Many scientists insist that there is no God. How, then, do they explain the wonders of creation, including humankind? They attribute such marvels to evolution, a blind force based on chance. For example, evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould wrote: “We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures . . . We may yearn for a ‘higher’ answer—but none exists. ” Similarly, Richard E. Leakey and Roger Lewin wrote: “Perhaps the human species is just a ghastly biological blunder. ” Even some scientists who praise the beauty and design in nature fail to give credit to God.
When learned individuals assert that evolution is a fact, they imply that only the ignorant refuse to believe it. How do many react to such an assertion? Some years ago, a man well-versed in evolution interviewed people who accepted the theory. He said: “I discovered that most believers of evolution are believers because they have been told that all intelligent people are believers. ” Yes, when educated individuals express their atheistic views, others are dissuaded from giving God the credit he deserves as the Creator. We see evidence of God in the starry heavens.
“The heavens are declaring the glory of God,” says Psalm 19:1. “The heavens”—the sun, moon, and stars—testify to God’s power and wisdom. The sheer number of stars fills us with awe. And all these heavenly bodies move through space, not aimlessly, but according to precise physical laws. (Isaiah 40:26) Is it reasonable to attribute such order to blind chance? Significantly, many scientists say that the universe had a sudden beginning. Explaining the implications of this, one professor wrote: “A universe that eternally existed is much more congenial to an atheistic or agnostic [view].
By the same token, a universe that began seems to demand a first cause; for who could imagine such an effect without a sufficient cause? ” We also see on the earth evidence of God. The psalmist exclaimed: “How many your works are, O God! All of them in wisdom you have made. The earth is full of your productions. ” (Psalm 104:24) God’s “productions,” including the animal creation, bespeak his wisdom. As we noted at the outset, the design of living things is such that scientists often seek to mimic it. Consider a few other examples.
Researchers are studying antlers, with the goal of building stronger helmets; they are looking at a species of fly that has acute hearing, with a view toward improving hearing aids; and they are examining the wing feathers of owls, with the idea of improving stealth airplanes. But try as he will, man cannot truly duplicate the perfect originals found in nature. Notes the book Biomimicry—Innovation Inspired by Nature: “Living things have done everything we want to do, without guzzling fossil fuel, polluting the planet, or mortgaging their future.
” 2. Next, describe three Biblical examples of how God manifested His characteristics to people through the physical world. Use about 900 words (about 300 words for each of the three examples). In the ancient world, the wisdom of Solomon was unparalleled. Much of that wisdom concerned God’s creation: “[Solomon] would speak about the trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that is coming forth on the wall; and he would speak about the beasts and about the flying creatures and about the moving things and about the fishes.
” (1 Kings 4:33) It was this same King Solomon who wrote: “Go to the ant, you lazy one; see its ways and become wise. Although it has no commander, officer or ruler, it prepares its food even in the summer; it has gathered its food supplies even in the harvest. ”—Proverbs 6:6-8. Who taught the ants to store food in summer to see them through the cold of winter? For centuries the accuracy of Solomon’s account of these ants that harvested seeds and stored them for use in winter was doubted. No one had found any evidence of their existence.
In 1871, however, a British naturalist discovered their underground granaries, and the Bible’s accuracy in reporting on them was vindicated. But how did these ants acquire the foresight to know in summer that winter’s cold lay ahead and the wisdom to know what to do about it? The Bible itself explains that many of God’s creations have a wisdom programmed into them for their survival. The harvester ants are recipients of this blessing from their Creator. Proverbs 30:24 speaks of it: “They are instinctively wise.
” To say that such wisdom could just happen by chance is unreasonable; to fail to perceive a wise Creator behind it is inexcusable. A man at the foot of a giant sequoia tree, amazed at its massive grandeur, understandably feels like a small ant. The tree’s size is awesome: 300 feet [90 m] tall, 36 feet [11 m] in diameter, bark 2 feet [0. 6 m] thick, roots spreading out over three or four acres [1. 2 to 1. 6 ha]. Yet, far more awesome is the chemistry and physics involved in its growth.
Its leaves take water from the roots, carbon dioxide from the air, and energy from the sun to manufacture sugars and give off oxygen—a process called photosynthesis that involves some 70 chemical reactions, not all of which are understood. Amazingly, the first reaction depends upon light from the sun that is just the right color, the right wavelength; otherwise it would not be absorbed by the chlorophyll molecules to initiate the process of photosynthesis. Also amazing is the fact that the tree can draw up columns of water from the roots to the top of this 300-foot-high [90 m] colossus.
Much more water is drawn up than is needed for photosynthesis. The excess is given off through the leaves by transpiration into the air. It makes the tree water-cooled, somewhat like our being cooled by perspiration. To form protein for growth, nitrogen needs to be added to the sugars, or carbohydrates. The leaf cannot use gaseous nitrogen taken from the air, but soil organisms can turn the gaseous nitrogen in the earth into nitrates and nitrites soluble in water, which then travel from the roots up to the leaves.
When plants and animals that have used this nitrogen in their proteins die and decompose, the nitrogen is released, completing the nitrogen cycle. In all of this, the complexity involved is staggering, hardly a task for chance to perform. What an awesome reflection of the Creator it is that comes from a star-packed night sky that fills viewers with reverence! At Psalm 8:3, 4, David expressed the awe he felt: “When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have prepared, what is mortal man that you keep him in mind, and the son of earthling man that you take care of him?
” To those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to feel, these starry heavens speak, as they did to David: “The heavens are declaring the glory of God. ”—Psalm 19:1-4. The more we know about stars, the louder they speak to us. At Isaiah 40:26, we are invited to note their tremendous energy: “Raise your eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one of them is missing.
” The force of gravity and the dynamic energy of one of them, our sun, hold the earth in place in its orbit, make plants grow, keep us warm, and make all life possible here on the earth. The apostle Paul under inspiration said: “Star differs from star in glory. ” (1 Corinthians 15:41) Science knows of yellow stars like our sun, also blue stars, red giants, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and exploding supernovas that unleash incomprehensible power. Many inventors have learned from creation and have attempted to copy the abilities of living creatures. (Job 12:7-10) Note just a few outstanding aspects of creation.
Seabirds with glands that desalt seawater; fish and eels that generate electricity; fish, worms, and insects that produce cold light; bats and dolphins that use sonar; wasps that make paper; ants that build bridges; beavers that build dams; snakes that have built-in thermometers; pond insects that use snorkels and diving bells; octopuses that use jet propulsion; spiders that make seven kinds of webs and make trapdoors, nets, and lassos and that have babies who are balloonists, traveling thousands of miles [kilometers] at great heights; fish and crustaceans that use flotation tanks like submarines; and birds, insects, sea turtles, fish, and mammals that perform amazing feats of migration—abilities beyond science’s power to explain. The Bible recorded scientific truths thousands of years before science knew of them. The Mosaic Law (16th century B. C. E. ) reflected awareness of disease germs thousands of years before Pasteur. (Leviticus, chapters 13, 14) In the 17th century B. C. E. , Job stated: “He is . . . hanging the earth upon nothing.
” (Job 26:7) A thousand years before Christ, Solomon wrote about the circulation of the blood; medical science had to wait until the 17th century to learn about it. (Ecclesiastes 12:6) Before that, Psalm 139:16 reflected knowledge of the genetic code: “Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing, as regards the days when they were formed and there was not yet one among them. ” In the 7th century B. C. E. , before naturalists understood about migration, Jeremiah wrote, as recorded at Jeremiah 8:7: “The stork in the sky knows the time to migrate, the dove and the swift and the wryneck know the season of return. ”—NE.