Did God Use Evolution To Create Life?
   Part 1

As ridiculous as it may sound, all of the above have been seriously proposed by evolutionists to account for the creation of life. Many professing Christians have accepted this theory, without realizing that it denies the existence of a personal God who created the universe, the solar system, our earth, and all life upon it, including man. To accept theistic evolution one must reject the book of Genesis, which says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Many other scriptures deal with the original creation. For you to believe God used evolution as His method of creation means rejecting Jesus Christ, for God’s Word proves Christ is the Creator, the Elohim who said, “Let there be light,” and who did the creating (John 1). Is it necessary to acquiesce to evolutionists’ claims? Must theologians cave in to anti-God evolutionists, assuming they have amassed enough evidence to support their theory that all life came from simple, single-celled organisms? Let’s look at just a few living examples of God’s creation to see if evolutionists’ claims are true.

To breathe, or not to breathe—that is the question. Most of the time, it’s not even a question. You breathe without being aware of it—involuntarily. While you are working, walking, reading, eating, speaking, you manage to breathe in and out, filling the hundreds of thousands of tiny air sacs in your twin set of fan-shaped lungs with air.

Now that you’re thinking about it, you might be interrupting your normally relaxed, unconscious routine. You might hold your breath for a moment, take a deeper than normal breath, or exhale with greater force than normal.

But if you do decide to hold your breath, you cannot do so, in most cases, for more than about forty seconds to one minute (which is a long time for most people, except divers, distance runners, and other athletes in very good condition) or you will faint. Cut off the flow of oxygen to your brain and body for only a very few minutes, and you will be dead.

As you breathe, your wonderfully designed lungs extract the oxygen and deliver it to the little red blood cells lined up in the thin, tender walls of the air sacs. They accept the oxygen, and reject the carbon dioxide. You exhale the carbon dioxide, as do all air-breathing creatures. The carbon dioxide is needed by plants to survive. Plants in turn create more oxygen. Neither can live without the other, just as flowering plants, including fruit orchards and many kinds of comestibles which provide food for man, cannot live without bees and other insects to pollinate them.

Without oxygen, or “life-giving air,” you and I could not remain alive but for a minute or so. The same is true of animals. Our bloodstream must carry oxygen to every part of our bodies. Your red blood cells, like little dinner plates, busily reenter the blood stream, carrying their cargo of oxygen to your brain, to your feet and hands. They travel rapidly through tiny blood vessels, called capillaries, to every part of your body, including even the lungs, which are constantly inflating with new supplies of oxygen.

When did you first breathe? Moments after you were born. Prior to that time, you received oxygen through the umbilical cord, from your mother’s lungs, and through her blood stream. But your lungs were fully formed, waiting for that moment when you would first inflate them, and they would begin carrying oxygen to your body for the first time. Where did you get your lungs?

Naturally, you got them from your parents, whose two lives produced your one life. The genetic pattern that was present in your father’s spermatozoon and your mother’s fertile egg determined everything you were to become. Since the creation of Adam and Eve, there has never been a time when this was not so.

Which came first, by the way, male or female?

It requires two human lives, male and female, to produce a child. The two sexes could not have “evolved” apart; there had to be the capability of reproducing after their own kind from the very first time a human baby was born.

Which came first, your red blood cells, your white blood cells, your blood vessels, or your capillaries? Which came first, your lungs, or the oxygen they take in and distribute to your blood? Who made oxygen? Growing plants and diatoms in the sea manufacture it. But they cannot do so without utilizing carbon dioxide. What is carbon? Where did it come from?

Carbon is an essential part of matter. But what is matter?

Matter is energy, arranged in a fantastically intricate way.

Air-breathing Fish

There are many species of air-breathing fish. One of the strangest of all is the African lungfish, which is capable of forming a cocoon of mud, then lying inert in estivation for months or even years at a time, surrounded by hard, dry mud, awaiting the next rainy season! The lungfish is only one form of life that presents absolutely insurmountable difficulties for the theory of evolution.

African lungfish are a delicacy in parts of Africa. Native hunters use sticks to tap on the hard, sunbaked bottom of dried ponds. When they encounter a hollow sound, they begin digging around it until they extract a rounded lump of dried mud, which appears almost like a geode. They then chip away the layers of mud, until they expose the fish within. There it is! A breathing fish, equipped with lungs which secreted mucous to protect it, wriggling ever deeper into the mud perhaps months, or even years previously. It is alive, yet torpid from its period of estivation. The natives then cook and eat the fish.

A strange way to “fish,” isn’t it? Tapping on the sunbaked mud of a dried pond would not occur to most people.

Fish With Lungs—But How?

Why don’t we have gills, instead of lungs?

Actually, the study of any one of the functions of your own body is a “breathtaking” study into the marvels of God’s creation, and a “breath of cold air” on the theory of evolution. There are no “half-lungs,” or partially formed lungs which are useless. Breathing creatures either breathe, or they die.

Did you know there are air-breathing fish? Actually, all fish “breathe” air, but the vast majority do so through a system of gills, which act like filters, extracting oxygen from the water through which they swim. Sometimes, when eutrophication of freshwater occurs, and the growth of algae and plants proliferates, extracting more and more oxygen from the water, or if man thoughtlessly pollutes a river or pond so the fish are deprived of oxygen, fish literally suffocate while swimming about. They roll over, rise to the surface, and die. They are seen frantically working their gills, as if gasping for breath.

Not so with the lungfish. He swims to the surface, gulps a big breath of air just like a dolphin or a garfish, and swims beneath the surface again.

Evolutionists claim something like this happened: Somewhere, back there millions and millions of years ago, probably in the middle Devonian period (the “age of fishes”), ponds and lakes dried up, and the fish began to die. But not all of them died. They simply reasoned that they had to develop stronger pectoral fins, turn them into rudimentary “legs,” and walk overland to the next pond, even if it were miles away, then slither back into the water so they could survive. Meanwhile, of course, they figured out they had to develop lungs, because there wasn’t any water coursing over their gills. Sound logical, or preposterous?

First, before you read an evolutionist’s explanation, be cautioned: Try not to think too hard. Try not to ask too many questions, like: Just how long could a breathing creature survive when its breathing apparatus quits functioning? How would such a creature develop a sense of direction? How does a creature gradually develops lungs so it can breathe? How does a creature survive sunburn, drying, insect attacks, dust, thornbushes, rocks, and miles of sunbaked travel, when only moments before it was a fish with fins and gills, no legs, and no lungs?

You and I know that if we didn’t have lungs right now, we wouldn’t have time to “gradually” develop a set, because in just over a minute, while we were sitting there with a strange “I want to grow a new set of lungs” look on our faces, we would die.

Here, incredibly, is what the evolutionist said:

“Lungfishes belong to the ancient [sic] order of the dipnoans—fishes with both gills and lungs. They date back...to the middle of the Devonian, when ponds and streams began to dry up and many fishes died. The lungfishes were not only able to breathe air, but to travel from mud puddle to mud puddle on paddle-like fins. Eventually they acquired the ability to lie dormant in the mud, where they waited for the seasonal rain” (The Fishes, F.D. Ommanney and the editors of Life, p. 77, emphasis mine).

Ponds and streams began to dry up? Where? All over the world? In Africa? South America? But surely, the Orange, Niger, Congo, the Nile, and the Zambezi didn’t dry up—they run powerfully yet today, and teem with fish.

Did the Orinoco, the Rio Plata, and the Amazon “dry up” when, during the “Devonian” age (which never really existed) the dominant form of life on earth was supposedly fish?

Did the oceans dry up? Most fish are contained in the seas of the world, not in ponds and streams.

The evolutionist said “many fishes died.” But obviously not all of them died, for they are surviving in the countless billions today, just as they did then. The reason he said many fishes died is to make the point that it was somehow necessary for the lungfish to fully develop its lungs, change its pectoral fins into leg-like appendages, and start off overland to find water. But why didn’t all fish do this?

If all the ponds and rivers dried up, why didn’t all fish gradually develop lungs, and why are there any fish with gills left anywhere?

If fish with gills could not survive when this massive “dry-up” occurred, then why are the vast majority of fish equipped with gills?

He said they “eventually” acquired the ability to lie dormant in the mud. But before they acquired this ability, what did they do? They didn’t have the ability to lie dormant in the mud, so, in desperate search for life-giving water to cool their parched skin and flow over their gills, they thrashed about—rolling, lurching, lunging, flipping, wallowing—trying to find relief for their dry, cracking, burning skin; trying desperately to find some oxygen-rich, cool water to flow over their bodies.

So, before they “eventually acquired” this ability, they died. So there really aren’t any lungfishes today—for it is obvious they could not have survived for more than minutes; at the most, perhaps a half-hour. But there are lungfishes today, so there must be some other explanation. Here is a “possible” (not really) explanation a guide at a Florida bass fishing resort once told me: Seems a fisherman was out in the St. Johns River, and caught a very large bass. He didn’t have a live well in the boat, but he had a small piece of cord. He was miles away from the dock, and wanted to fish for several more hours, so he decided to put the bass in the boat while he was motoring from place to place, then, tying the cord through its lip, lower it into the water now and then so it could breathe through its gills and wet its body.

He began lengthening the period of time he kept the bass out of the water so the fish would get used to it. Finally, after giving the bass his last drink, he kept the fish in the boat for an hour as he motored back to the dock.

He had to walk up a narrow, slippery plank to the dock from his boat. He picked up the bass from the boat, and was proudly holding it up to display to the gaping fishermen on the dock when it slipped out of his hand, fell into the river, and drowned.

This story, the typical “shaggy dog” (or, in this case, “dry fish”) story, was told for the entertainment of fishermen. But our evolutionists who tell us stories like that of the lungfish are serious. They expect us to believe what they say and write.

Evolutionists are fond of telling us that the thousands of intricately developed, perfectly formed creatures on our earth gradually evolved their means of food-getting, nest-building, reproducing, and surviving over vast aeons of time. But how much time is required for a lungfish to develop lungs?

And, since there are thousands of species of fish in their teeming billions in all the oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams, what was the impetus for the development of lungs in the first place?

Every year, small ponds here and there around the world dry up, and all the fish in them die. But when they are filled again, as most usually are, fish reappear eventually, because eggs are carried inadvertently on the feet of wading birds. When flooding occurs, fish are washed up here and there, and distributed over large areas. Never would it have been “necessary” for fish—any fish, anywhere—to “develop lungs” in order to survive! For, if all the fish in any given pond died, there would be countless millions of fish in other ponds and lakes who did not!

Lungfish, as we read, belong to an order of fish that have both gills and lungs. But why? If they needed lungs to survive long dry periods, why not “gradually” (which is impossible) develop lungs, and discard the gills?

If they were surviving as fish with gills, were their gills effective? Obviously they were, for without the flow of water over the gills, they could not have extracted the oxygen they required to stay alive. So why not keep the gills, and forget about developing lungs? Billions of fish, in thousands of varieties, from great depths in the seas to the smallest, shallowest little ponds, have gills. Guppies and great yellowfin tuna have gills. They do not have a poorly developed half-gill, or a poorly developed half-lung.

There are no such halfway gills or lungs. The gills that exist, whether in millions of fish, or the gills possessed by a lungfish, function perfectly.

There simply are no imperfect, half-efficient lungs or gills today. That some species possess both is strong proof they were intended to survive in areas of extreme drought, and rainy seasons, where both lungs and gills would be needed.

No Intermediate Species

One of the fatal flaws in the evolutionary theory is the fact that there are no “intermediate” species. There are no fossils whatsoever which show a partially formed, half-effective, gradually developing wing, or beak, or claw, or foot, or eye, or lung, or leg.

Whether trilobites or sabre-toothed tigers, worms or woolly mammoths, the fossil record shows us only perfectly formed creatures, perfectly functional; capable of reproducing after their own kind; capable of food-getting, of migrating from place to place when necessary; of either predation or proliferation so as to offset predation; of camouflage and evasion—creatures which leave us wondering in awe at their incredible design.

Now, think. If it were true that each species of insect, fish, bird, or mammal alive today developed gradually, over vast aeons of time, then how many “intermediate species” were there? The answer is countless thousands—millions! Each of these “intermediate” species would have characteristics that would appear absolutely astounding to us today.

The fossil record would be replete with an incredible number of weird-looking, partially developed creatures. In fact, if the theory of evolution were true, there would be no way evolutionists could determine which species among all the fossils was the “finished” species, and which was the intermediate, for the differences would be too subtle to detect.

But there are no intermediate species. Each fossil form is complete, distinct from the others, separate.

As an example, remember that evolutionists believe the closest living relatives of birds are crocodiles. Evolution teaches that fish developed legs and lungs, came ashore from primeval oceans, climbed trees, began leaping and flapping their legs and shoulders, until eventually they learned to fly. They point to “flying” squirrels (which don’t fly, but glide by spreading out a layer of skin between their legs) in an attempt to illustrate an intermediate species.

There are “flying” fish in the seas. I have seen them many, many times, spreading large pectoral fins and, using their tails to vigorously keep them aloft, skim over the waves for incredible distances to escape from predators. But they are gliding, not flying, and they are still fish, with fins and scales; obtaining oxygen through their gills.

Evolutionists are fond of using Archaeopteryx, a fossil bird that had teeth, as an example of a so-called “intermediate species.” They say that ungainly amphibians, like alligators, happened to lurch into sharp rocks now and then. This caused damage to their plates or scales. “Loosely hanging scales,” they say, gradually developed into wings. Does an abrasion on your elbow gradually develop into another arm? Do injuries cause new appendages to grow? Nonsense!

No, any slow-moving, ponderous, cold-blooded creature like a huge monitor lizard or a crocodile which damaged his “scales” (crocodiles don’t have scales) or his skin would simply have damaged scales or skin for a time. He would not grow wings!

Are Hebrew babies born circumcised? Hebrew males have been undergoing circumcision for thousands of years now, and not one is born circumcised! Acquired characteristics, such as an accident that might cause the loss of a limb, are not inherited.

A man who lost a hand in a logging accident does not engender one-handed children.

But IF (an impossible assumption!) an ungainly cayman could have “gradually” acquired something akin to wings, resulting from encounters with rocks, there would be a thousand times the number of fossils in the fossil record of the intermediate species—partial wings, loosely hanging scales, and the like—than of the fully “developed” creatures we see preserved as fossils. But there are no intermediate species found in the rocks.

Evolutionists claim some of the amphibians, who were “gradually” evolving into “four-footed quadrupeds,” and exchanging their scales for fur, decided to return to the sea, and evolve into the toothed whales and dolphins.

Four-footed, furry mammals have their noses on the ends of their snouts. One thinks of possums, coons, dogs, cats, or even mice in this regard, as well as horses, cows, and humans.

Now, envision a dolphin in your mind. Where is his “nose”? In the back of his head, so he can arch his back, come to the surface, bury his toothed beak in the water so he is not blind, and evade the charge of a hungry shark while he is breathing, then open his blowhole for a moment, expel the hot air laden with carbon dioxide, and quickly inhale a deep breath.

Whales and dolphins are equipped with a blowhole so they can breathe while their eyes are still beneath the surface.

Can you envision “part dolphins,” who were once land mammals? How did they “decide” to return to the sea, and become a full-fledged (I mean, a “full-skinned”) dolphin?

Evolutionists imagine that the ancient furry, four-footed quadrupeds who for some reason grew weary with the land began “fishing” in shallow waters. Little by little, they foraged deeper and deeper. Why? Well, they had to do so, to survive! Why? Well, because their food source was growing scarce on the land! How strange, when there are so many thousands of mammals surviving, eating, breeding, living their lives on the land, without any need whatsoever to venture into the sea.

But evolutionists imagine they “gradually” lost their hair, changed their feet, claws, or hoofs into flippers, “gradually” moved their nostrils from the front of their snouts to the top, then up between their eyes, then to their foreheads, then up through the fur line, or between the horns or antlers (if they had any), to the back of their necks! Once they did this (and there are no fossil species with any such transitional features), they became dolphins and whales, instead of “furry, four-footed quadrupeds,” according to evolution.

What these ancient, non-existent creatures should have done is become otters, and just leave it at that.

Evolutionists love to use their imaginations. One is reminded of a little six-year-old, whose imagination creates fictitious characters and fabulous scenes, acting out in his mind Gulliver, or Jack the giant-killer.

IF any such gradual alteration of the entire physical structure of animals took place—which it didn’t—there would be thousands of times more intermediate fossils found in the rocks than the so-called fully developed ones.

Why? For one thing, the intermediate forms, since they were only part this and part that—having partially developed blowholes, partially developed fins, partially developed tails, and the like—they would be nowhere nearly so well equipped to survive as the fully developed species. Therefore, they would be more likely to perish and more likely to be found in the fossil record.

But they are not there. They are missing—simply not available.

Each species found in the fossil record is a fully developed, perfectly adapted, incredibly complex creature which once lived on the earth, and which died, and was buried by massive deposits of mud and sand before it could decay or be eaten by carrion-eaters or insects.

Flattened sharks, still in swimming positions, as well as millions of other creatures, including shellfish and many species of fish, prove they were buried suddenly, in great catastrophes.

But now, let’s go back—far, far back in time—and try to imagine the very first attempt by a lungfish without lungs to survive when his pond dried up.