The Bible says that God is the source of all life.
After creating the earth, he commanded the plant and animal kinds to come forth. Then, he formed Adam in a separate innovation and breathed life into him. He then created Eve through yet another creative act.
Life Begets Life
The universe comprises energy, matter, space, and time. Each of these fundamental components is inherently lifeless.
Living things could not have spontaneously emerged from these lifeless ingredients. Non-life cannot procreate life. Only existing lifeforms can produce new life.
God is a living being, not an abstract concept or an impersonal force. He has been alive forever. He is the logical source of all other life.
DNA
The existence of DNA, which is found in every cellular organism, affirms that God is the source of life.
DNA is an instructional message that dictates how cells behave. Its directives are written in a special language that uses a unique genetic alphabet.
Nature does not randomly generate written instructions. Alphabets and languages are not natural phenomena.
These things emanate from a mind that wants to convey specific information to intended recipients.
The instructions embedded in DNA had to come from a mind. Their logical author is God.
Alternate Explanations
Those who deny God’s existence or his role as creator must rely on alternate explanations for the origin of life on earth.
- Life spontaneously willed itself into existence out of nothing.
- The inert components of the universe inadvertently spawned life on earth through a series of random events.
- Life existed elsewhere in the universe, fortuitously arrived on earth when conditions were right via a cosmic wind or a fallen meteorite, and then evolved mindlessly.
- Life existed in a parallel universe and appeared on earth through a time or space warp.
- Someone other than God created life on earth, i.e., aliens.
- The world is unreal. We live in a giant computer simulation created by aliens, i.e., a matrix.
Believing one of these six explanations requires more faith than believing God is the source of all life. The evidence supporting his existence is significantly greater than the evidence supporting the viability of these alternatives.
Scientist Affirmations
The methods scientists use to create new organisms in laboratories indirectly affirm that God is the source of all life.
Their manual creations do not spontaneously will themselves into existence. They are not inadvertently spawned by inert matter. They do not float into the lab through an open window or crash through the ceiling aboard a meteorite. They do not suddenly appear through a time or space warp. They are not dropped off at the lab by aliens. They are not computer simulations.
Scientists use their knowledge and imagination to intentionally form new organisms, just like God did at creation. However, unlike him, they create new life forms by modifying existing ones. God started from scratch.
Scientists know it would be futile to expect viable life forms to spontaneously emerge from an inert mix of raw ingredients, even if they selected the correct materials and placed them in an ideal environment.
The existence of life, in all its variations, evidences the existence of God and his role as our creator.
Important Implications
The origin of life has important implications.
If we are products of random chance, we are born without purpose and have no inherent value. Instead, society subjectively determines our significance on an ad hoc basis. And if this capricious appraisal ever deems us worthless, we become disposable.
However, if God is the source of life, he created us for a purpose and assigned each of us a divine destiny.
This means that, in his eyes, all humans are individually significant and endowed with inherent dignity. Our lives are therefore objectively precious and worthy of preservation.
More About Creation And Our Divine Destiny
God’s participation is implicit in the Big Bang and the evolution of plant and animal species within kinds. But humans are not products of evolution. God uniquely and directly created us. The Bible indicates that the earth could be either very old or relatively young. The Bible and science are harmonious. Discovering our divine destiny requires us to count the cost.
