Pastor’s Notes January

The arguments surrounding creation vs evolution are not likely to end soon but, as your pastor and a biologist that believes God created just as he said He did, I would like for you to consider the case of the Venus flytrap. As you are probably aware, this is one of the few carnivorous plants found on planet earth. When an insect touches a trigger hair on the trap leaf it causes an action potential, much like a nervous impulse in humans, to close the trap. Digestive juices are secreted to kill and digest the unfortunate insect (which is probably more often an ant than a fly). The insect’s struggle and death will result in the release of sodium and ammonium ions from its body and the trap closes even tightly. Carnivory is a remarkable innovation for a plant and has been touted as something that developed in plants that “evolved” in areas low in the essential nutrients required for the their growth, metabolism and reproduction. However, flytraps have been found to grow, flower, produce seed, and propagate without the need for an insect meal. In a flytrap to capture the first insect it must have developed digestive enzymes. Why would it developsuch a mechanism if it is able to take nutrients from the soil and use the sun for solar energy making this “evolution” was unnecessary? Why would it develop a trap leaf and trigger hairs unless there was a “plan” for their use? Since there is no significant advantage to the trap forming by itself, I would rather believe that God created it to regulate some aspect of nature that we have not yet fathomed. We can trust god’s Word when it says in “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”.
Your Pastor,
Dr. H