Moving Forward – A Scientific Faith?

So we have come to the last leg in our journey. We started out with a question - Can we believe in God and still be a scientist? Along the way we took several different steps:

Looking Upward - Psalm 19:1-2 (NIV) The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. - Finding God in the universe above.

Here we studied the Big Bang theory, examined the probability of a rare Earth, and then focused on the possibility of life on any planet.

Turning Outward - Proverbs 25:2 (NIV) It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. - Finding God in the world around us.

This zoomed us in on the Earth, first taking a closer look at the sky (atmosphere) above us. Then we moved closer still and looked at some of the special features of our planet itself.

Searching Inward - Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV) For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. - Finding God in the formation of the human body, and thus in life itself.

In this third part of the series, we defined life as best we could, examined the simplest life forms, compared Evolution and the Cambrian Explosion, dinosaurs and DNA, how complex even simple life is and how we are made in the image of God.

Now we move on to our last segment:

Moving Forward - Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. - How do you take this to the next level - confirmation of your faith, or lack thereof. There is more to life than just "existing."

Those who hold that Science is the final arbiter of facts want us to believe that this is all there is, that the glorious advancement of Science will make our existence “heaven on earth” and that there is nothing beyond this life. But our belief in God give us a “hope” in our future and tells us there is more in and beyond this life if we just believe.

In this last segment, we will identify specific passages from the Bible that speak of scientific fact or theory before it was considered science! This will give us a basis for sharing how science and faith can co-exist, they do not have to be mutually exclusive. But in the end, we each must decide - Do we believe in the God of the Bible, and His science, or do we believe in secular science, which specifically eliminates God from the equation because His existence cannot be proven.

Remember, Science cannot claim that God created anything because God has to be outside of our dimensions of time and space to be able to create our universe, and science only functions within the physical universe we know. Even though God has invaded His creation, He is not physically manifested in it, as we know it scientifically. So God cannot be proven to exist in the context of science. Thus He also cannot be called on as a "proof of life" or a Creator. Science must have a reason, a physically testable reason, for the how and why something exists. God cannot be tested but He can be observed in His creation - as Paul writes in Romans 1:20 (NIV): "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

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For since the creation of the world
God’s invisible qualities
His eternal power and divine nature
have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so that people are without excuse. - Romans 1:20 (NIV)

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But remember to “speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15 (NIV))” with patience, and listen to find areas of common ground when sharing with others. Do not just dump scripture on others but find out what they are thinking and help them understand the Biblical point of view. You may be surprised that you have more in common than you realize. God wants us to learn to love. We can do this by seeing how much He loves us through His Creation.

So now here are some specific examples from the Bible that can be used when discussing science and religion with others.

Some of the Bible’s scientific passages (Scientific concepts supported by Scripture):

Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This verse declares the Big Bang, that in the beginning the universe was created from nothing. Up until just 80 years ago, science stated that the universe was eternal, had always existed. It wasn’t until the 1930’s that the concept of the explosion of a singularity blooming into the universe, and the beginning of time, space and the physical laws was first conceived. It took until the late 1950’s for scientists even to agree on this theory. Now some are questioning it again, it seems, because it speaks of something beyond the beginning of time. This verse also shows that there was existence before the creation - God existed outside of, and before, time and physical space (the universe has a transcendent cause).

Genesis 1:2 – The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Science is just now wrestling with the concept of the earth as the only source of life. Science is starting to find exoplanets, planets outside our solar system, and claiming that they may be suitable for life. But on the other hand, science is also finding specific conditions that must exist on such a planet, hundreds of them in fact, such that the earth is the only planet so far that seems to meet them all. Even then it is a wonder the earth does meet them as the odds are strongly against it, to the limits of an impossibility.

Genesis 1:16 – God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day (sun), and the lesser light to govern the night (moon); He made the stars also.

The sun, moon and stars do light the earth, giving day and night. All are needed to allow the possibility of life, the existence of liquid water and the proper surface temperature for survival.

Job 25:2 – Dominion and awe belong to Him who establishes peace in His heights.

Science has found that all physical laws apply to the whole universe everywhere and equally (the Cosmological Principle). This shows an all-encompassing order to the universe as expressed by this verse.

Job 26:7, 10 - He stretches out the north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing. (10) He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness.

The earth is floating in space; it is not held on the back of an elephant or resting on a pillar. It is not flat, floating above hellfire and is indeed a globe, not a pancake.

Isaiah 40:22 – …Who stretches out the heavens like a scroll and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

God is “stretching out the heavens” like a scroll - the universe is expanding and science tells us it is “flat” (not like a sheet of paper but as described by general relativity). But it is so large that the part of the universe we can see, due to the speed of light, appears to be a sphere around the earth. In any case, the universe does not appear to be infinite.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 - That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 3:14-15 – I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.

These two verses speak to the conservation of mass and energy, that all that was created at the beginning is all there is and will be – nothing will be destroyed nor added to the total.

Ecclesiastes 1:7 - All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.
Isaiah 55:10 – For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

These two verses suggest the flow of water from the sea to the sky to the rain, back to the land and into the sea again. This is the fundamental principle of the Water Cycle or Hydrological Cycle. Without this process, life here would be impossible.

Job 26:7 – He stretches out the north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.
Job 38:31-33 – Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, and guide the Bear with her satellites? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, or fix their rule over the earth?

This is discussing gravity. Gravity holds the planets up on seemingly nothing. The sun “rules” over the earth (holds it in an orbit). The Pleiades and Orion are the only two constellations where the stars in them are bound by gravity to one another so they move as a unit (in the same galactic location). Other constellations appear together but some of the stars are much further away from us and only look close due to our angle of view.

Leviticus 13:45-46 – As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn, and the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache and cry, “Unclean! Unclean!” He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.

This section of Scripture speaks to the control of contagious diseases, using quarantines since there was no cure and the disease was contagious.

Numbers 19 (the whole chapter)
Deuteronomy 23:12-13 – You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there, and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement.

These verses show the importance of sanitation to healthy living. In Deuteronomy it is specifically talking about bowel movements and the need to bury them (any Boy Scouts among us?).

Hebrews 1:10-12 - He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

Someday this universe will come to an end and be replaced by a “new heavens and a new earth.” Science is now learning that at some future time, the stars will all burn out and the universe will end. For the earth and the sun, that has been calculated to be about 2 billion years from now. But life as we know it will cease on the earth much sooner than that as the sun expands as a Red Giant star, engulfing the earth.

Next we examine what Science predicts about the origins of life compared to the Biblical view.

Origin of Life - the Scientific view compared to the Biblical view (tables from reasons.org)

Table I - Some Predictions Made by the Naturalistic (Evolutionary) Origin-of-life Scenario

1. Placid chemical and physical conditions existed on the early earth for long periods of time
2. Chemical pathways that produce biomolecules would have been capable of operating under the conditions of the early earth
3. Life originated only once
4. Life emerged gradually over a long period of time
5. Life in its minimal form is simple

Table II - Some Predictions Made by the Biblical Origin-of-life Scenario

1. Life appeared early in Earth’s history
2. Life appeared under harsh conditions
3. Life miraculously persisted under harsh conditions
4. Life arose quickly
5. Life in its minimal form is complex

As we learn more about early life on our planet and how life existed in the past and lives on in the present, the scientific assumptions are giving way to the Biblical ones. It seems the more we learn the more it points to God as a Creator instead of random chance.

Now not only is the Bible filled with the fundamentals of science, but it is as much as 3,000 years ahead of its time. Biblical statements, when written, in most cases directly contradicted the science of the day. As modern scientific knowledge advances, the divine accuracy of the scriptures is substantiated. Here are some examples:

Biblical Statement (NASB)	Science Then	Science Now
Earth is a sphere (Isaiah 40:22)	Earth is a flat disk	Earth is a sphere
Number of stars exceeds a billion (Jeremiah 33:22)	Number of stars totals 1,100	Number of stars exceeds a billion
Every star is different (1 Corinthians 15:41)	All stars are the same	Every star is different
Light is in motion (Job 38:19-20)	Light is fixed in place	Light is in motion
Air has weight (Job 28:25)	Air is weightless	Air has weight
Winds blow in cyclones (Ecclesiastes 1:6)	Winds blow straight	Winds blow in cyclones
Blood is a source of life and healing (Leviticus 17:11)	Sick people must bleed	Blood is a source of life and healing

• Isaiah 40:22 – It is He who sits above the circle of the earth… (“chuwg“ – circle or sphere)
  
• Jeremiah 33:22 - As the host of heaven cannot be counted and... (A very large number)
  
• 1 Corinthians 15:41 - …and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory - (“doxa“ – brightness)
  
• Job 38:19-20 - “Where is the way to the dwelling of light? …that you may discern the paths to its home? – (“shakan” – reside)
  
• Job 28:25 - When He imparted weight to the wind and meted out the waters by measure – (“mishqal” – weight, heaviness)
  
• Ecclesiastes 1:6 - The wind continues swirling along; and on its circular courses the wind returns. – (“cabab” – change direction)
  
• Leviticus 17:11 - For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and… - (“nephesh” – life, living being)

The probability that the biblical writers, writing between 2,000 – 4,000 years ago, would have guessed all these details is less than one in many trillions.

In the crucible of scientific investigation, the Bible has proven invariably to be correct. No other book, ancient or modern, can make this claim; but then, no other book has been written (through men) by God. I think as we learn more through scientific study and examination, if we are reasonable and open, we will see the hand of God at work.

(Most of the biblical references come from Reasons to Believe)

Searching Inward Part Three - Made in His Image

Now we have to look at why is man so much more intelligent, creative and insightful than other animals. Why do we seek to reason? Why do we have a moral compass? Why is it we want to understand why we are here? Why do we seek God? Do the other animals do this? Is this because we have been created in God's image? Does evolution allow for this possibility, that by natural selection we will reason and seek to know all that is around us?

We see in Genesis that God created man in His image:

Genesis 1:25-27 (NIV) - God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ²⁶Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” ²⁷So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female he created them.

So what does this mean? He did not say He created the animals or any other creature in His image, just man; "homo sapiens" as science defines man. Man is much like the animals in bodily form and function so being created in God's image has to mean more than just our physical attributes.

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God created man in His image,
So that we may reflect the fruit of His Spirit.

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We call this the Psychological Big Bang (self-awareness). This is the transition from the mechanical brain of simple life to the complexities of man's self-reflective mind. It is the question of morality and meaning, man's search for significance and purpose. Other animals have no apparent appreciation for what is true, good and beautiful. How do you get to the mind of a human from that of any lower life form? Even the lowest life forms have central nervous systems but none besides the human mind can contemplate, reason or create. How do you account for free will and introspection, humankind's existential drive to ask why? This is not even considered in evolutionary theory.

At the same time, we have the Cultural Big Bang. Humanoids (pre-human species like neanderthal man) had primitive tools and sometimes burials in shallow graves were found at their fossil digs. In contrast, human fossil digs have elaborate cave paintings, ornate jewelry, musical instruments, and ritual burial grounds. A dramatic advancement of cultural behavior occurred when humans appeared on the scene.

The creation of Man on the sixth day and God resting on the seventh day aligns here:

Genesis 2:2-3 (NIV) - "By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all his work. ³Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that he had done."

God created man in His image and that is why man has free will and introspection, and wants to understand the world around him. God rested on the seventh day and made it holy to show us that we need to take time from our everyday lives to understand our purpose and to worship Him.

This is what makes man different from the other animals - reason, dexterity, ability to make complex tools, his emotions and cognitive abilities, compassion, intuition, a heart for God. This is the unique soul of man compared to that of the animals. This shows that man was not a product of random evolutionary chance but God personally created man in His image. Again, this is not referring to physical appearance and attributes but in psychological terms - spiritual, rational, relational and moral.

The letter to the Gallatians reflects the fruit of the Spirit (God's Image) as the qualities we should reflect in our lives.

Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV) - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

But we, as humans, do not reflect all that is God, however. God has qualities higher than those we can attain - self-existance (independence), immutability (changelessness), Infinite (limitless) and Eternal (timelessness). Also Holiness (perfection) because we have fallen short of the glory of God due to our sinful nature.

Romans 3:23-24 (NIV) - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:23 (NIV) - For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God desires that we strive to be like Him, all the while knowing we cannot achieve the goal in this life. He showers us with grace and mercy, bringing us closer to Him. He wants us to love Him, and show this to the world by how we love each other.

Mark 12:30-31 (NIV) - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. ³¹The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Happy Valentine's Day - Chocolate Sweets for Your Sweetheart - Revisited

I wrote this blog about chocolate fives years ago for Valentine's Day. I thought I would share it again.

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"Drop the Chocolate and step away.  S-T-E-P  A-W-A-Y!"

Most all of us love the taste of chocolate, but for some it means someone may get hurt! Chocolate is a traditional Valentine's Day gift, in a heart shaped box, or in a heart shaped candy, wrapped in red foil. As Charles M. Schulz said: "All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."

Chocolate comes from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three thousand years in Mexico, Central and South America. The Aztecs made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a word meaning "bitter water". The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the full flavor of chocolate.

Much like coffee beans, the cocao beans are then dried, roasted, and ground to form cocoa mass, a pure chocolate called chocolate liquor. The liquor contains two principle ingredients: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Cocoa solids contain theobromine, a methylxanthine alkaloid chemically similar to caffeine with like physiological effects.

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"Life is like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're gonna get."
Forrest Gump (1994)

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There are numerous types of chocolate made by mixing four ingredients, cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, and milk solids in varying proportions. Additional agents such as lecithin (an emulsifier), vanilla and vegetable oils increase the possible formulations. Here are some of the most common forms used:

Unsweetened chocolate: Also known as “bitter” or “baking” chocolate. It is unadulterated chocolate: the pure, ground, roasted cocoa beans rendering a strong, deep chocolate flavor.

Bittersweet chocolate: A dark chocolate that contains at least 35% cocoa solids. Most bittersweet bars contain at least 50% chocolate liquor, with some bars pushing 70-80% chocolate liquor. This chocolate has a deeper, more bitter flavor than sweet dark or semi-sweet chocolate.

Semi-sweet chocolate: A dark chocolate containing at least 35% cocoa solids but is sweeter than bittersweet due to additional sugar.

Sweet dark chocolate: A “dark chocolate” as it does not contain milk solids, but with a high percentage of sugar so it is much sweeter than other types of dark chocolate. Many brands of sweet dark chocolate have only 20-40% cocoa solids.

Milk chocolate: In addition to containing cocoa butter and chocolate liquor, milk chocolate contains either condensed milk or dry milk solids. Milk chocolate must contain at least 10% chocolate liquor, 3% butterfat, and 12% milk solids. Milk chocolates are typically much sweeter than dark chocolate, and have a lighter color.

White chocolate: White chocolate does not contain chocolate liquor or any cocoa products other than cocoa butter. It must contain a minimum 20% cocoa butter, 14% milk solids, and a maximum of 55% sugar.

Chocolate has become one of the most popular foods in the world. It is also used to produce chocolate milk and hot chocolate. The Europeans were the first to sweetened and fattened it by adding refined sugar and milk, two ingredients unknown in the Americas at that time. In the 19th century, Briton John Cadbury developed an emulsification process to make solid chocolate, thus creating the modern chocolate bar.

Chocolate off the store shelf can have whitish spots on the dark chocolate. This is called chocolate bloom and is not an indication of chocolate gone bad. Instead, this is just an indication that the sugar and/or fat has separated due to poor storage. Chocolate must be tempered at specific temperatures to create the right crystalline structure and then properly stored to maintain its composition. Heating or cooling the chocolate outside of its temperature profile can result in this type of separation. Chocolate can also absorb flavors from other foods so should be stored in tightly sealed containers.

A big plus for all of us chocolate lovers is that dark chocolate and cocoa butter have been linked with multiple positive effects. Scientific evidence suggests dark chocolate can help decrease the possibility of a heart attack or other cardiovascular problem when consumed regularly in small amounts and reduces blood pressure in both overweight and normal adults. Finally, studies have shown dark chocolate as part of a low-fat diet can lower cholesterol levels in adults.

So I hope you did not forget your sweetheart this Valentine's Day and bought her a box of her favorite health food, Chocolate!

Song of Songs 7:6 (NKJV) - How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!

Searching Inward Part Two - The Life within Us

Back in the summer of 1993, I was on a road trip around the western United States with three of my kids and while staying in Salt Lake City we decided to take in a new movie that had just come out, Jurassic Park. I am sure most of you have seen it or at least heard of the dinosaurs gone wild adventure. It was the greatest GMO experiment, science fiction in that day but science fact today. They found a mosquito captured in a ball of amber and extracted dinosaur DNA from the blood in the belly of the bug, cloning it into true living dinosaurs for an island theme park. This movie hits on several things we will be looking at today in our blog, the dinosaurs and DNA.

First let’s go back to the last blog entry about the Cambrian Explosion that occurred about 540 million years ago. Since then, there have been five major mass extinction events with the last one happening about 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs became extinct. This extinction was possibly due to two catastrophic events occurring one right after the other, a massive volcanic eruption followed by a gigantic asteroid slamming into the Yucatan peninsula. These two events covered the earth with hundreds of feet of ash and soot - laying down a geological layer that would wipe out the dinosaurs and produce large oil and gas pockets. Without the mass extinction of these fierce reptiles, we would not have the oil that has driven our industrial revolution over the last 200 years. God used all of these events for a purpose. People often ask if God just wanted to make man, why so much wasted space or life or whatever, but He had a reason and a purpose for all that He did in His creation. All of it was necessary, even though we might not know why now - Prov 25:2 (KJV) - It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

So now today we will look at what makes life so special. Just in terms of advanced life forms, including man, the physical being of the structure of life is extremely complex. We learn new things daily about how wondrous the cell is and how bringing millions and billions and trillions of cells together, a functional being results. All multi-celled life forms have an array of cell types that function in different ways but come from one cell. Even the simplest of organisms is indeed complex.

But let’s go back to the DNA part of the story first. Human DNA has a sequence of over 3 billion letters (A-Adenine, G-Guanine, C-Cytosine and T-Thymine). Only 5% of our DNA contains the codes for the 10,000+ proteins used in our bodies. The rest was once considered junk DNA but science has now determined that up to 80% of this remaining DNA actually controls how and when the proteins are made and what the cell form will be. The DNA string is wrapped up tightly in coils and stored in every single cell in our bodies. This allows the 3 billion base pairs in each cell to fit into a space just 6 microns across (the cell nucleus). If you stretched the DNA in one cell all the way out, it would be about 6 feet long and all the DNA in all of your cells put together end to end would be about twice the diameter of the Solar System.

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Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what
We see was not designed, but rather evolved.

Frances Crick - referencing the DNA double Helix

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DNA stores all the information to make you, in each and every cell. In fact, science can now tell a lot about your origin and ancestry by looking at your DNA. You can even send in a kit with a sample of your tissue and get back an analysis that will tell where your ancestors came from. Science has even been able to get DNA from fossils and sequence it and trace the lineage of the fossil. Neanderthal man is a case in point. Once thought to have been our direct ancestor, he has now been shown not only to not be directly related but actually from a different chain in the genus Homo. DNA testing shows that humans have some Neanderthal DNA but possibly it comes from interbreeding or a common ancestor farther back. DNA shows most, if not all mankind (homo sapiens) has one ancestor (Adam or mitochondrial Eve?).

DNA has built-in mechanisms to prevent errors in coding - there are 64 possible 3 nucleic acid strings (such a string specifies one amino acid in the protein being formed) and only 20 amino acids used in our genetic code to produce proteins. Most amino acids have more than one three character code and the extra sequences are used to help with error correction by preventing minor mutations from changing the resulting protein.

But it is not fool proof. Even a single amino acid error can sometimes produce a disorder as in Sickle Cell disease. The DNA mutation of a single nucleotide of the hemoglobin gene results in glutamic acid being substituted by valine at position 6 in hemoglobin's beta protein strings of 146 amino acids (hemoglobin is made up of 2 alpha and 2 beta protein strings totaling 574 amino acids). This occurs when the A (Adenine) in the DNA three letter sequence GAG, which translates to glutamic acid in the protein, is substituted with T (Thymine), changing the sequence to GTG which translates to valine. This is normally a benign mutation, causing no apparent effects on the structure of hemoglobin in conditions of normal oxygen concentration. What it does allow for, under conditions of low oxygen concentration, is the sickle formation of the red blood cells due to the genetically different hemoglobin molecule whose shape is changed by this one amino acid error.

Science now can modify the DNA of a single cell organism, typically a bacterium, and have it produce a new or modified protein. This is called recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology. A great example using this technology in the healthcare field is the development of rDNA human insulin. Previously insulin for human use was extracted from beef and later from pork. Although these worked, they could cause allergic reactions. Insulin is a protein made up of two chains totaling 51 amino acids - beef has three different amino acids and pork has one compared to human insulin and yet our bodies can tell the difference. Now with rDNA produced human insulin, these adverse effects are a thing of the past.

Francis Crick, the scientist who deciphered the double helix of DNA, said of his work: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what we see was not designed, but rather evolved." He also said: "An honest man, armed with all of the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to almost be a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to have been satisfied to get it going."

Scientists have tried to take this one step farther and create life in the lab. They made a synthetic organism, but it was no primordial goo that happened to come alive. It took scientists hundreds of hours using computers and other very sophisticated equipment, cost over $40 million dollars and 15 years of work. Certainly not a simple process and the end result was not alive. Although it did function in some respects, it could not produce, or reproduce, the complex molecules needed to sustain and duplicate life.

Doctor David Deamer, one of the scientists involved in this work, published an article where he listed the following 12 specific steps needed to create the simplest form of life.

Defining artificial life: What would such a system do? We can answer this question by listing the steps that would be required for a microorganism to emerge as the first cellular life form on the early Earth:

1. Boundary membranes self-assemble from soap-like molecules to form microscopic cell-like compartments.
2. Energy is captured by the membranes either from light and a pigment system, or from chemical energy, or both.
3. Ion concentration gradients are maintained across the membranes and can serve as a major source of metabolic energy.
4. Macromolecules are encapsulated in the compartments but smaller molecules can cross the membrane barrier to provide nutrients and chemical energy for primitive metabolism.
5. The macromolecules grow by polymerization of the nutrient molecules.
6. Macromolecular catalysts evolve that speed the growth process.
7. The macromolecular catalysts themselves are reproduced during growth.
8. Genetic information is encoded in the sequence of monomers in one set of polymers.
9. The information is used to direct the growth of catalytic polymers.
10. The membrane-bounded system of macromolecules can divide into smaller structures that continue to grow.
11. Genetic information is passed between generations by duplicating the gene sequences and sharing them among daughter cells.
12. Occasional mistakes (mutations) are made during replication or transmission of information so that the system can evolve through natural selection.

After considering this list, he said: "Looking down this list, one is struck by the complexity of even the simplest of life. This is why it has been so difficult to ‘define’ life in the usual sense of a definition – that is, boiled down to a few sentences in a dictionary. Life is a complex system that cannot be captured in a few sentences, so perhaps a list of its observed properties is the best we can ever hope to do." (emphasis mine).

What did the cell look like to scientists when Darwin first proposed evolution? It was protoplasm and a nucleus. What sparks a single cell to split and differentiate into a myriad of cell types - in humans, hearts and lungs and brains and... Is it just the pressure of "survival of the fittest (natural selection)?” How does the DNA know that for this cell in this place it needs to be a nerve cell? All cells carry the full gene complement to produce any cell in the body but surroundings somehow tell a cell to be special.

Life is extremely complex. Could this all happen by chance, by the pressure of natural selection, in just 3.8 billion years, with all that the earth has gone through during that time? Science says this happened by chance, not because they know it does but because they have no other theory for it, and they cannot say God because He does not exist in the physical realm scientifically, nor can He be proven or dis-proven by science. In my mind he can and does exist and it is for each of us to decide for ourselves what we believe. The evidence is there.

With this, we are just scratching the surface. The cell is full of complex systems, not just the DNA that directs it or the proteins that run it. There are numerous other features, such as mitochondria and ribosomes, and numerous other chemical reactions, such as the Krebs cycle and active transport of nutrients, that must function to get the job of life done. God is amazing!

Romans 1:20 (NIV) - For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Searching Inward Part One - The Life Around Us

So we have shown that the Earth is very possibly the only planet in the Universe that can support life as we know it. Now we move on to the next part of our series:

Searching Inward - Psalm 139:13 (NIV) "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." - Finding God in the formation of life and the human body.

We will start our search first with a look at what we consider as life and how secular science views the process of evolution, from the beginning of life to the great diversity we see around us. I believe, as a Christian, that God created all life but that does not preclude Him using that which He designed, i.e. genetics, to bring about parts of His Creation. Much like how we showed that God nurtured (The Hebrew word "râchaph") the Universe and the Earth to make it ready for life, He certainly could do the same to fine-tune the life He created.

So, what is life anyway? Within science there is no one clear definition of life that is accepted by all but most consider life to contain these characteristics:

Living things are organisms that display the ability to grow, reproduce, take in and use energy, excrete waste, respond to the environment, and possess an organized structure more complex than that of non-living things.

At the border of living versus non-living things are viruses and single celled bacteria. Viruses are not really "alive" based on our definition but are more like a computer that runs a machine that makes more computers. On their own, they can not grow, reproduce, or take in and use energy, these functions are carried out by the host cell they infect. Viruses have been described as "organisms at the edge of life." They consist of genetic material made from either DNA or RNA, a protein coat, called the capsid, which surrounds and protects the genetic material and, in some cases, an envelope of lipids that surrounds the protein coat.

Viruses are extremely complex biological particles. So even if on the edge of life, they seem much too complex to happen by chance. Science considers the evolutionary history of viruses to be unclear, possibly coming from bacteria or plasmids, small DNA fragments that can move between cells. They are considered an important means of horizontal gene transfer, infecting and potentially modifying DNA in the host cell, which can increase genetic diversity.

Bacteria are prokaryotic microorganisms, being single celled and not containing a membrane-bound nucleus, the simplest form of life. They were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Here again, these organisms are extremely complex, more so than viruses, and seem highly unlikely to form by the random chance interactions of molecules, many of which themselves are complex and had to form randomly. As mutations did not occur at this stage in the proposed evolutionary process, bacteria are assumed to have been randomly formed from protocells, a self-organized, endogenously ordered, spherical collection of lipids. Science has yet to demonstrate how a protocell could be formed.

So the scientific expectation is that simple molecules formed from the elements under the harsh conditions of the early Earth via chemical reactions. These molecules then continued to become more complex until such a time as they formed amino acids (proteins), nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and lipids (fats). These molecules can be formed by chemical reactions under specific conditions, but did these conditions exist on the early Earth and if so, would these reactions occur with sufficient frequency and consistency to produce these protocells? Again this seems unlikely.

Would these protocells, if they formed, then spontaneously combine in such a way to make a living cell? At what point does this non-living mass of molecules become able to function independently and to reproduce itself? The odds of this happening seem even greater than the odds that Earth would be capable of supporting life. The second law of thermodynamics requires that the universe move in a direction in which disorder (or entropy) increases, yet life is distinguished by its high degree of organization.

If we look past this dilemma and assume that prokaryotes formed, then we need to next move to the eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are organisms with a more complex cellular structure and many cells. Most plants and animals are eukaryotes. Now here science utilizes mutations to make this leap so lets look at the definitions.

Mutation: Random alterations to the DNA sequences that make up genes and which are passed from one generation to the next. Mutations are key to the evolutionary process, being the major source of microevolutionary changes.

Microevolution: Changes in the gene pool (primarily mutations) of a population over time which result in relatively small changes to the organisms in the population. Changes which would not result in the newer organisms being considered as different species. Examples of such microevolutionary changes would include a change in a species' coloring, size or bodily processes.

Macroevolution: Changes in organisms which are significant enough that, over time, the newer organisms would be considered an entirely new species. In other words, the new organisms would be unable to mate with their ancestors or reproduce as the older organism, assuming we were able to bring them together. Macroevolution is thought to happen when sufficient microevolutionary changes occur, resulting in a new species.

Natural Selection: The process by which traits that are favorable in a given environment become more common in subsequent generations, and traits that are less favorable become less common. This is considered a significant source of microevolutionary changes that can lead to macroeveolution. It is one process that works against mutational randomness by preferential selection of the "better" genetic change. An example in bacteria would be the development of resistance to antibiotics.

As we look at these processes and how they might occur and lead to more diverse genetics and the growth of the evolutionary tree, there seems to be some difficulties. One primary difficulty is the amount of time needed for evolutionary changes to occur and what the fossil record shows for the appearance of advanced life. Is there enough time from the formation of the earth until now to allow for all the diversity we see?

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Was there enough Time for Evolution?
Or did God "Nurture" it along?
As He did with the formation of the Universe.

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Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago and life started 3.8 billion years ago. But up until the Cambrian Explosion, which started about 452 million years ago, most life was prokaryotic (single celled) or organized into colonies. The Cambrian explosion was a period in the fossil record lasting anywhere from 2 to 50 million years, where there was the sudden appearance and diversification of almost every major group (phylum) of animal life (multicellular, eukaryotic organisms). Plants started to develop at about the same time but the rate of changes in diversity was slower than that observed for animals. Was this enough time for the massive changes in structure to occur from prokaryotes to advanced eukaryotes?

Some challenges that the Cambrian Explosion brings to evolution are (from Reasons to Believe):

1. While evolutionary scenarios, as opposed to worked-out theories, exist for hypothesizing how new genera, new orders, and new families of animal life might appear, there is no rational evolutionary scenario for explaining how a new animal phylum might appear.
2. From 50 to 80 percent of the animal phyla known to have existed at any time in Earth’s history appeared within no more than a few million years of one another, as the Cambrian geological era began.
3. Of the 182 animal skeletal designs theoretically permitted by the laws of physics, 146 appear in the Cambrian explosion fossils.
4. The Cambrian explosion marks the first appearance of animals with skeletons, bilateral symmetry, appendages, brains, eyes, and digestive tracts that include mouths and anuses.
5. Virtually every eye design that has ever existed appears simultaneously in the Cambrian explosion.
6. The moment oxygen levels in Earth’s atmosphere and oceans permit the existence of Cambrian animals, they suddenly appear.
7. The Cambrian explosion occurs simultaneously with the drastic change in sea chemistry known as the Great Unconformity.
8. The Cambrian explosion includes the most advanced of the animal phyla, chordates, including vertebrate chordates.
9. Both bottom-dwellers and open ocean swimmers appear simultaneously in the Cambrian explosion.
10. Optimization of the ecological relationships among the Cambrian animals, including predator-prey relationships, occurred without any measurable delay.

Fossils found in Yunnan province of China (at sites discovered nearly 100 years ago) and in the Burgess Shale deposits of the Canadian Rockies tell us that all animal phyla (more than 70) ever to exist in Earth’s history appeared “at once” during the Cambrian Explosion. Some 40 phyla have since disappeared and not a single new one has appeared since. This “burst” of life occurred in an extremely narrow window of geologic time, about 5-10 million years. Evidence from the Yunnan sites possibly narrows this window to less than 3 million years. Could 90+% of life have evolved in just 3 million years?

So the question becomes again, are the scientific theories of life's origin statistically possible in the context of the natural law of probability? When Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, the cell was barely visible under a primitive microscope. Scientists thought of it as only a blob of protoplasm. They could not see or know the vast complexity that is a living cell.

Up until the mid-twentieth century, science had considered the universe as eternal. This offered infinite time for infinite evolution and made probability considerations irrelevant. But then science moved to the big bang theory, which states that the universe had a beginning, limiting time for evolution. These time limitations make probability considerations crucial. It is statistically improbable that life as we know it could arise from a primordial soup in even a billion years. Given that, if life should appear, the current scientific theory then predicts a gradual evolutionary process in which simpler life-forms would be expected to appear first, followed by the more complex. Instead, the fossil record suggests "punctuated equilibrium" - long periods of stability followed by short bursts of change.

God could have again nurtured (The Hebrew word "râchaph") His creation, even manipulating the genes He created, in such a way as to "punctuate" life (and thus the fossil record) with rapid spurts of diversity in physical form and function. Molecular biologist Kenneth R Miller suggested as much when he said:

"A clever and subtle God [might] influence events in ways that... could include the appearance of mutations. ...Enormous changes in physical systems can be brought about by unimaginably small changes in initial conditions [which] could serve as an undetectable amplifier of divine action."

Psalm 104:27-31 (NIV) - "All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. ²⁸When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.²⁹When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. ³⁰When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. ³¹May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works!"