Is God clearly seen in this world from the start of creation?

When we first enter salvation, we come to the Lord with joy and enthusiasm believing that we know everything there is to know about Him. But then life hits some bumps and we find that we don't know Him at all. There is this aspect of Jesus that is kind and gentle. There is another that is full of joy. There is another that is shocking, terrifying and just.

Remember, Paul said that all of God's attributes are clearly seen in the things that God made from the creation of the world. YEC proposes that once upon a time, the world was good and pristine, but then man fell and the world became a land of sin. They would argue that the fluffy bunny and soft cuddly kitten were a part of the original creation but certainly not the great white shark. They take this to mean that animals at the point of sin entering the world began to die and further began to be carnivorous.

The problem that I have with this is twofold. One is that all of God's attributes, including the parts that are not so pleasant to the sinner, are supposed to be seen in the things that are made before the fall of man. If those things are not apparent from the creation of the world, then God is being disingenuous to us about who He is.

There is also a massive evolution that would be necessary to turn vegetarian animals into carnivores. This evolution would leave any other scenario that the atheistic model could conjure up in the dust. It is also a form of creation and since God is resting from that activity at this point, there is no Biblical indication that He started creating again. The whole digestive tract would have to be reworked for an animal to begin eating meat. I also want to point out that after the resurrection, Jesus ate a fish. If He were going to make a point about the connection between sin and carnivorous activity, He would have eaten a celery stick.

Similarly, the naturalist's model of whale evolution does not take into account the necessary changes in the respiratory system of these animals. I have worked with neonates and even small changes in their ability to take in oxygen would have killed them had we not been diligently intervening. Yet, we are led to believe that this all happened in nature while it was still new and unstable.

Can you see how both evolutions are problematic? And neither scenario fits the evidence. The naturalist is building on extrapolation and imposing a point of view on what he believes happened. The YEC denies reality and believes in faith that their version of what happened is what happened.

The second problem that I have with that is in Psalm 104:28-31 which says:

What You give them they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good.

You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust; You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the LORD endure forever; May the LORD rejoice in His works.

Psalm 104 is a creation passage of Scripture. Two things of note are in this small passage. One is that God claims responsibility for taking these animals' breath away; and second, God sends forth His Spirit to create again after this. He also rejoices in this work. He is not upset by it at all. Not only is this evidenced in the fossil record, but it fits everything that we know about our natural world. The word create in this passage is "bara." This is the word the Hebrews used to indicate a creating of something new. Since nothing new was created after man was created, we know that this event took place before the fall of man.

As ecosystems were no longer suitable for the climate of the early earth, God would kill them off and replace them with new ecosystems. Each ecosystem needed carnivores, herbivores, plant life to feed the herbivores and parasites. Without the delicate balance of these things, the habitat would not survive. God also built into the animal's DNA an ability to adapt to their surroundings by giving them future generations that could survive. This is important because 99% of all animals that have ever lived are extinct.

When I have watched programs on the event, some 65 million years ago, that killed the remaining dinosaurs on this planet, I marvel at the way this Scripture describes the reaction of the animals. The computer simulations portray animals that are troubled by their world super heating before their eyes. My favorite of these came from a series called Jurassic Fight Club. Their last episode on the Chicxulub Crater was very educational.

I was particularly excited to hear this from "Dinosaur George" Blasing concerning the site of the crash. He said,

"If you had to choose the worst possible place on earth for an asteroid to strike, it would be the exact spot where the Bapistina Asteroid struck in the Yucatán because lying beneath the sea floor directly under the spot where the asteroid struck, were layers upon layers of anhydrite and limestone. Now normally these minerals are harmless, but something very nasty happens when you add the intense heat and pressure and mix that with water. And trust me, a one hundred million megaton explosion caused a heck of a lot of heat and a huge amount of pressure. The end result was a deadly acid that rained down on the earth."

This was a further confirmation to me that God was behind this event because this asteroid hit in the exact spot needed to accomplish this worldwide annihilation of animals. Less than 1% of the globe contains these exact elements. The remarkable thing is that life came back in abundance in a new way in just a few million years. There certainly isn't enough time for life to have naturalistically evolved and according to experts, all dinosaurs were killed in that event. However, this does fit Day #5 of the creation account closing off and the dawning of a new day #6 beginning. The evidence again fits the Biblical account of creation.

Some accounts of these event also tell us that all the vegetation burned on the planet. In other words, anything that could burn did burn. Yet some animals made it through this catastrophe. If you ask me, that is nothing short of a miracle.

Another part of God's character that I want to illuminate is the way that He is meticulous, careful and slow. It has rarely been my experience for God to hurry up and change something that is bothering me. Even in Scripture, we see that David had a vision to build a temple that was never even realized in his lifetime. That is because God had a plan and a purpose that was accomplished carefully. God kept Moses on a mountain for 80 days to outline and obtain the Law. That is a long time without food. God made Joseph wait 20 years to see the fulfillment of his dream. God made Sara wait until she was 100 to see the fulfillment of His prophecy for her. Most importantly, if God is a God that is in a hurry and He knew that He would be slain from the foundation of the world, why didn't He come through Eve and get it over with? For that matter, why did He wait over 2000 years after Abraham to bring Jesus into the world? He waited many thousands of years before He accomplished this because God is never hasty. He takes His time and is careful in His plans. And all of reality in the things that are made screams forth this truth.

God is a magnificent God. He is so full of glory. Psalm 19 tells us this too.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork; Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. Psalm 19:1-2

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? Psalm 8:3-4

YEC tells us that all of the heavens are an illusion. Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens reveal knowledge. Who are we supposed to believe?

YEC has God slapping together a universe in a McDonald's drive-thru style. I am sure our present day mentality has a lot to do with why this explication sounds so appealing. What is six 24 hour days to God? I mean if a thousand years is as a day, one can only imagine how quickly such a brief time period would be to an infinite God. What is 13.73 billion years to an infinite God for that matter? It is still nothing. However, a YEC point of view leaves us believing that God's character is such that He does things hastily and I know after 36 years of being His child that He never does anything hastily. In fact, it is nothing for Him to wait years to bring about the fulfillment of a vision.

To summarize, we need to step back and look at the character of God and see if the things that we believe concerning creation are consistent with His whole character and are evidenced right from the start of the creation of this planet. Because if it doesn't match, then something is very wrong with what we believe.

Many blessings,

Vera