A note about sequences. In the scriptural accounts, the lights in the heavens are “created” in the fourth creative period while waters are divided and plants created in the third. The LDS temple version reverses those events. That said, I’m still presenting the information in the Biblical sequence. In reality, the timing of the creation of plants and the lights is intertwined and depending on what is emphasized, I can see how both sequences are correct.
Genesis 1:9-13 “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of theaters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.”
We left off with the Earth’s atmosphere thinning to the point it couldn’t hold as much water as it was. The water “rained” out creating the oceans, rivers, and lakes. It's here God chose to create life which started the terraforming process.
Scientists still don’t know how life came to be on Earth. For years they thought it formed in some tidal pool as a random collection of amino acids which got zapped by lightning or radiation resulting in something “living.” A current theory is life may have actually originated on Mars and got transported to Earth via meteor. The line of reasoning goes like this. Molybdenum is essential for living organisms. It exists in a higher concentration in the crust on Mars than on Earth. The amount it takes to "start" the processes of life is higher than maintaining them afterwords. Hence, it more than likely started there than here because the early Martian ecosphere was more accomodating to life than Earth's.
Whatever. The truth is no one knows how God created life on Earth. That He did is not up to debate. It’s something I look forward to knowing.
Going back to the idea of terraforming. Due to the higher atmospheric pressures and temperatures, not to mention the intense UV radiation because there’s no ozone in the atmosphere, life on the surface as we know it was impossible. Yet anaerobic organisms live in the bottom of the ocean where water pressures will crush us. So it could exist in these new bodies of warm, mineral-rich water. I’m not concerned the Bible account makes no mention of this because of that observer’s point of view thing. Someone standing on the ground watching things unfold is going to see what happens on land and not in the oceans. Especially things occurring on a microscopic level.
I’m going to run on another short tangent here about genetic engineering. Why rely on evolution to make changes, when genetic engineering is so much faster and more precise? Why can't God engineer a bacteria that thrives in acidic oceans, breaths in carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen? Then, when the need arises, He creates another species that does something else. Why can't this process continue until He’s accomplished His plans? When you consider Jesus turned water into wine, it’s not that far a stretch to think he could re-engineer a bacteria’s genome when it suited Him.
I’ll touch more on the atmospheric terraforming in the fourth day's essay. Suffice it to say, He built a food chain from the bottom up while changing the atmosphere at the same time. Once the bacteria were in place in both the oceans and on the ground, He could add the grasses, then herbs, or shrubs, and then trees. We see this sequence when vegetation returns to areas burned out by fires.
What is interesting in the biblical account is once the grass, herbs and trees are created they are constrained to produce seed after their own kind. That statement is the one which invalidates the idea of cross-species evolution: there’s no way a cat will ever evolve to be a dog or an ape to be a man. In the plant kingdom, apple seeds grow only apple trees. My intent in writing this series of essays was not to delve into the concept of evolution, but since science considers it the way life on Earth came to be, I’ll touch on it here.
Proponents of evolution say science has observed one species evolving into another at the microscopic level. Yet there’s no direct evidence of it at the macroscopic level. Though they may point to fossils and the like as evidence of macroscopic evolution, they have a problem. Observed rates of evolutionary change we see today are so low, the Earth isn’t old enough for man to have evolved from a single cell organism. The fossil record indicates a faster rate of change especially in the Cambrian period. It shows "some one" stepped on the evolutionary accelerator to speed things along. And now, we're coasting. So, what happened? Evolutionists think it's all natural, but the truth is we don’t know.
There’s another good reason why plants were early to the scene: oil. As in it takes a long time to convert the remains of centuries of forests, bacteria, and algae into petroleum buried in the ground.
By the end of the third day, the Earth we know is starting to take shape with oceans, rivers, mountains, plains. Everywhere there is vegetation and oceans teaming with microorganisms which are making a breathable atmosphere. In my next post, God finishes His work on it.
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