The Earth’s arrangement was followed by the establishment of the celestial bodies. “And God said: let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and He made stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven… and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day” (Genesis 1:14-19).

The creative command “let there be lights” is obviously on a par with the Creator’s previous commands: “let there be light… let the waters be gathered together,” and just as those do not signify original creation, but rather the creative formation of objects, so here, too, this must be understood not as a new creation, but only as a complete arrangement of the heavenly bodies.

How should one imagine the origin of the celestial bodies? With their inner and basic material the celestial bodies already existed before the fourth day; they were that water above the firmament, out of which were formed the countless spherical bodies on the second day of creation. On the fourth day some of these bodies were so arranged that the first-created light became concentrated within them to the highest degree and began to shine most intensely along their entire surface, – these are the luminescent bodies in the strictest sense; such, for example, are the sun and the fixed stars. The other dark spherical bodies remained dark, but were adapted by the Creator to reflect the light that shone upon them from the luminescent bodies; such, for example, are the planets that glow with borrowed light, e.g. the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and other planets.

On the fifth day were created the creatures living in the water and flying in the air, i.e. the fish and fowl. “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 it was so. And God created great whales… 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” (1:20-23).

God’s creative command naturally forms these species of creatures out of earthly elements; but as everywhere else, so here, too, and here even more than in the preceding instances, the power of formation belongs to Him and not to material elements, because with the formation of these creatures there is introduced into nature a new and higher beginning of life: there now appear living, moving, and sentient creatures.

In granting the newly-created creatures His blessing to multiply, it is as if God turns into their own property that force through which they had received their existence, i.e. He gives them the capability of reproducing new creatures from themselves, each in his own kind.

A more detailed picture of the creative act of the fifth day may be imagined in the following manner:

The heavens were being adorned with celestial bodies, gigantic vegetation was developing on earth, but there were still no living creatures on earth who could enjoy nature’s gifts. Up to now there had not yet been the proper conditions for their existence, since the air was saturated with harmful vapors that could only promote the plant kingdom. The atmosphere still contained so many extraneous admixtures, and primarily carbonic acid, that it was still impossible for animal life to exist. The atmosphere first had to be cleared of admixtures that were harmful to life. This task was fulfilled by the gigantic vegetation under the influence of the sun which shone forth on the fourth day. Carbonic acid constitutes one of the most essential elements of plant life, and since the atmosphere was saturated with it, the created vegetation began developing quickly and grandiosely, absorbing the carbonic acid and clearing the atmosphere of it. The huge deposits of coal are nothing else but that same atmospheric carbonic acid, transformed by the vegetation into a solid body. Thus took place the purification of the atmosphere, and when proper conditions for the existence of life were prepared, it did not delay in appearing by dint of a new creative act.

“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.” By dint of this Divine command a new creative act was performed, not only formative, as in the preceding days, but creative in the fullest sense, as was the first act of creation of primordial matter – out of nothing.

Thus was created a “creature that hath life,” and there was introduced a creation that had not existed in primordial matter, and in fact for the second time the writer of Genesis uses here the verb “bara” – to create out of nothing. “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.”

The most recent geological findings explain and add to this brief narrative by the writer of Genesis.

Descending into the depths of the earth’s layers, geologists have reached a stratum in which for the first time appears a “creature that hath life.” This stratum is consequently the cradle of animal life, and it contains the simplest animal organisms. The most ancient “creature that hath life” known to geology is the so-called Eozoon canadense (“the dawn animal of Canada”), which was found in the lowest limestone blocks of the so-called Laurentian period. Then came the corals and the infusoria, as well as various crab-like organisms, and in higher strata come the gigantic crawling monsters and lizards. The most well-known of these are the ichtiosaurus, the gilasaurus, the plesiosaurus, and the pterodactyl. All of them are awesome because of their gigantic size.

The ichtiosaurus was up to 40 feet long, looked like a lizard with the head of a dolphin and the teeth of a crocodile, while his tail was equipped with a leathery fish fin. The gilasaurus was up to 7 feet high and looked like a fearful lizard. The plesiosaurus looked like a gigantic turtle with a 20-foot long neck, a small snake-like head and a 6-foot long sting. The pterodactyl looked like a flying dragon, with wings, a long head, crocodile teeth, and tiger claws, – it generally looked like a huge-sized bat with an almost 10-foot wing span. Some of these monsters can be seen even now, but their modern representatives are insignificant dwarfs in comparison with their ancestors. So weak has become the productive force of aging earth!

And finally the animals living on earth are created from the earth (i.e. from the earthly elements): cattle or large four-legged animals who are able to live with man and to serve him, the reptiles – the crawling animals, and the beasts – the four-legged wild animals who live freely on earth. “And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good” (1:24-25).

Just as the Lord turned to the waters to bring forth fish and amphibians, so He now turns to the earth to bring forth four-legged animals, as He had earlier turned to it to bring forth plants. This should be understood as follows: the bodily composition of the four-legged animals is only adapted to the nature of the earth as their abode and not, as some scientists think, that the earth itself produced the animals under the warmth of the sun’s rays. In the entire domain of nature there is not the least hint that any species of living creature could turn into another, – for example, a herbivore into a carnivore; even more unnatural is it to imagine animal life originating from non-organic elements (from gases, minerals, etc.). All scientific tests conducted to prove such a strange theory come up with inconclusive or negative results. “When God said: let the earth bring forth, – says St. Basil the Great, – this does not mean that the earth brought forth that which was already within it, but that the Giver of the command also gave the earth the power to bring forth.”

In accordance with recent scientific findings, the sixth day of creation may be pictured in the following manner: the waters and the air became filled with life, but a third of the earth still remained a desert – it was precisely the land, which presented the greatest comforts for the life of living creatures. But now came the time for it to become populated. “And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind.”

Scientific research, ascending the ladder of the earth’s strata, after the stratum containing the above-mentioned monsters, fish, and fowl, comes across a new stratum in which it finds new organisms – the four-legged ones. The first to appear on earth were the gigantic four-legged species that no longer exist today – the dinossaurus, the mastodon, and the mammoth (kinds of elephants with huge and clumsy forms), then the more perfect animals and, finally, their present forms – lions, tigers, bears, cattle, etc.

Looking at this gradual appearance of species, science involuntarily poses the question: how did these species become formed? Do they represent unchangeable forms that received their beginning in an act of creative formation, or did they gradually develop one from another and all from a single primary species?

In the last century the well-known Darwin’s theory– the theory of so-called gradual evolution – became widespread. How does it relate to the Biblical account of creation?

The writer of Genesis says that the plants and the animals were created “after their kind,” i.e. not only a single plant or animal form, but many plants and animals. But this does not mean that all the species existing today owe their origin to the original creative act. The Jewish word “min,” translated in the sense of “kind,” has a very wide meaning that does not fit within the framework of the technically scientific meaning of the word “species.” In any case it has a much wider application, and without encompassing all current kinds and varieties of animals and plants, it does not deny the possibility of a gradual perfection of forms.

However, that an actual change in forms is possible has been proven by irrefutable facts. Many kinds of roses, carnations, and hydrangea, and many kinds of chicken and pigeons that can be seen in zoos, have developed not more than a century ago. Changes also occur under the influence of diverse climatic conditions, differences in soil, nourishment, etc. On the basis of this it may be assumed that the quantity of plant and animal forms in the primordial world was not as great and varied as it is now.

The Book of Genesis, in telling us that creation in its strict sense (“bara”) occurred only in the creation of the first beginnings of organic animal life, and afterwards there occurred simply formation, does likewise not deny the possibility of development of species within their own kind. However, this does not provide any foundation for accepting the theory of evolution in its entirety: the Bible clearly asserts that animals and plants were directly created “in their own kind,” i.e. in varied but definite forms.

The theory of evolution does not have a firm foundation in science either:

(a) As strict scientific observations and research show, changes within plant and animal forms are possible only within the most limited bounds. This situation obtains not only for the present, but also for the most ancient times, as far as it is possible to judge from ancient writings. The oldest images on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments show that their breeds of domestic animals were exactly the same as ours: the ibis is still the same as it was in the times of the pharaohs, as its preserved mummies show; the seeds of wheat and barley found in the Egyptian pyramids do not in any way differ from present ones.

(b) Further: if, according to the theory of evolution, species are formed as a result of a randomly-occurring change in a particular species that gradually continues to increase, then, in view of the full possibility of such changes occurring in all directions, one could expect to see a most variegated and unbalanced variety and mixture of forms in today’s plant and animal world. However, in reality there is a strict gradation of species that are clearly distinct one from another.

(c) The gradualness that can be observed in the development of plant and animal life also does not confirm the theory of evolution. An analysis of fossils in various earth formations does, in fact, show that lower classes of plants and animals generally come before higher ones. However, the strict gradualness and sequence of development that is to be expected according to the theory of evolution does not exist, since in the earliest formations, along with simple organisms one can already find considerably more developed ones belonging to higher classes.

(d) Neither does one find those transitional forms that are necessary for confirmation of this theory. Everywhere the species are strictly distinguished one from the other.

(e) But the greatest difficulty for this theory is represented by the question of the formation of new organs. This theory is built on the possibility of change in existing organs; but how could new organs be created by means of change, how could eyes have been formed in infusoria over the course of time, how nothing could have been changed into something – that the theory of evolution is incapable of explaining.

(f) And finally, the very reasons for the change, being supposedly random, do not in any way accord with the harmony and purposefulness that is to be observed in the plant and animal world.

All these facts very forcefully confirm the authenticity of the Biblical teaching that in their general forms the plant and animal organisms owe their being to a creative act.

On the sixth day of creation, all parts of the earth became populated with living creatures. The world of living creatures was like a stately tree, whose roots represented the simplest animals and whose upper branches were the highest ones. But this tree was not yet finished, it did not have a crown that would complete and adorn it, there was still no man – king of nature.

But finally he, too, appeared. “And God said: let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them.” Here for the third time there occurred in the fullest sense a creative act (“bara”), for man in his essence again has something that did not exist in the nature created before him, and that is the spirit, which distinguishes him from all other creatures.

The theory of evolution, which attempts to place man on the level of a simply perfected species of animal, completely contradicts this Biblical teaching. However, at the present time this theory has been subjected to so many refutations by authoritative representatives of anthropology, that Darwinism’s inability to shake the clear teaching of the writer of Genesis becomes more and more obvious.

Thus, for example, the famous anthropologist Pritchard says of the correspondence between man and animals: “The organic world does not present a more wonderful simultaneous contrast and likeness than the ones we discover when we compare man with the highest animals. That these creatures are so close to one another in the features of their physical structures, and at the same time are so immeasurably far from each other in their abilities and talents, – is a fact very hard to believe, were it not for our being able to observe it.”

Thus ended the account of the creation and formation of the world. “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.”

This was the beginning of the establishment of Saturday as a day of rest, and upon this establishment the proper succession of work and rest in human life is founded to this day.