The Miracle of Photosynthesis

All green plants, some algae, and even some bacteria are able to make food out of nothing more than air, water, light and a few minerals. The process is called photosynthesis, and without it we would run out of food to eat as well as oxygen to breathe.

The green plant takes in the carbon dioxide that we and the animals exhale as waste and some water and, through photosynthesis, produces oxygen and a carbohydrate, and returns three fourths of the water it originally took in for future use. Chemically what happens is that the carbon atom in the carbon dioxide is removed from the oxygen and added to one water molecule, creating a carbohydrate, which is useful to us as food. While this all sounds simple, a more detailed summary of what happens each step of the way would fill a whole page with fine print.

Evolutionists marvel at the great good luck involved in the fact that plants make useful things for us out of our waste products. We have grown in our appreciation of photosynthesis because scientists have tried to mimic the process in order to build a new kind of solar cell for use in space. While the plant converts nearly 100% of the light it receives into energy, our best human efforts have reached only 8% efficiency.

So, creationists ask, if the best human minds have produced only an 8% efficiency after years of work, how could no mind at all come up with nearly 100% efficiency – no matter how much time was involved?

Genesis 1:30
“And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.”

Prayer:
Lord, if it were up to us to design our own world, the result would have been a hopeless mess which would have destroyed itself. Help people see the foolishness of thinking that no one at all made the world; help them see the excellence of Your saving love to us. Amen.

Image: Ivy on trellis. Courtesy of R.J. Michaud