The introduction to Genesis ascribes everything to the living God––creating, making, acting, moving and speaking . There is no room for evolution without a flat denial of divine revelation. One must be true, the other false.
God’s works were pronounced “good” seven times (see Gen. 1: 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31). They are “great” (Ps. 111: 2; Rev. 15: 3), they are “wondrous” (Job 37: 14) and they are “perfect” (Deut. 32: 4). What a contrast with any of man’s works! Man begins in helplessness, ignorance and inexperience, and through trial and error, develops his ever more complex (though still imperfect) works. What he makes, therefore, proceeds on the principle of evolution––the wooden canoe becomes the mighty liner, the humble abacus is transformed into the sophisticated computer, and journeys into the city become journeys to the moon. But when we enter the divine sphere, no trace or vestige of evolution is seen. The birds build their nests today as at the beginning, and the flowers send forth their exquisite blooms as they always have done. All God’s works are perfect––and as such they cannot be improved. Even the so–called simple forms of life––the humblest plankton or water–flea––are infinitely more wonderful than anything that man has made, or ever will make.
Certainly there may be variation within a “kind” (Gen. 1: 24), but there is no passing, change or evolution out from one into another. The fish will never become a frog, and the monkey can never become a man. The fish was made perfect and can never be ‘improved’ into the frog. It is a grave mistake to confound the mere variability within a kind with the notion that living things are relentlessly developing into supposedly ‘higher’ forms. That man is always improving what he has made should not surprise us––because he can never achieve perfection, however hard he strives. This evolutionary principle can, however, have no place in creation. God’s said and it was done––all was made perfect.
Man’s inventiveness is always striving on to something higher and better. He would have the natural world to be the same (hence his fixation with evolution) because to admit that the wonderful things around him were made the way they are now is to acknowledge the existence of a master craftsman. He would rather pretend everything is remorselessly advancing in complexity and resilience, than accept for one moment that what he sees is the finished product, perfect and complete, and always has been. Yet all creation, despite the ravages of sin, cries out “perfection” and thereby witnesses to the Creator God!
