by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” —A.W. Tozer

Where and when did it all begin, this thing we call life?

How does one actually explain it? How does it make sense that God always existed?

On the other hand, if God didn’t always exist, what did? If not God, what then?

Nebula image taken by NASA appears as though God has is eye on creation

Well, something had to always exist. Was the universe always out there? Was there something smaller than a speck of dust that always existed, that somehow, with time on its side, randomly mutated into every intricacy that is within and throughout life… that somehow contained within it all of the matter, DNA, and intelligence of everything that ever was, is, and ever will be? Whatever it was, was it alive? Wouldn’t it have to be alive to beget life? Is it possible that one random mutation (incarnation, or whatever you want to call it) after another somehow, in some way, just happened to fashion together all of the aimlessly roaming parts in some infinitely vast space that through some arbitrary fluke sparked into existence the “miracle” of life? Is that how it went?

Or, did something come from… nothing? Hmm. If so, then ‘nothing’ is ‘something’, and ‘nothing’ had to come from ‘something’ with the capacity to become something more… to eventually through random coincidences calculate the full measure of its evolutionary course. The least believable quality of ‘nothing’ is that it would have to originate from within itself the core ingredients and organization for ‘something’ to live.

Huh?

How did the original first cell reproduce? Why did the first cell reproduce? How did it “know” to reproduce? What was the catalyst for cell production and reproduction? How did the first cell reproduce into a variation of itself, instead of duplicating itself repeatedly according to its original make up? How did the same original cell reproduce into both living and non-living organisms? How? Why?

All kinds scientists—biologists, physicists, chemists, developers, explorers, astronomers, ecologists, geologists, archeologists, paleontologists, and mathematicians—have debated their notions and theories of existence for centuries. I think that what you find is that once someone has established a paradigm for what’s what, how it came to be, and where it goes from here or there, there is the need to prove it to be true; to fight for the truth as they see it, or is seemingly so often the case, how they imagine the truth to be. And so it goes.

“I think you can say that life is a system in which proteins and nucleic acids interact in ways that allow the structure to grow and reproduce. It’s that growth and reproduction, the ability to make more of yourself, that’s important.

“People have tried to find more general, more universal definitions of life. They’re speculative, because we don’t know about any life other than ourselves… First, you have to be able to reproduce and make more of yourself. You also need a source of variation so that all of the new generation is not identical either to the previous generation or to all its brothers and sisters. And once you have that variation, then natural selection can actually select, by either differential birth or death, some of the variants that function best. That may turn out to be a fairly general definition of life wherever we might find it.

“It’s pretty clear that all the organisms living today, even the simplest ones, are removed from some initial life form by four billion years or so, so one has to imagine that the first forms of life would have been much, much simpler than anything that we see around us. But they must have had that fundamental property of being able to grow and reproduce and be subject to Darwinian evolution.

“So it might be that the earliest things that actually fit that definition were little strands of nucleic acids. Not DNA yet—that’s a more sophisticated molecule—but something that could catalyze some chemical reactions, something that had the blueprint for its own reproduction.” —Andrew Knoll, Paleontologist, Professor of Biology at Harvard University

Professor Knoll is certain about one thing. Even for this renowned paleontologist, evolutionary theories about how even the most primitive living organisms evolved into anything more than what they were is anything but certain. And what about these little strands of nucleic acids, molecular variations and bacteria? How and where did they originate? And whatever the answer is to that question… how and where did it (the answer to the previous question) originate? And for every response follows the same question… Where did it (and they) come from, and how did it advance on their own from what it was? Shouldn’t there be something more definitive to hang your hat on than vague suppositions?

There are only speculative conclusions about how nucleic acids developed proteins that morphed into bacteria, that somehow formed cell walls to advance into cell membrane structures, that through innovations into the evolutionary process, “may help to resolve the early key steps in evolutionary development of the bacterial domain of life.” (National Center for Biotechnology Information)

“How did life begin on Earth? The fact is that no one knows the answer yet, and it remains one of the primary unsolved questions of biology. We may never know with certainty because life began on earth nearly four billion years ago. The events that initiated life no longer occur, and even the conditions of the early Earth are not known with any certainty… DNA is the center of all life, but it can’t be considered alive even though it has all the information required to make a living thing. DNA cannot reproduce by itself… We will never know with certainty how life did begin.” —David W. Deamer, American biologist and Research Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California-Santa Cruz

Why all of these statements from paleontologists, physicists, biologists, and scholars of evolutionary beginnings? Because even they admit ultimately that they are only guessing, according to unproven theory. They don’t know. They know what they are talking about when they tell you that they’re not anywhere close to certain about any of it. All the while, evolution is taught to naive learners by educators as though it is proven fact; which is certainly not the case.

Okay, no doubt there has been evolution through the millenniums of time; throughout the ages of everything living. I’ve watched nature shows on television that suggest that for a species to survive some sort of evolutionary flaw that would inevitably arouse it’s extinction. It needed a fin, or an appendage, or something or other to protect itself from the elements, and… well… it just happened. Evolution took care of the problem. Whatever the species needed magically evolved into being… over millions of years, of course. It can just do that? Evolution isn’t random? Evolution is somehow intentional and specific? Really? Amazing!

How is any of it actually possible unless God is directing its course, attentive to every detail necessary to get it right?

The flipside?

I suppose one could release into space a trillion-piece jigsaw puzzle, each piece at least a million miles away from the other, and they would, without any direction or purpose, somehow find somewhere in the vast space to find each other, solved, with every mindless piece perfectly fitting into just the right place. That’s possible, right? The odds of that happening are pretty good in comparison to billions and billions of years of incidental anomalies forming into the universe and life as we know it.

I had a chance to get into it with a couple of suicidal teenagers who professed their belief in science, and that something of the universe was always out there. I asked them, “Even if it was, how did the universe make life without a creator unless it was already alive? How did the evolutionary process occur through random, accidental mutations and occurrences? I asked them (paraphrased), “If the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle you’re playing were scattered a across the floor, and then just laid there a few billion years, would the puzzle put itself together and create a picture that made any sense? Would a stiff breeze come through and over time blow the pieces to eventually fit them all together just so? Would the structure break down over time? Would the pieces deteriorate as well? How would the pieces of this puzzle come to life, and then reproduce to make more puzzles?”

They agreed that the puzzle would not solve itself or be solved without help.. Someone had to do something with it. I then asked them, if they were to accept that they were made by a Creator, if everything after that is possible (including the resurrection of the son of God)? The response? “That’s a good point. I have to really think about that now.”

These two teenagers, a boy and a girl, both made the point that they were against religion. So I made sure they understood that I was not all talking about religion. I was talking to them about what made the most sense in regards to the origins of life… how it all began. Their initial reaction was an emotional one (again) against religion. Don’t even get them started about religion. But once the emotional opposition to religion was taken from the equation, we were able to have a reasonable discussion on what made the most sense to them on an intellectual plane. All of sudden they were open-minded about a lot more after that; certainly willing to listen and ponder likelihoods and probabilities, according to their own understanding, rather than being limited by preconceived notions and hasty, misguided conclusions.

By Accident or Intentional?

“The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. Science brings men nearer to God… In good philosophy, the word cause ought to be reserved to the single Divine impulse that has formed the universe… Little science takes you away from God but more of it takes you to Him.” —Louis Pasteur, the founder of microbiology and immunology

Alright, so maybe you didn’t like the puzzle idea to illustrate the point of gazillions of random occurrences culminating into life as we know it. Try this one on for size, then.

Imagine all of the most ingenious inventors and researchers throughout history all gathered together somewhere all at one time in their endeavor for discovery. Cram them all in; there’s a lot of them. They each go about their day-to-day routine every day without any sense of intention or desire or purpose to accomplish a single thing… ever. Yet somehow, someway, everything that has ever been invented and discovered; every disease that has ever been remedied; every food element that has become known to nourish the human body… every this and every that that has made living and sustaining life possible, came to be… BY ACCIDENT!

No one meant to discover anything. No one meant to research anything. It just happened. Relating this to the incidental, mindless, random occurrences and mutations over millions and billions of years of evolutionary process without God, all of the best ingenious inventors and researchers throughout history never did a single thing to be educated into any kind of knowledge… and yet they still just happened to (mindlessly, randomly) stumble into their inventions, discoveries, and remedies. Again… every action being accidental, incidental, and coincidental. It somehow, someway, simply came to be.

Is any of this at all believable?

But we’re to believe that from the big bang, a universe happened, that something in the universe happened in the way that was all so perfectly fashioned and conditioned for the next thing to be formed perfectly into the next thing… that somehow in some way just happened to accidentally form perfectly into another next thing… and the evolutionary formula for this then thing, and that next thing, and all of the other next things to follow in this convoluted mess of things happening, forming and accumulating, all so altogether perfect to somehow, and in some way through it all, without any sense of purpose or reason, breathe into existence the ultimate best next thing… life.

Okay, okay. As impossible as it may be, what if it somehow did occur? How did this life form, whatever it is, develop any semblance of intelligence or ability to reason, or more than that, care to do what’s necessary to produce enough to survive?

Answer? Instinct. That’s how the atheist scientist responds to this dilemma.

Well, if instinct is an innate impulse, tendency, or inclination, how did it develop the disposition to want or like or care enough within its core… about anything… to have a natural (automatic) impulse, tendency, or inclination that is productive, and not counterproductive? How did the will to carry out a pattern of enough instinctive actions necessary to survive and live come into the evolutionary process of things?

Before that, how did the brain develop for humans and animals? Where did the internal mechanism for bacteria to function, reproduce into a variety of forms, and then interact with other forms of bacterial life? How were plants programmed to have survival skills for nourishment?

Any living thing of any kind of species must be nourished to survive. Even instinct must be derived something learned at some point in time. A plant or a blade of grass has to be nourished or it dies. How would it know to seek nutrition? It’s hungry, but so what? What does that mean to the first living thing? Did the first living thing derive nourishment from something not living? How did the first one of anything do it? How would it know what to do… and, most important… have the will to do it? Even a species of something only seen with a microlens has built-in incentive to survive. Where would the motivation come from to seek what it needs without knowledge or competence?

On instinct alone? In a few billion years, something got lucky and just so happened to stumble into some random, incidental discovery before it died trying?

Again, really? That’s possible? That makes sense? Or, am I simply too naive and ignorant to recognize how lucky this evolutionary process is to have defied these astronomical odds to have made this far without God?

“When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it’s very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it.” —Physicist Tony Rothman, former post-doctoral fellow at Oxford University

Every one of the infinite number of evolutionary formulas for life had to progress in their process so perfectly that they meticulously and, dare I say, miraculously all fit together just so. And it all happened without plan or design or purpose (without God). And yet, it was alive. It all just happened. Not only did life randomly morph into existence, but it somehow, on its own by chance, became intelligent, and emotional, and nurturing, and predatory. R-i-i-i-i-g-h-t. And it’s believing in an ever-existent God that’s ridiculous? Think about it. Doesn’t not believing in God necessitate more faith than believing?

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” —Albert Einstein

Have you ever considered how much has to go just right for life to even possible on a planet receiving constant force from a mammoth incendiary power source? Have you wondered how we can be spinning and flying through the universe at phenomenal speeds, trusting stratospheric and atmospheric realities—not to mention gravity—to remain stable so that we can exist? What maintains order in the universe to prevent planetary—and perhaps even galactic—destruction? Doesn’t it make more sense that some sovereign mindful entity has to be the catalyst at the center of it all?

Have you ever considered everything that has to go exactly right for our bodies to even function? Why does it all work? What about the intricacies of our brains transmitting specific informative signals just so we can wake up and get out of bed? Why does our heart beat and keep beating? Why does breathing work? Why does food nourish our bodies and provide systemic sustainability? Why does sleep restore order and energy when we’re exhausted and broken down? Why do we grow? Why do we decay and die? Why do we experience pleasure and pain? Why do we think and feel and reason?

“When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics… From the perspective of the latest physical theories, Christianity is not a mere religion, but an experimentally testable science.” —Frank Tipler, professor of pathematical physics, co-founder of the Anthropic Principle, author of The Physics of Christianity

What all has to go exactly right for reproduction to be possible across every avenue of life, from human species to the trillions of every kind of living thing there is on land and sea and in the air? There is the reproduction of animal life, insect and plant life, microorganisms, and so on. It is all so exactly right; entirely perfect.

That all just happened randomly… by chance… accidentally… without purpose or intention?

Did it really? That’s believable? That is acceptable? How is it even possible?

It’s giving it enough time that makes it at all possible?

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” —C.S. Lewis

The evolution of life without God… the genesis of life with God… where lies the evidence—the verifiable proof—for either?

While it may not seem altogether possible to offer tangible proof that God is all that God is, a reasonably intellectual case can indeed be made when applying common sense. On the other hand, since atheists rely on scientific evidence to prove the theories they want acknowledged as fact, the burden of evidentiary proof is then laid before their throne, to prove their assertion that something somehow came from nothing.

By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. Hebrews 11:3 (NLT)

“I say if it says it, it means it. People will laugh at me and say, ‘Well, you know, you can’t really believe that.’ And I go, ‘Well if I can believe that God created the world and everything in it, why wouldn’t I believe a simple thing like that? That’s not a hard thing.” —Vincent Furnier, a.k.a., Alice Cooper, regarding the Bible as the Word of God

“If God didn’t always exist then, well… what did?” continues with Let There be Light!