Spherogenetic Systematics
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
(Genesis 1:20-23) KJV
The Bible describes a sequential process of creating life by sphere. There are five spheres to consider: hydrosphere, lithosphere, firmasphere, atmosphere and biosphere.
Christian apologists have failed to produce a natural theology of the Bible using science because they tried to make their case for creation from within the mainstream science paradigm (SciPop). The Bible describes its own paradigm. Why not start with that?
A major stumbling block are systems of biological classification which are based on assuming that life evolved. These classification systems are called phylogenetic. However, another major mistake that Christians make is arguing against evolution. The nuance here is that evolution isn’t the origin of life, but life is evolving.
Death by Sin
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
(Romans 5:12) KJV
The process of evolution requires the passage of heritable traits from generation to generation. The timeline required for this is billions of years which means that billions of creatures died before we could arrive at the distribution of biological diversity that we see today. The Bible tells us that there was no death before sin. This means that biological evolution before the fall of man is impossible. God created a vast array of biological diversity in a process which we call abiogenesis.
Evolution or Devolution?
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
(Romans 1:22-23) KJV
If there’s one thing that we would like to convey it’s that Christians need to stop denying evolution. Whether they realize it or not, they’re fighting against a definition of evolution that no one else uses. Here’s a basic definition of evolution in current use:
Evolution is change in allele frequency in a population over time.
– Evolution, definition
Let’s understand what evolution is. First of all it’s not part of the 6 days of creation. God’s creative work is what we’re calling abiogenesis. Evolution is a process of genetic decay which began at the fall of man in Genesis 3. For this reason we refer to it as DEvolution:
Devolution is change in allele frequency in a population, combined with accumulated mutations and DNA replication errors, that causes genomic decay, sickness, and loss of variability over time. It includes both macro and micro evolution. It began at the fall of man in Genesis 3:16.
– Devolution, definition
Now let’s give devolution a context and you’ll see why denying it’s the reason why people think that Christians are stupid, as idiotic as Don Quixote tilting at windmills:
Devolution is the process of genetic change over time by which the animal kinds saved on Noah’s ark gave rise to the current distribution of biodiversity.
– Devolution, context
Now, if there was no evolution before Genesis 3 then it’s pointless to discuss the development of terrestrial life using a phylogenetic classification. We’re going to develop a spherogenetic classification: spherogenetic systematics. We can deduce that there are 5 spheres:
Five Spheres of Life
- 1st day God created life in the hydrosphere.
- 2nd day God created gravity and formed a spherical earth, the lithosphere,
- It was submerged in the hydrosphere,
- the firmament, or firmasphere,
- and the atmosphere.
- 3rd day God caused dry ground, the biosphere, to emerge and be covered with vegetation.
- 4th day God populated the firmasphere with the host of heaven.
- 5th day God developed life in the hydrosphere and atmosphere.
- 6th day God finished his work populating the biosphere.
This month we’re looking at two spheres, the hydrosphere and atmosphere.
There are examples of all major animal groups in each sphere. There are mammals in the ocean: whales. There are also mammals in the air: bats. Likewise for birds and reptiles. Among the invertebrates there are aquatic and atmospheric forms. This gives us context for the development of animal life on the dry ground on the 6th day.
Cladistic Phylogenetic Analysis
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
(Genesis 3:17) KJV
SciPop biological classification systems are derived using Cladistic Phylogenetic Analysis. This only works by assuming an evolutionary origin of species: Each major group has a common ancestor. The groups of species in biological classification, clades, are monophyletic. The problem with this approach is that evolution, a process of genetic change over time, isn’t the origin of species. It didn’t start until after the fall of man in Genesis 3. When we observe the obvious patterns of increasing developmental complexity we’re not looking at the results of evolution, we’re looking at the work of a systematic creator.
There’s another problem: what happens when the concept of a common ancestor and monophyletic groups doesn’t seem to match the patterns of life that we observe? Any reasonable biologist will know this isn’t a new idea, there are many situations when a monophyletic origin isn’t a natural fit, even though, technically (according to the paradigm) it’s the only possibility. Here’s a question which we can now ask, and answer, by using a spherogenetic classification:
If there were mammals in the hydrosphere and atmosphere on the 5th day, does this mean that on the 6th day terrestrial mammals were derived from both groups? Are terrestrial mammals polyphyletic?
– Reasonable question
For instance: If bats were created in the atmosphere on the fifth day, and bats are classified as Rodents, are terrestrial Rodents, created on the sixth day, descended from a bat ancestor? What about elephants, which were created on the sixth day? Elephants aren’t derived from bats. Are they derived from an aquatic mammal? We’re going to pick our way through this all month and see what shakes out. It should be interesting.
Salvation
- Call upon the name of Jesus Christ,
- believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
- confess your sin.
Spherogenetic Systematics – Navigation
| Section | Title | Scripture |
| 1 | Spherogenetic Systematics | Genesis 1:20-23 |
| Creation and Evolution | Hebrews 11:3 | |
| 2 | Cladistics and Circular Reasoning | 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 |
| Coding a Character State Matrix | Leviticus 19:36 | |
| Salvation | Romans 10:9-10 |
Read through the Bible in a year
| Reading plan | May 1 | |
| Linear | 2 Chronicles 31-36 | |
| Chronological | 2 Samuel 5:1-10 1 Chronicles 11-12 |
Matty's Paradigm 