A Scientist's View on Genesis 1
Spontaneous Ponderings
This post was inspired by the Bible Essentials study on Genesis 1.
For those of you who don’t know, I have a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a PhD in Pharmacology. My point...I’ve taken A LOT of science classes! And with that comes a fairly good understanding of the basics of how the body works—from general anatomy and physiology to genetics to biochemistry—and how the laws of nature work.
So when I read Genesis 1, I can’t help but see it from a scientist’s perspective. It’s not even about God speaking things into being, although that in itself is incredible. It’s about God creating the rules of nature. Through the process of creation, he not only created the sun, moon, stars, and planets. He created the law of gravity that would keep them moving in space and perfectly oriented to each other. He not only created light, but he created light to have different wavelengths so that we could see colors—and he created our eyes perfectly to be able to respond to those different wavelengths and see the beauty of colors in creation.
Think about the creatures God placed in the deep ocean. He made them perfectly adapted to their environment, to be able to survive in the immense pressure, cold temperatures, and pure darkness. Think about giraffes that he made with long necks so they could reach the tallest leaves in the trees and leave the shorter leaves for shorter animals. Think about the way that bees move pollen around to pollinate flowers so that we can have fruits and vegetables.
Think about the human body. God created our bodies so that all the systems work perfectly together. The lungs, heart, and blood vessels working together to deliver oxygen to our entire body. Our nervous system being in control of each movement and thought and process in the body. Our digestive system and urinary system working perfectly in sync to take in nutrients and eliminate waste. Our bones and muscles working together to give us freedom of movement.
Then think about the molecular level. Each cell is able to respond to the molecules in its environment and change what it does to optimize health. Each molecule binds to its own receptor, which activates a very specific signaling pathway and produces a very specific response.
Our immune systems can recognize foreign invaders and attack so that we don’t get sick. Our skin has receptors that can sense temperature, pressure, and pain. Those signals are then sent to the brain by the movement of charged particles (ions) across the neuron membrane. And then the body knows how to stop those signals and take them back to baseline so that we aren’t in pain all the time.
I don’t know about you, but the more I know about science, the more I am certain that there is a creator. I know a lot of scientists say that the more they know about science, the more they are certain there is NOT a creator. But that just doesn’t make sense to me. I went to a seminar once where they were talking about microevolution, where they could understand how a progression of single genetic mutations over time would change the characteristics of one organism into a similar organism that had different characteristics. The mutations had to happen in exactly the right order for each successive organism to survive. And they were certain that this could or did happen. Yet they said that there was absolutely 0% chance that those mutations could happen in the opposite direction. And I thought to myself, isn’t the probability of going one direction the exact same as going the opposite direction? Either way it requires a very specific single mutation in a very specific order. Why can it proceed one way and not the other? To me, that’s where their argument broke down. And I was left with an even deeper sense of surety in a Creator.
All that to say, the more I understand about the intricacies of God’s creation, the more I believe that it absolutely could not have come into being by chance. There are just too many details that have to work exactly right in order for each species to survive and interact perfectly with other organisms to sustain their ecosystem. If even one part of the system breaks down, the entire organism, species, or ecosystem falls apart. And without God, we would fall apart too.