Génesis 1:24-25

THE SIXTH DAY

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good."

The parallelism between the last three and the first three days of the creation continues to be visible in the fact that God began the cycle of life by the creation of the vegetable world on Day 3, and here upon Day 4 that cycle is completed in the creation of the larger animals and of mankind (Genesis 1:26-31).

The recurring mention of "after their kind" forbids the notion that various species upon the earth from themselves produced other species. It is still true that if one desires to raise a long-handled gourd, he must plant the seed from a long-handled gourd, and there is no other way to get it. The fidelity of each species to this God-ordained law is constant.

The sheer supernaturalism of this entire narrative is its principal characteristic. The teeming myriads of earth's creatures, including man, are all here as a result of the creative and active will of the eternal God Himself. This account does not allow any thought of so-called "spontaneous" or "naturally developed" life. God alone is revealed here as the Source of life as well as the Source of all material things.