God’s Personal Provision For His Creatures And “Adaptation”

Author: Pastor Paul Bartz

Note: Creation Moments exists to provide Biblically sound materials to the Church in the area of Bible and science relationships. This Bible study may be reproduced for group use.

God’s personal care of all His creatures as individuals stems from the fact that He is all knowing and all-powerful and it is His nature to love. So, because He is all knowing, He provided all living things with a built-in set of genetic ranges in order to help each kind of creature cope with changing conditions. But as both Scripture and breeding experience shows, the different features which may become evident in creatures from generation to generation have very set limits. For example, there is no crossing of the barrier between kinds.

1. Read Genesis 2:1-2. Now compare this with Exodus 20:11. Was there anything more to create after the sixth day of creation?

Is it reasonable to conclude that Scripture makes very clear that the variations noted in the genetic codes of the various kinds of creatures had already been created by the end of the sixth day?

How does this Scriptural claim contradict evolutionary claims? Experience supports the Scriptural claims, since no new helpful genetic information has ever been observed to develop spontaneously – something which must happen countless times for evolution to be valid.

2. Read Genesis 8:17. Just as God told people to expand over the earth, so He gave animals the same command. He also knew that in many cases this would mean that growing populations would all be competing for the same food in the limited situation provided by an island situation like the Galapagos. So, in His wisdom, He provided creatures like these finches with the genetic range that would enable them to fulfill their needs for food without harm to the others.

But when had God created this provision, according to Scripture? This principle is referred to as God’s on-going provision for His creatures. Note that God’s preservation is not part of a “continuing creation” act, but works on a separate set of principles from His act of creation. Note also that preservation depends on principles and abilities that were established at the creation.

3. While they may seem basic, it is essential that we understand these biblically established principles if we are going to understand what is often called “adaptation.” Read Genesis 1:21. What did God create on this day? How is His work evaluated?

Of course, by God’s standards, “very good” means perfect and complete. Is the principle of “after their kind,” included as part of this perfection and completeness, according to this verse?

So, at the end of the fifth day there is nothing new, among birds and sea creatures, to be created. By the same token, all that had been already completed was not evident. For example, there would be no new kinds, but all the characteristics of a kind were not evident to the eye in the then-living representatives of the kind (although it was in the genes).

4. When we understand how God personally cares for each individual creature, and that He does so on the basis of His perfect knowledge of the future from before the creation, evolutionary arguments about “adaptation” lose their force. Arguments that God created using evolution become nonsense when we see how He actually works in the world, and how what we see compares with Scripture.

When our thinking gives God the glory and honor that He deserves, we can speak easily of His continued preservation of His creation that is based on what He created in the first six days. But His personal care of even the most unimportant (to us) creatures should underscore for us His personal care and love for each of us.

5. There is no child too small whose concern is not also a concern of the Heavenly Father. And God invites each of us to learn to see Him as our loving, personal, concerned Heavenly Father. It was for this reason that He sent His only Son to save us from the consequences of our own sin and rescue us from the corruption that is in the world. Each of us can say, in Christ “Nothing can separate me from His deep personal concern for me and my life!”

Footnotes:
1989 Bible Science Newsletter.