Articles
In the Beginning | Part 8: Day Three - Continued
IN THE BEGINNING
Part 8
Day Three - continued
After God had created the landmasses into continents and established the shorelines of the oceans, He now had everything in place to go to the next phase of His creative work - living things. Up to this point He had provided an intra-structure of inorganic minerals, chemicals, and forces of energy to support life on an otherwise life-less planet. Now, some of His greatest work was about to begin. “Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’; and it was so.” (Gen. 1:11)
Once again, God merely spoke His will and the basic building blocks of His partial creation responded to the next level of their usage, coming together in the order that corresponded to His infinite wisdom and purpose. So “...the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.” (vss. 12-13) Thus plant life came into existence.
To merely claim that plant life came into existence, seems to somehow understate the magnificence of what actually occurred on the last half of that third day. Life began! The definition of life is; “That property of plants and animals which makes it possible for them to take in food, get energy from it, grow, adapt themselves to their surroundings, and reproduce their kind: it is the quality that distinguishes a living animal or plant from inorganic matter or a dead organism.” (Webster) There has been a big debate in recent years on what constitutes life and how to define it, but this seems the best definition from a scientific observation of living things. It is in those characteristics that life is given definition and description as opposed to that which is non-living. We will let science prove its own definition.
The ability of plants to take in food, get energy from it and to reproduce are some of the processes that are inherent in these living things. With the invention of the micro-scope came a window into these processes that take place in all living things. In 1665, English scientist Robert Hooke discovered that the structure of plants is made up of microscopic compartments which he called cells. Years later, after vast improvements in microscopes, we are able to look inside those plant cells and see that each one is a living entity in itself. Plant cells (as in all cellular entities) are like individual factories in which numerous functions are performed by its many internal parts. Nutrients are taken in by a sophisticated transportation system and processed inside an internal compartment called the mitochondria in which energy is produced from the breakdown of glucose. This is a very complex process (called chemiosmosis) in which ADP (adensine diphosphate) is converted into ATP (adenosine triphosphate). This takes place on an atomic level where atoms are broken down then transported within the ATP. Vacuoles (which are small compartments that float in the jelly-like cytoplasm within the cell) have several functions, one of which is the breakdown and removal of waste.
But one of the most fascinating functions that takes place inside plant cells is what happens in one of its internal parts called the chloroplast. These are typically found in the leaves of plants and there are about a half million chloroplasts per square millimeter of leaf surface (an area about as small as the period at the end of this sentence). Inside chloroplasts there is a process called photosynthesis that takes place. Basically what happens is this; Energy from sunlight is taken into the chloroplast where it is converted into chemical energy. This powers the process in which water (which the plant draws from the ground and transports through veins in the leaves) is combined with carbon-dioxide (which is taken into the plant through microscopic leaf-pores called stomata), then those ingredients are broken down so that 6 molecules of water and 6 molecules of carbon-dioxide are combined to produce one molecule of sugar and 6 mole-cules of oxygen. This whole process happens on an atomic level, breaking down molecules of atoms and converting them to molecules of sugar and oxygen. It is in this way that plants breathe in carbon-dioxide and exhale oxygen while providing sugar for the plant’s nourishment. It is through this amazing process that God provides a continual supply of oxygen that we need in order to survive on our planet.
Aside from the internal cellular functions that partly defines life, there is also the matter of reproduction (which is also part of the definition of a living thing). Notice that, at God’s command, “...the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind.” It is this ability to reproduce that makes the perpetuation of life possible. God built-in this function by amazing things called seeds. The important thing to notice is that each plant yields seed according to its kind. In other words, each plant can only produce another plant just like itself. Therefore, if the farmer plants kernels (seeds) of corn, he doesn’t have to worry about getting strawberries - or if he plants watermelon seeds he knows he won’t get tomatoes. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to be a farmer and have no idea what kind of crop your field was going to produce? Seed-planting would result in random chance - which is the evolutionist’s only explanation for how life came into existence (but that’s a subject for later consideration).
Not only do farmers depend on God’s laws of plant reproduction, but God Him-self used those very laws as a means of teaching valued spiritual lessons within His word. Take the parable of the sower for example (Mt. 13:3-9, 18- 23; Mk. 4:2-9, 13-20; Lk. 8:4-8, 11-15). In that parable the seed that the sower broadcasted across his fields repre-sented the word of God. That word will produce only one thing - a Christian. If God’s laws of procreation did not exist, this parable would be meaningless - and instead of the differing kinds of ground (which represented the varying conditions of human hearts) being the differentiating factor in the outcome of their growth (or lack thereof), it would have been the random unpredictability of the seed that would have caused the different outcomes.
The science behind plant seeds is an amazing testimony to God’s handiwork. When seeds are produced within a given plant, each seed has within it an embryo that is genetically matched to the plant that produced it. That seed and its germ of life remains dormant until it comes in contact with the right combination of temperature (warmth), moisture, oxygen and light (or darkness, depending on the kind of plant it is). This dormancy is what allows seeds to be harvested, transported and/or stored for future plantings. Every good farmer will save some of the seed produced from his crop in order to have something to plant for the next planting season. The Bible talks about this; “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
Now for some science. In most plant seeds, the seed itself contains the food (in the form of starch, proteins, or oils) on which the embryo within it will feed after planting. Once exposed to water, the seed swells, breaking its outer shell, exposing it to hydrolytic enzymes that break down this stored food into useful chemicals that can be metabolized. This process is called aerobic respiration in which chemical energy is produced that in turn powers the internal cellular functions to begin and maintain cell production. As the embryo feeds on this self-contained food store, it begins to grow a root into the ground that draws water and nutrients into itself, while at the same time sprouting its first leaves, which, once they have emerged above the ground, allows the process of photosynthesis to begin. At this point, the young plant becomes self-sustaining as its food stores have been depleted. Jesus said it this way; “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”
To be continued.
-Gary V. Womack -
- In The Beginning - part 8 2.doc (35.84 kB)
