eat only plants.

We also see in this passage the introduction of the term “kind.” The herb and tree, for example, yield seeds “after their kind.” This is an important concept in creationism. Creatures are grouped not according to their “species” (a man made classification) but belong to created kinds. They also reproduce according to their kind. There may be many kinds of apple trees (red delicious, golden delicious, gala, granny smith, etc) but an apple tree will never produce bananas. There are variations within the kind (we call these “species”) but creatures only reproduce their own kind.

v. 13, And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Old earth creationists should again take note. Plants can survive overnight in the dark (it happens every day). It's difficult to believe, though, that vegetation can prosper millions of years without bright sunlight if the days represent long ages (the sun isn't created till Day 4). How could the plants have survived millions of years waiting for bees and birds to come along and aid in pollination?  Remember, flying creatures aren’t created until Day 5.

Attempts to reconcile Genesis with secular theories of origin are seldom successful.  To say each day of the creation represents an “era” or “age” in a billions-of-years long history of the world is grossly simplistic.  Such explanations usually rely on vagaries about how the days of creation could loosely describe the earth’s history as imagined by secular science.  It’s when one attempts to definitively match the text of Genesis with the “real” events of history alleged by evolutionists, that the comparison completely falls apart.  

The events described here occurred in a single evening and morning - an ordinary day.  No mental gymnastics or questionable hermeneutics are needed.

Were there koalas on the Ark?

I recently wrote an article about how some critics attack the Flood event with arguments like, “There's no way Noah could care for that many animals.” This is a textbook example of an appeal to ignorance fallacy. That is, “I don't know how this could be done, therefore, it can't be done.” I shared the article on FakeBook where a troll by the name of Charles [allegedly a Christian] took exception to it. Actually, he barely addressed my point and quickly went off the rails with insults and red herrings. Such is the habit of trolls.

Proverbs 26:4 says, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.” In other words, don't fall for a troll's trap and chase his red herrings. Instead I followed the advice of Proverbs 26:5, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.” I pointed out that he wasn't addressing my point and tried to move the discussion back on track. Of course, he would have none of it and continued his foolish rant, which ultimately led to him spouting this little gem:

I wonder, sometimes, what gives trolls their thrill. Do they think they're really making good points? Or is the fun just spouting nonsense, hoping to get a reaction from people? //RKBentley scratches his head.// Any way, I've heard this point before. In fact, I've heard it many times before. More than 10 years ago, in an apologetics forum I used to frequent, a skeptic named LeszekUK made almost exactly the same point:

Here is a puzzle for the Creos. (It works for pandas and bamboo, as well!) Koalas eat only eucalyptus leaves yet the myth of Noah's Ark claims that all the animals came on board, two by two, male and female... So how did these koalas manage to make it across continents and oceans, all the way from Australia to the Middle East, when all their food stayed in Australia? Aside from the problem of how one koala pair knew they had to make it to the Ark, how did they manage to make the crossing? Swimming and starving? Did Noah travel to Australia first to gather up eucalyptus leaves? Even worse for Creos, when the Ark came to rest on Mt Ararat, once all the vegetation had been drowned, how, exactly, did they make it back whence they came?

Wow! Are they reading from the same playbook or something? I sometimes wonder if critics ever have an original thought. They seem to simply repeat the same criticisms over and over again, ignoring any rebuttal they might hear. See canard. The problems with this argument are varied and I'm going to try to address each one in order.

First, it's a misnomer that koalas only eat eucalyptus leaves. One source says, “Different species of eucalypts grow in different parts of Australia, so a koala in Victoria would have a very different diet from one in Queensland. Koalas like a change, too, and sometimes they will eat from other trees such as wattle or tea tree.” This isn't a trivial point. LeszekUK's argument hinges on the premise that koalas eat only eucalyptus leaves. If they can, in fact, eat other things, it immediately undermine his whole point. Note that LeszekUK also said, It works for pandas and bamboo, as well! I intend to leverage that in a moment.

Second, the present distribution of animals throughout the world is merely that – their present distribution. We can't say with certainty where koalas lived prior to Flood. Marsupial fossils are found on every continent, by the way. But here's an obvious factoid that seems to have gone completely over the heads of Charles and LeszekUK: neither do we know where Noah lived prior to the Flood! Why do they assume Koalas had to swim from Australia to the Middle East before the Flood? For all we know, Koalas lived in Noah's backyard eating the leaves of whatever trees grew there!

Next, after the Flood, animals didn't have to make it back [to] whence they came. The fact of the matter is, the environments where they lived before no longer existed. It was a new world and animals had to find new environments to occupy. The only rule was to adapt or die. Keep this in mind while I go back to the point about panda bears.

https://unsplash.com/@tbs44

Bears are a little different than koalas because they are more diverse and us Western folks are more familiar with bears. Pandas eat almost nothing but bamboo. However, we know that their cousins eat a variety of things. Polar bears, for example, almost exclusive eat seals. Black bears eat nearly anything: roots, berries, meat, fish, insects, larvae, and grass. Where Charles and LeszekUK go wrong on this point is that they believe the modern species were exactly the same as the ancestral pairs Noah had on the Ark. He didn't have panda bears on the Ark. He had two representatives of the bear (ursa) kind. Those bears ate whatever bears ate then. When bears left the Ark and made their way across the world, they began to adapt to whatever environment they found themselves. Natural selection did her work and, over many generations, the various species of bears we have now were formed.

Can you see where I'm going with this? Put another way, there were no pandas before the Flood. There were no koalas before the Flood. Noah had the ancestors of these critters and it's foolish to insist that the ancestors had exactly the same environmental/dietary restrictions that their modern descendants have. Jeez!

This criticism is a mile wide and an inch deep. It's a straw man and, when skeptics use it, it merely demonstrates the limited understanding they have of the Flood account. They repeat it because they don't understand it.

Natural selection is the opposite of evolution

People who defend evolution (aka, “evolutionists), often do so by playing word games. I could cite many examples, and I'm sure I will in future posts, but perhaps the most flagrant case of this is how they conflate the terms “evolution” and “natural selection” as though they are the same thing. Here's an example I've used in the past:

Countering the widespread view of evolution as a process played out over the course of eons, evolutionary biologists have shown that natural selection can turn on a dime -- within months -- as a population's needs change. In a study of island lizards exposed to a new predator, the scientists found that natural selection dramatically changed direction over a very short time, within a single generation, favoring first longer and then shorter hind legs. [ScienceDaily, 11/18/2006]

Notice how they change from saying evolution to natural selection in the same sentence! Tsk, Tsk. Because of the careless way these terms are often used, people sometimes become confused about their meanings. What's worse is that textbooks will often times present examples of natural selection as evidence for evolution. In this post, I'm going to explain the key difference between the two.

In the creation account, the Bible says that God created the various plants and animals according to kinds. Genesis 1:24-25 says, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” There is a lot that can be said about biblical kinds, and I'll definitely be addressing the subject many times in the future. For now, though, a kind is basically a group of animals originally created by God that would reproduce together. It roughly (not exactly) resembles the term family used in modern taxonomy. A single kind can include numerous species.

https://unsplash.com/@hannah15198

An example of a kind might be the dog-kind. Animals in the dog-kind would include domestic dogs, wolves, and coyotes. Wolves and coyotes are different species according to biologists but they can breed together and produce fertile offspring – so I'm not sure why they're considered separate species //RKBentley scratches his head//. Anyway, I like to use dogs for illustration because most people are familiar with dogs. Dogs can be large or small, fat or skinny, long or short haired, and come in many different colors and patterns of fur. Using dogs, I'm going to show you how natural selection works.

Natural selection is a blind judge that tests the physical traits of creatures to see how well they are adapted to an environment. Suppose I took a pack of mutts containing dogs of all sorts, then released them into the wild. Natural selection would immediately begin her work. The dogs that lacked the instinct or ability to hunt would quickly starve. In a wooded environment, dogs with brown fur might be better camouflaged which would help them sneak up on prey or hide from larger predators (like pumas or bears). In a snowy environment, lighter colored fur might be more advantageous. Their hair must be long enough to give them warmth and protect them from sun burn yet not so long as to overheat them or harbor disease carrying insects. Their bodies should be large enough for them to overpower prey but not so large as to require more food than is available in that area. Everything about the dogs will be tested: their sense of smell, their eyesight, their hearing, even the shape of their ears. The dogs that have the features best suited for that environment will tend to survive longer and have more pups; the dogs not well suited to that environment will tend to die sooner and have fewer pups. The advantageous features will be begin to take over the population and the features not suitable to that environment will begin to disappear.

Over several generations an interesting thing occurs – the pups will all begin to look alike having similar size, hair length, color, patterns, etc. When all the dogs possess enough traits in common that they can be identified as belonging to the same group, some might call it a new species. Notice what has happened, though: only traits already present in the population could be selected. Unsuitable traits are removed. Favorable traits continue. That's all natural selection can ever do – remove traits unsuited to the environment.

Once a species becomes adapted to an environment, it is less diverse than the ancestral population. What might have happened if I released a pack of Irish Setters into the wild, instead of a motley band of mutts? Well, Irish Setters would tend to only have pups that looked like themselves. Where a pack of mutts might have pups of all different colors, Irish Setters will tend to only have red pups. They are specialized and less able to adapt to new changes in their surroundings. We're beginning to see a problem with evolution. Do you see it yet?

Imagine what would happen if I released my hypothetical mutts into an environment containing lots of blue? There are blue plants, blue reptiles, blue fish, blue insects, and blue birds but there aren't any blue dogs. Having blue fur could be an advantage in a predominately blue environment so let me ask you, how long would it take natural selection to create the color blue among dogs? Don't think too hard because I'm going to tell you: you cannot add colors to a population by continuously removing colors. It doesn't matter how long it continues. “Millions of years” is not some magical formula that turn a frog into a prince or a dog into a blue dog.

For evolution to happen, populations would have to acquire traits. To turn a dinosaur into a bird, you would have to add feathers. To turn a reptile into a mammal, you would have to add hair. Yet according to evolution, the first supposed living thing didn't feathers or hair. Neither did it have scales, skin, bones, blood, or organs of any sort. To turn a molecule into a man would require a billion-years long parade of new features continuously being added generation after generation. For evolution to be possible, animals must acquire new traits.

Do you see the problem now? Evolution requires animals to acquire new traits yet natural selection can only remove traits. Populations can change over time (i.e. a wolf becomes a dog) but populations cannot evolve over time (i.e. a fish becomes a frog). This is why evolutionists want to hold out examples of natural selection and call it evolution. They want to use something that does happen (natural selection) as evidence for something that never happens (evolution). They want you to believe that continuously removing traits can actually add traits.... just give it enough time! That's rubbish. It's poppycock. It's foolishness and we should not give ear to such a lie.

Natural selection is the opposite of evolution!