The Battle Over Origins: Is It Worth the Fight? Part 4

Affirmation Outside of Genesis of Its Literal Interpretation

In the giving of the Ten Commandments, God affirmed a literal interpretation of the days of Genesis when He communicated the law of keeping the Sabbath holy. In Exodus 20:11, we read the following:

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. (KJV)

The very foundation of our seven day week is based on the time that God took during the days of creation. If the days of creation are not literal, then we do not have a basis for the week that we have now and even more than that, we do not have a basis for following the fourth commandment of keeping the Sabbath holy. To put this problem another way, if the days of creation are just figurative or indefinite periods of time, then how can we be sure that the days that are being referenced in Exodus for working six days and resting one are literal- especially in light of the fact that the Bible itself ties the pattern for our week together with the pattern established during the first week of the earth’s history?


The Importance of Creating “After his kind”

As we read through Genesis 1, we see another important phrase repeated in the text—which is, that God created things after their own kind. In fact, the words “after their kind” or “after his kind” appear 10 times in the creation account given in the first chapter of Genesis.

Let’s look at some of the verses in which we find these words.

In verse 12, we read: “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.” (KJV)

Verse 21 states: “And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind:” (KJV)

This phrase has significant implications to how we view the world that God has made.
First, this phrase indicates that God created unique plants and animals separate and distinct from one another. Second, this phrase (coupled with the context of God’s blessing and command to multiply) contains the idea that the kinds that God brought into existence were to reproduce after their own kinds to fill the earth. This Biblical account of how God created all living things differs greatly from the theory of Darwinian evolution which proposes that there is a common ancestor for all of life.

One of the arguments that is used to justify that evolution is consistent with the world that we observe around us is the fact that things change. We do see change in plants through processes such as hybridization and in animals through environmental adaptations and natural selection. However, these changes are not evolution and pose no inconsistency with the Bible’s history given in the pages of Genesis.

Change in and of itself is not evolution and the hypothesis that a series of mutations (or changes in the genetic structure) can lead to the formation of one kind into another kind is simply not borne out in actual observational science. In order for evolution to have occurred from the simpler to the more complex forms of life, two keys would be required: first, a progressive increasing of information leading to the gain of new functions and second, many transitional forms between two unique and distinct kinds. However, in actual observation there is NO known process that increases functional genetic information and information does not come from matter itself. Every single instance of information that we are aware has come from intelligence. With the discovery of DNA, the information that is present in just a single strand of human DNA is incredible— calculated to be the equivalent of 1,000 books of small print, each around 500 pages thick. The incredible amount of information present in the DNA of a person indicates that abundant increases in new information would be required to be commonplace for evolution to have occurred—yet we have observed none.

In addition to the problems with the origin and increase in information that evolution cannot explain, there is also the scientific observation about mutations themselves. Mutations are genetic copying mistakes and result in a loss or a change in existing information. These mistakes are almost always harmful to the creature having experienced them. Thus, we have no scientific basis for mutations serving as the catalyst to bring forth new types of life forms.

The fossil record also presents many difficulties to the evolutionary model. If evolution had been occurring in past history over the supposed millions of years, then the fossil record should be replete with examples of transitional life forms from one kind to another. However, such is not the case as there are NONE for which a solid, watertight argument can be made.

These examples of the problems with the evolutionary claims illustrate that the debate over the origin of the earth and of life, as identified earlier, is not science vs. religion- but instead one religion against another. On the one hand is the belief in the Lord God Almighty as the Maker of heaven and earth and on the other hand is the atheistic belief that all that we see came about by natural processes without any need for supernatural intervention.