CELL THEORY: A PROBLEM FOR EVOLUTION
BY REV. JOHN A. GRAHAM
Biology is the study of living things. Whether plants, animals or humans, the basic and simplest unit of living things is the cell. The study of these cells is called cell biology. Cell biology has two tenets that form the “unifying concept” of the discipline. These two principles, also called the cell theory, are: ” 1) All organisms are made up of cells, and 2) cells come only from preexisting cells.”
Point one is easy enough to understand. Every living organism that man has ever studied is comprised of cells. Some creatures have only one cell, such as amoebae or bacteria. Other creatures have billions or even trillions of cells. Cells come in different shapes and have different functions, yet all living things are comprised of cells. This would be expected from a creationist viewpoint. We would expect living systems to have certain basic characteristics in common since they were designed to live by a common Designer.
Point two is also easy to understand, but it presents the stumbling block for evolution. We all began life as a single cell about the size of a period on this page. That cell grew and divided into two new cells. They grew and divided also. This process continued until there were millions and millions of cells (for some perhaps billions and billions). We recognize that all our cells came from the first cell and that the first cell came from our mother and father. But when we go back in time, we have to come to a place where this process began and there were no cells. That is, we come to the place where we have to explain how the first cell came to be. If we believe the Scripture, we see that God created the first cells when He made plants, animals, and man (see point one). If we reject Scripture and try to explain cells by solely naturalistic means (i.e. random accidental events, or events due to the inherent properties of matter), then we are left with an
impossible situation. How can we explain where the first cells came from when all cells come from preexisting cells but there were no preexisting cells for the first cells to come from? Scenarios are
proposed attempting to explain this, but these are generalized assumptions based primarily on the assumption of evolution. The nitty-gritty of “how” this could happen is still unknown.
All living things are comprised of cells because that is how God designed them. All living cells can come from preexisting cells because God made the first cells and designed all living things to reproduce
“after their kind.” The cell theory is a problem for naturalistic evolution, but fits the concept of creation.
Rev. John A. Graham is a Home Missions pastor in Mt Carmel, IL, and a member of the Illinois District Youth Committee He writes articles and gives presentations on Creation/Evolution. He can be reached via e-mail at: jgraham@midwest net.
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