The Ark Could Preserve the World’s Life

Today’s Reading:

• Genesis 7:1-10:5
• 1 Chronicles 1:5-7
• Genesis 10:6-20
• 1 Chronicles 1:8-16
• Genesis 10:21-30
• 1 Chronicles 1:17-23
• Genesis 10:31-32

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood. – Genesis 7:2-3, NLT

Thoughts:
When you think of all the varieties of life forms that exist, and then imagine trying to fit a pair of each species (seven pairs of some of them) onto one boat, it seems impossible. But could it have been do-able?

After reading some thoughts on this from an article on the Answers in Genesis website (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/two-of-every-kind#fnList_1_10), I have enough clarity to at least be able to give you one scientist’s (Todd Charles Wood, Ph.D.) explanation of how it was possible. It does require me to eat a little bit of humble pie as I admit that in my very first post of the year I was using scientific terminology (species) imprecisely, and should probably have gone up the biological classification system two steps to the “family” level to argue my case about plants and animals reproducing their own kinds. So, that done, let’s look at this Wood’s ideas.

What Wood does is return to the idea that we have already examined, the Bible’s declaration that God created life to reproduce itself within created kinds. He also returns to the notion that mutations and variations exist within various created kinds of life, as also agreed to above. And Wood, a published biochemist, has done about a decade of preliminary biological research whose results are beginning to show a pattern. He suggests that, when the Bible describes God creating life forms to reproduce their own kinds, those “kinds” correspond to what biology now calls “families.”

For instance, the coyote, wolf, jackal, dog and fox all share the Canidae family name. So without arguing for evolution in the sense that all today’s dog varieties spring from a common single-cell organism which itself sprung from non-life at some point way back in history, Wood argues that varieties within biological families probably came from a micro-evolutionary process following the flood. He says it would not have been necessary for Noah to have two dogs, two wolves, two foxes, etc., on the ark with him, but just to have had one pair of Canidae. If Noah’s ark simply included a pair of animals from each biological family, Wood says that as few as 2,000 individual animals may have been on the ark, probably a few more than that. And for that number of animals, he claims that “there would have been plenty of room to house these and their food, plus Noah and his family.”

This is not a new idea. In his article, Wood records that as far back as 1559, 1675, and 1668, scholars were arguing the same kind of thing. Humans have understood the concept of micro-evolution for a long time, far prior to Darwin’s claim that the process of evolution could be responsible for life itself.

I know that I have only addressed one challenge to believing that the story of Noah’s ark is factual. Other challenges include the concept of a global flood and the length of time that Noah and his ancestors lived (which would be required if one man like Noah was going to have time to build a massive boat). Also, to believe the story of Noah’s ark requires being willing to believe that God exists and cares enough about His creation to be concerned with whether men are living morally or immorally and to intervene through both a flood and an ark. Thankfully, there are plenty more people who are writing and have written volumes and volumes of books helping anyone who is willing to read them to understand why faith in these things can be and is reasonable.

I’ve only had time to re-explain an argument that shows how the ark could preserve the world’s life. This modern look at the story of Noah’s ark is one of the reasons that I can believe the Bible. I’m well aware that there are plenty of stories that don’t even try to appeal to the laws of the natural world, though, stories of God’s miracles. And yes, I still have reasons for believing them, even if scientists can’t help me out the way they can with the Flood. We’ll get there. But for now, part of the reason that I can believe the Bible is that stories like this can still be understood through modern science. To be a Christian does not require me to ignore my experience of the world around me.

For an overview of this year’s blog, please see http://threequartertank.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-do-believers-believe.html.

Why Creationism? Why Not Evolution?

Today’s Reading:
• Genesis 1:1-3:24

Faith-Stretching Verse(s):

• The land produced vegetation—all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. – Gen. 1:12, NLT
• So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird—each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. – Gen. 1:21, NLT
• God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. – Gen. 1:25, NLT
  

Thoughts:
In Hebrews (I’m jumping ahead, I know) we’re told that it’s by faith that we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command so that what is seen was not made out of visible matter. That was true around 2,000 years ago when Hebrews was written and it’s still true today; creationism has always been a faith-based understanding of our origins.

But I’ve always loved science, especially biology. And one of the questions that scientists seek to answer is the question of where all us living beings came from—the question of origins. Modern science has some pretty amazing tools at its disposal, tools that help us to observe our world in more detail than ever before and, we hope, to therefore to understand it better. And modern science has been largely developed around the theory of evolution—the theory that life as we know it developed and mutated over millions of years from life as it once was, that organisms which exist today have not existed since the earth’s formation.

So why would a science-loving, reason-based, intellectual (at least intellectual wannabe) like me believe that the world’s life forms were created rather than that they evolved?

Faith. Reasonable faith. Genesis, like all Scripture, claims to be authored by God. Written through men (in this case, Moses, for instance), but authored by God. And one of the counter-evolution notions in the verses above (besides the idea that God made the things mentioned) is the notion that God created plants and animals to reproduce themselves rather than to produce new types of creatures.

It’s a claim that seems trustworthy. For one thing, I see exactly this sort of thing going on today. I see pine trees bearing pine cones which lead to more pine trees, guppies reproducing guppies, rabbits reproducing rabbits, etc. Are there variations within these species? Yes. Mutations? Yes. Microevolution? Yes. It’s observable. But microevolution does not oppose the Bible’s account of creation; it fits this biblical teaching that species reproduce themselves.

‘What about the fossil records?’ someone might ask. After all, there used to be other species alive, species similar to today’s species, but that no longer exist today. Didn’t today’s life forms come from at least some of these now-extinct species? Similarities make it seem possible. The fossil records supposedly support the theory of evolution.

Fossils are observable. But they also need to be interpreted. And they do not require an interpretation that favors evolutionary theory. They can be interpreted to support creationism. For instance, as a creationist I happen to agree that there used to be many species alive that are not alive today. Extinction is still occurring. According to http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct/lists/mostrecent.htm (today, Jan. 1, 2011) at least six species have become extinct since the year 2000. And yet no one claims that any new species have arisen from any of these recently extinguished gene pools. Their similarities to other creatures are documented and can be used to speculate on what their evolutionary history could have looked like. But the fact is that none of them can be proved to have come from any other species. To come to this conclusion requires an interpretation of the observable data. And interpretations can be wrong.

So we have two interpretations of the data that I think are worth considering. One interpretation says that life has evolved over time and that current species arose from prior species. This interpretation agrees that species generally reproduce themselves; it simply argues that, over time, mutations and variations can and do lead to new species. And the other interpretation says that the reason we observe species reproducing themselves is because that is precisely how God created the world to work.

Which one’s right? Which one’s wrong? Do I go with the interpretations of mortal men like me who have previously unimaginable capacities to observe life’s structures and whose interpretations have the support and trust (faith) of most of the scientific community? Or do I go with the interpretations that are scorned by most of the scientific community but that claim to come from God? Either way, I have to trust someone.

Here’s why I choose creationism: I trust God. God exists. I know that I can’t prove to everyone that He exists, but I am personally convinced that He does (and possibly at some point this year, I’ll talk a bit about my reasons for this). The God who exists has an advantage over every single one of today’s scientists—and not just today’s, but history’s. He observed what we can’t observe. Science begins with observation. So if I’m going to choose to trust in a scientific theory, and one scientist’s theory is based on fewer observations than the other’s, I’m going to trust the scientist who has observed more so long as his theory can still fit with the data.

In this case, that scientist is God. What He teaches about creation (not that the Bible was written to be a scientific manual) fits today’s observable data just as well as the evolutionary theory, or better. It simply offers a different interpretation. But that interpretation is based on God’s own observations and experience of history.

So I follow the theory of creationism because it fits the data I can observe today while evolution seems to oppose it (teaching species arising from other species) and because it follows the interpretation of the One who has experienced and observed more than any human scientist. It seems reasonable to me to trust Him. How about you?