by Chris Banescu –
The miraculous transformation of an acorn into an oak tree, shows forth God’s continuous action on all His creation through His Word, His Son.
Countless miracles of life unfold all around us every day. They have become so commonplace that we either take them for granted or we ignore them completely. The extraordinary repeats itself so predictably and reliably that it has become ordinary. Yet, the mysteries and miracles of life continually unfold in all their glory, evident even in the transformation of a small acorn into a mighty oak tree.
At first glance the germination process seems simple enough. You take a seed, a small acorn, and plant it in the ground. You then add fertilizer and water it regularly. As moisture surrounds the seed and the sun’s rays warm the dirt each day, that seed absorbs water and reaches the optimum temperature for germination. The seed activates, comes to life, and breaks through its protective shell. It grows a radicle, it’s primary root, and absorbs more water.
As you continue to water the seedling, its roots expand and more water and nutrients are absorbed. Then a stem appears and grows upwards. Soon leaves begin to unfold and spread out from the expanding stem. The seedling has gradually been transformed into a sapling. As the young tree continues to grow over months and years, it eventually becomes a magnificent oak tree.
It all looks so simple and so natural. This is how all plants and trees grow from seeds. We’ve seen this process repeated everywhere in Nature.
But appearances can be deceiving. What has actually happened is nothing short of miraculous. The transformation of a non-living package, the seed, into a living tree surpasses the best fantasy or science fiction stories man has ever conceived (dreamed up).
The dormant seed is a package of information. It is not yet alive. It has only potential for life. Yet, an intelligent force (God) brings the seed to life and starts the growth process. This force, this energy, reads and processes the DNA code embedded in the acorn and makes it come alive. This creative power then coordinates and sustains the sophisticated biochemical processes required to transform it into a living tree.
The acorn itself cannot do that. It’s impossible. A dormant seed is just a package of information. An inert biological package cannot direct itself. It does not have an active neural network. It lacks a brain. It is not sentient. It is not intelligent. It is logically and scientifically impossible for a non-sentient seed to coordinate the miraculous process that unfolds.
Similarly, neither the sun, nor the water, nor the nutrients in the soil, have the ability to read, interpret, and process DNA code; and then properly coordinate the extremely complex tree building process. Sunlight, water, and nutrients are just energy and chemistry. They simply provide the warmth, moisture, and nourishment the seed needs to germinate and grow. They lack intelligence and purpose. They are not the creative power that brings life, decodes DNA, and continually directs the many tree growth processes.
Darwinists and other materialist scientists either put Nature in charge of this process or declare that seeds just grow by themselves. Both explanations are nonsensical. Nature is just a label materialists use to describe what actually happens in the natural world; it offers no scientific explanation of how these incredibly complex systems are directed to construct and sustain life. Since Nature herself is a non-sentient, non-intelligent, blind force, it cannot read and process DNA code and purposely coordinate the growth process. Nature is not a being, it cannot have a purpose. Substituting Nature for God and then magically giving it “purpose” is not scientific. And seeds don’t just grow “by themselves.” As explained above, seeds are only packets of information that don’t have the ability to coordinate anything.
Only God has the power and intelligence necessary to sustain and control the incredibly complicated seed germination and tree building processes. He is the only one with the capability to direct this intricate symphony. God’s will not only creates and sustains matter, but also brings it to life and then continues to sustain all living things. He is ultimately the one who continually processes all DNA code and coordinates all microbiological and biological systems that make all seeds come alive, germinate, and then develop into trees and plants.
In the Orthodox understanding God not only created the universe by speaking it into existence through His Word (Christ), but He continually sustains it. God didn’t create the world and then let it run by itself. God is not a “celestial Clock-maker Who sets the cosmic process in motion, winding up the clock, but then leaving it to continue ticking on its own,” teaches Fr. George Gray.
God’s uncreated energies and will constantly sustain everything He brought into existence, through His Word, His Son, Jesus Christ. His divine life gives life to everything that exists and lives. This truth has been known and proclaimed by many Church Fathers. They also discerned and understood that life cannot direct and sustain itself.
“Christ as Creator-Logos is to be envisaged, not as on the outside, but as on the inside of everything. … Creation is not something upon which God acts from the outside, but something through which He expresses Himself from within. Transcendent, He is also immanent; above and beyond creation, He is also its true inwardness, its within,” summarizes Fr. Gray the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas and St. Maximus the Confessor. “We must still remain faithful to the principle of true religion and recognize that all that exists is sustained by the Creator’s power,” taught St. Basil the Great.
Similarly, St. Athanasius the Great testified that God, in His goodness “governs and sustains the whole of nature by His Word (who is himself also God), so that under the guidance, providence and ordering of that Word, the whole of nature might remain stable and coherent in His light.” St. Athanasius explained that Nature is continually helped by Christ, the Word, to exist, “for without Him it would cease to be.” Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, keeps everything in existence. “For whatever exists, whether visible or invisible, remains in existence through Him and in Him,” wrote St. Athanasius.
“The almighty and most holy Word of the Father pervades the whole of reality, everywhere unfolding His power and shining on all things visible and invisible. He sustains it all and binds it all together in Himself. He leaves nothing devoid of His power but gives life and keeps it in being throughout all of creation and in each individual creature,” declared St. Athanasius.
The miraculous transformation of an acorn into an oak tree, shows forth God’s continuous action on all His creation through His Word, His Son. Only a supreme intelligence, God, has the ability and power to take an inert package of matter and information, the acorn, bring it to life, continually coordinate the incredibly sophisticated and complicated growth processes, and then change it into a magnificent oak tree. Nothing else on earth or in the materialist universe has that capability.
