This article was printed in the October 1973 edition of the "Christian Courier", published by the East Main Street Church of Christ in Stockton, California and edited by Wayne Jackson. Dr. H. Douglas Dean was the author. It's message is as relevant today as when it was first written.
Today, as in former times, people are asking a most important question, "What is life? How did it originate?" Our own nation spends a considerable amount of money in order to study this question. Nearly all of our space probes are concerned with the question, "Does life exist out there?" During our Apollo flights, science was interested in looking at the moon to determine if it might contain some form of life. Even now, as further Mars investigation is being planned, the question is still being asked, "Will they find life there?" Yet all of the evidence that science has received to the present time would indicate that no life is present anywhere in the universe except here on Earth.
One might ask the question, "What is life; is it possible to define life?" Many have attempted such a definition, only to find the task impossible. Though we can list some of life's characteristics, and science has learned much about the laws by which life is governed, life itself remains that unexplained mystery that it has always been. Even the scientist is baffled concerning life and its origins. He says that he cannot believe in miracles, but he asks us to believe that all life on earth developed by some form of chemical evolution. Having studied many works concerning what might be called the problem of problems, I have come to the conclusion that science confesses no real knowledge, nor does science afford any definite theory as to how the first forms of life were produced on Earth.
At the present time, we are told that the answer concerning the origin of life is not available; yet most scientists still emphatically deny that life came to Earth through some miracle. Instead, they declare that natural law produced the first life. To believe this, one would have to admit that spontaneous generation produced the first life, whereas the great principle of biology teaches that life comes only from life. That natural law could produce life is a violation of all the known facts of biology today. Many indications today point to a time when life was not present on Earth; when the Earth was probably a mass of approximately 90 elements. According to some scientists, certain combinations of these elements had to be quickened in order for life to become present on the Earth. But if one begins with dead matter, life must appear by quickening of dead matter, whereas biology postulates that life had to come form some source and by some process. We know that life is not now being originated on Earth and that all life today comes from pre-existing life.
The question is then asked, "From what source and by what process did the first life appear on the Earth?" Thus far only two theories have been seriously advanced in order to answer this question: creation by miracle and evolution by natural law. The entire structure of evolution is based upon the concept that natural law can quicken dead matter into life. To admit divine intervention by a miracle in any aspect would destroy much of the theory of evolution. That God, by miracle, breathed life into the first life forms and endowed each form with the power to transmit that life to offspring is the foundation of the creation theory.
It is only fair to state that neither theory can be proven by actual demonstration, but their acceptance must by faith be founded on logical reasoning and existing fact. Which of the two theories is supported by the stronger evidence must be left to the individual to decide, for both cannot be true. Those that accept the view that God is the originator of life do so as a matter of faith, but a faith based upon more reasonable grounds than is the evolutionary theory of the origin of life. Those who reject the Biblical account of the origin of life do so because of its miraculous nature. However, if the theory of creation by miracle be rejected, the only alternative is spontaneous generation of life, which, if possible, would be a greater miracle than the Genesis account of origins. Spontaneous generation has never been demonstrated in the laboratory; on the contrary, it has been disproved. All evidence seems to declare that spontaneous generation has not occurred in the past and cannot now occur.
As we look at human life with its spiritual attributes, we might recognize that this does not come from dead matter. A spiritual attribute is something that can only come from a spiritual source. Life, mind, and spirit are in God and can originate from no other source. Belief that God is the source of life is based first upon faith, then upon the total lack of evidence that natural law could ever have produced life, and finally upon the realization that such a belief harmonizes with all of the discovered facts which relate to life itself. I firmly believe that the first chapter of Genesis contains the real story of the origin of life upon the Earth. Its essence has not been changed by knowledge acquired by man since Genesis was written, revealing that God formed man of the dust of the Earth and breathed into him the breathe of life, whereupon man became a living soul. Thus we have the origin of man's life upon the Earth.
Contrary to popular belief, life has never been created in a test tube. Various news media may have reported that certain scientists have produced life, but it is also interesting to note that these scientists have emphatically denied that they created life. Some parts of living cells have been produced, but only after enzymes that came from living organisms were introduced. When these cell-derived enzymes were placed in the test tube, it was possible to duplicate certain functions or parts of living cells. But again we find life functions coming from pre-existing life. It has only been possible to duplicate life processes in a test tube when an enzyme which comes from some other living organism is introduced into that test tube. Thus, in reality, the scientist has not produced life. He has merely imitated cell functions using cell parts from some other source of life.
Again, it is important to know what science has done and what it has failed to accomplish. When the announcement came from Berkeley, California, many people were convinced that life had been created in a test tube. Yet when all the facts were in, it became evident that life had not been created. Man today is ready to accept any statements and discoveries which deny the hand of God. He seems eager to dispose of God and to serve the creature rather than the Creator.
When the scientist seeks the origin of life, he can only determine that every living organism comes from living organisms. The Bible is very explicit concerning the origin of life. All life created was to produce after its kind, and every living organism which produces life came from the hand of a living God. God is the originator of life. There is no other alternative.
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