Did God Use Evolution to Create Everything?
The Bible says in the very first verse of the very first chapter that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Some Christians have thought that maybe God used evolution and millions of years to create everything in the universe, but as you will see in this issue of CCK, that is simply not true. The Bible not only tells us that God did create the universe, it also tells us how He created it and about how long ago He created it.
As Christians, we know that the universe was created about 6,000 years old based on genealogies found in the Bible. Genealogies are family history facts – who your parents are, and who their parents are . . .all the way back to Adam and Eve!
Drawn by Eliza Haley, 2012.
Order of Creation vs. Order of Evolution
Genesis 1 tells us all about the order of creation and that order does not line up at all with the order of evolution. God created the earth before other planets, moons, the stars, or even the sun. On the other hand, evolutionists say that stars and the sun came long before the earth. Genesis 1:2 says that the earth was covered in water originally, but evolutionists say that the earth started out as a fiery mass. God created birds before He created reptiles (lizards, snakes, and even dinosaurs!). Evolutionists say that birds evolved from reptiles. How could birds have evolved from reptiles if reptiles were not created yet? They couldn’t have! A person cannot logically believe in both the Bible and evolution.
Exploring!
Do you enjoy exploring your back yard or park? Or maybe you like finding rocks, feathers, flowers, bugs, or toads? There are all sorts of amazing things to see throughout God’s incredible creation! This may sound a little bit funny, but exploring the world around us is actually part of God’s first command to people, the dominion mandate. In Genesis 1:28 God commanded Adam and Eve to “have dominion” over the earth and every living thing. Because God created people in His image, more special than any animal or even the largest galaxy we should learn about and explore the world around us to take care of it and be in charge of it (but under God) just like He commanded.
All Things Good?
You have probably heard before that when God created the universe, He said that His creation was very good. But, in your exploring, you have probably seen a bird egg that fell from its nest, killing the baby bird inside, or possibly fossils (which are basically the remains of a once-living animal). How can the perfect, loving God that the Bible talks about call animals and people dying good? If so, how can we trust Him when He says that Heaven is good? The truth of the matter is that we live in a fallen, sinful world. God originally created everything good, but when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, everything changed.
Fallen, But Beautiful
As the warmth of the sun reaches the early morning grass, still wet with dew, water begins to evaporate and transpire. Since warm air rises, the air at the surface that has a lot of vapor in it rises high in the sky, until it cools down and the water vapor turns back into droplets of water, and condenses into clouds. As more warm and moist air goes up to the clouds, they grow into incredible, towering cumulonimbus (pronounced “Cume-you-low-nim-bus”) clouds. This is how a thunderstorm forms. Thunderstorms can be scary and dangerous, because we live in a fallen world, but they are also beautiful and magnificent, giving plants and animals the water they need to survive.
Evaporation & Transpiration: Evaporation is when water droplets turn into water vapor due to heating. The steam that forms above a pot of boiling water is an example of evaporation. Transpiration is the evaporation of what is basically plant sweat
Evolution & Death
Back to the original question: Did God use evolution to create the universe? I have already mentioned how the order of creation in Genesis does not line up with the order of evolution, but there is a much bigger reason why God could not have used evolution. Evolution requires suffering and death to weed out the “unfit” and allow the “fit” ones to survive. Death is bad, and God, who cannot lie, called His creation good before Adam and Eve sinned. That means that if God had used evolution Adam and Eve would have had to sin before any evolution could happen and yet they could not have sinned before any evolution could happen (which it never really could) because they would not have evolved yet! Do you see the problem here? God could not have used evolution to create the universe.
Thoughts From Readers
CCK is written by Sara J. Bruegel. If you have a question or comment, please write to Sara at: CreationCluesForKids@gmail.com and it may get published in the next issue. Also, you can visit www.CreationClues.com to read a new clue each week or read past issues of CCK. Cartoon drawn by Eliza Haley.How old is the earth? ~ Jonah P. age 9
Answer: Jonah, the earth is only a few days older than the rest of the universe, which is about 6,000 years old. This is one of the problems we have if we try to fit evolution into the Bible; we know from the genealogies in the Bible that the earth is only about 6,000 years old, but evolution tells us that the earth is 4.54 billion years old. Evolutionists say that the earth is that old because of the many layers of rock and incredible canyons we find. However, we know that under extreme conditions, these rocks and canyons form very quickly. Always remember that we should trust God rather than imperfect people!
Originally Published July-September 2012. Updated 2014. Copyright Sara J. Bruegel.