Hi all,
I promised to cover macro-evolution and micro-evolution at the close of last week’s ‘Thoughts’. It starts with this:
He has to provide the ability to obey
Coming from one mom and dad means Adam and Eve had within themselves all the genetic material for all the races, all the hair colors and textures, facial features and skin colors we see around us today. Within our mom and dad were Caucasians, Orientals, Africans and everyone in between. In fact ‘Adam’ means ‘red’ or ‘red, rosy, ruddy’.
When God commanded to go forth and multiply and fill the earth, He had to provide the ability within every plant and animal including man, to do that. That means micro-evolution. Not one species becoming another species which is macro-evolution, but one species branching out and genetically adapting to the environment.
Darwin’s Finches
Darwin marveled at the different types of beaks among the same species of finch found on various islands. One species had short, stout beaks for opening hard seeds, on another island a species with elongated beaks for catching insects on the fly, and so on. Mistaken for macro-evolution, they provide a great example of micro-evolution as each living thing had within themselves the genetic ability to obey the Prime Directive from their Creator, and adapt genetically.
Also, because animal bodies and human bodies are both made from the earth, it explains why a gorilla shares 98% of our DNA, a cat shares about 85% a cow 80%, even a chicken has 60%. All our bodies came from the earth, so it is logical that in terms of DNA, we share similarities. But oh those differences! All have the ability within their genetics to ‘go forth and multiply and fill the earth’ – because when God commands, He provides the provision.
Rabbit trail
The ‘world population clock’ estimates there are 7.8 billion people alive on the earth today, I’ve seen estimates that over all time, about 113 billion people have lived and died. You may ask how a heaven described as about 1500 miles square (2414 km) can hold the billions who make it to heaven.
The answer is provided by Jesus who said the kingdom of heaven is like a seed. A seed is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can only be understood through quantum physics, but because quantum physics was the method the Lord used to make everything, we can find examples in nature: How many apple trees are within 1 apple seed? Potentially unlimited. How many apples can come from one single seed? That seed or that apple is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. The author of Hebrews 11: 4-10 alludes to this, saying Levi was in the loins of Abraham when Abraham tithed to Melchizedek, though Levi would not even be born for at least 250 years.
Similarly each of us is larger on the inside than we are on the outside – however large the part of your life is that is visible, deep in the unseen realm of your heart you have dreams and hopes unfulfilled, talents, skills, hobbies, things that you in your heart would like to do, things awaiting the next ages to come to pass – all those combine to make you larger on the inside than you are on the outside.
Having been to heaven I can tell you it is like that. If you remember your schooling, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet make up the colors of the rainbow, but combine to produce a single ray of white light. So too within each of those separate colors is a whole world within that wavelength. Heaven is like that, multi-dimensional, yet each dimension one and combined with the others. Yes, it can hold billions of people on the inside while on the outside only appearing to be 1500 miles square (2414 km).
I would say it this way. On the outside, marriage seems very limiting, but in fact marriage in the Lord is larger on the inside than it is on the outside – all things of God are like that. There is more freedom on the inside than outward appearance shows. A person who is single can relate to a best friend or close relative. On the outside you are just friends, or maybe your mom or brother you are best friends with. But within those relationships are worlds of history, memories, plans, secrets, respect and love, making that relationship far larger on the inside than on the outside.
I’ll put it another way: 99.99999% of our body is empty space. That is the space between all the molecules that make up a human body – the space between the molecules comprises 99.9% of our body. We only appear solid because the molecules are so closely packed, but do not actually touch each other. You’ve seen pictures of electrons revolving around the nucleus in the same way the earth orbits the sun. Consider all the space in between the sun and the earth – it is the same with an electron going around its nucleus, on a microscopic level.
That space between them is huge. On a quantum physics level, if we lost all the empty space in our bodies our body would be the size of a speck of dust. The whole 7.8 billion of us would be the size of a sugar cube – heaven has much more space on the inside that it appears on the outside. (https://www.sciencealert.com/99-9999999-of-your-body-is-empty-space)
Back to the main trail
Adam and Eve would have had several hundred children over the course of their roughly 900 years, and they would have all been the various races we see on earth today, genetically distantly related. Think of it this way: Technically my wife is my sister, but we are not genetically directly related. But how far back can you carry that?
What if Adam and Eve had 500 children? How many ‘red and yellow black and white’ would there have been? They would all be precious in His sight and genetically distant. Even now we see the occasional birth of a different color baby than the parents. In the July 11, 2010 edition of the NY Post they show a picture of a black couple in Nigeria holding their white newborn baby, in what was stated to be a literal 1 in a million event. Even now all these centuries later, there remains enough genetic diversity for this to happen – and you can research similar events in India and elsewhere.
Noah’s 3 sons and their wives repopulated the earth, so there was enough genetic diversity in their hundreds of years of making babies that each cousin would not have been genetically closely related to each other. Going back to Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, the diversity would have been even more. So while we might say the boys married their sisters, genetically speaking, they didn’t, and they could have been decades apart in age – they lived so long, what if some 500 year old man married a 400 year old woman, robbing the cradle, lol. But genetically different and distant.
The same for all the animals and the species descended from them. That means from ‘mom and dad’ wolf, came genetically, the Pekinese and Great Dane, the Dachshund and the Golden Retriever. Not genetically directly related. All dogs came from a ‘mom and dad’ who had the genetics within them to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Man has been manipulating God’s built in micro-evolution through selective breeding ever since. That goes for crops and plants as well. There was an original ‘mom and dad’ tulip, but now look at the varieties! Thank you Lord for building that DNA ability within the command to go forth and multiply and fill the earth.
Once God stopped creating, mathematically it means plant and animal species could only decrease in numbers. One report estimates the earth has lost 99% of its species, with over 500 species lost forever in the last 100 years, 160 species lost in the last 10 years alone. That supports the fact God stopped creating so long ago, and it has been downhill ever since. How alive was the earth at its peak! Can you imagine if the earth once again was filled with 100% of what He created back then? Amazing to consider.
Perhaps this series has gotten you thinking, or answered questions you’ve had; the point being to affirm our faith in the Lord no matter how He created the us. Next week…are we alone in the universe? Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
