Joel Kontinen
“He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time,” the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes (3:11, ESV) tells us. Many flowers dazzle with their beauty, and when it comes to the animal kingdom, this is certainly also true.
We would probably first think of peacocks and parrots, or perhaps even of penguins.
Or maybe tropical fish or dragonflies. Moreover, even ammonite shells and mantis shrimps and – yes – spiders can sport amazing beauty, especially the peacock spiders of Australia.
It would be difficult to explain why blind and mindless Darwinian processes would produce such beauty. Darwin’s theory of sexual selection does not work, and there are few plausible naturalistic explanations.
But seen from a Biblical perspective, beauty is something we would expect to see, given that the Lord God is the ultimate source of beauty.
Source:
Hooper, Rowan. 2015. Wizards of Oz: World's cutest and most awesome spiders. New Scientist (24 March).
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