Evidence for God's Existence: Origin of Life

In the previous article, I discussed scientific reasons supporting the idea that God is the best explanation for the universe's origin. Regarding the universe's beginning, one can either believe that the Big Bang occurred spontaneously without any guiding intelligence or that some form of intelligence or mind was involved. This concept also applies to the origin of life, particularly the origin of the biological information that led to the emergence of the first life. The source of the information that led to the universe and living beings is crucial to solving the mystery of life's origin.

To really understand where life came from, we can’t start with humans and work our way back to simpler life forms, because these simpler life forms are made of things incredibly complex. We need to start with cells and the parts that make cells live and operate. When you start at the tiniest of scales, you begin to see that nothing is simple, and if we’re honest with ourselves, it shows evidence of design.  

Current Scientific Theory on Life's Origin: Chemical Evolution

For life to emerge on this planet, highly complex cells needed to replicate. Yet, cells replicate only when they possess functional components, such as proteins and other intricate molecules. Proteins are lengthy chains of atoms precisely bonded, so materialists must account for how atoms formed amino acids that subsequently formed proteins. The theory that seeks to explain how this process occurred over time is known as "chemical evolution."

Because the scientists studying these ideas don't believe in God, they look for purely natural explanations for how atoms could form complex molecules that gave rise to the first life. They break it down into five phases:

1. The early Earth's atmosphere was composed of hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and nitrogen, lacking free oxygen. This environment was conducive to organic molecules.

   
   

2. The compounds created in the atmosphere eventually ended up in the ocean, where they combined with increasing amounts of organic material. This resulted in further chemical reactions that ultimately led to the formation of "soup."

   
   

3. Dense organic soups formed as the pools thickened due to evaporation. Eventually, these thick pools combined with clay, establishing the ideal conditions for simple cells to form.

   
   

4. Protocells formed, featuring a durable membrane that enables the internal complexity to grow over time. Polypeptides evolved with the right specificity to function as enzymes. More traits of living cells appeared. Once nucleic acids, the hereditary molecules of life, became adequately advanced, they began to regulate these processes.

   
   

5. Life begins to take off in all its various forms.

   
   

That is a simple outline, of course, but it is sufficient to show serious gaps in the theory.

Gap # 1: For this theory to work, life had to emerge from ingredients already in place (matter). Where did the matter come from? And where did the laws come from that determined how the atoms and molecules would bond? Even if organic molecules formed on their own, the fact these chemicals were following laws that led to the formation of anything useful, proves information was driving the whole process, which points to a mind.

Gap # 2: Stage four is particularly troubling as it does not explain how the internal components of protocells became more complex over time. The theory suggests that cell parts eventually aligned correctly through trial and error, but even if this occurred, how did the cell recognize when it achieved the necessary complexity to replicate? What was the mechanism that began the process of replication, and how did this lead to so many different types of cells once one cell finally evolved to the right complexity? It took billions of years, through trial and error, for one cell to form that could replicate, so where did all the other cells come from? What is one cell by itself going to do? It seems that someone must have established the laws of chemical evolution in advance, which serves as strong evidence for God.

To demonstrate just how unlikely it is that cells developed and evolved over time unguided by any intelligence, we are going to do a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that we can go back in time before there was any life on this planet. There were no bacteria and no single-celled organisms. We are going to sit and observe how long it takes for a replicating cell to form on its own. We are going to need all the parts obviously, so how many parts are we talking about? Cells are not just microscopic blobs moving around aimlessly in our bodies. Now that scientists have powerful enough microscopes, way more powerful than anything in Darwin’s day, we see a mini universe inside cells and a level of complexity that boggles the mind.

Franklin Harold wrote that cells come with: 

Artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction…and a capacity not equaled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of hours.[1]

It would be crazy to think that we could just sit and watch a car make itself, but atheists believe cells, which are far more complex, did just that. Cells are more than just complex. They are what we call irreducibly complex.

This implies that every component must function in unison, and removing even one part causes the entire system to fail. It also indicates that it couldn't have developed gradually through trial and error. If all the components weren't functioning correctly from the start, you wouldn't have a meaningful, functioning cell. An early version of the cell missing a part or improperly assembled couldn't pass on this "incorrect" information to a replicated cell, as it is already broken and cannot replicate. Evolution can only work if there is something existing that already works.

Proteins 

Researchers have successfully synthesized amino acids in a laboratory setting, supporting the theory of chemical evolution. However, amino acids, despite their complexity, are insufficient on their own; they require other molecules. After creating the amino acids, which come in various types, they must be arranged in a precise sequence for proteins to form the correct shape. The likelihood of amino acids forming even a single short functional protein without any intelligent guidance is one in 10 to the 125th power![4] Some intricate proteins in animals consist of 400 amino acids! This involves not just 400 atoms; a single amino acid comprises multiple atoms bonded in a specific manner, meaning thousands of atoms must connect perfectly. While many struggle to comprehend how computers are assembled and function seamlessly, some believe that something far more intricate, like a protein, could self-assemble without any guiding information.

Proteins perform specific functions and are active only when properly assembled, indicating a design. The shape of a protein dictates its function and role. If the amino acids are not correctly linked, the protein cannot achieve the precise shape it was intended to have. This raises the question: How do cells know how to arrange the amino acids precisely so that they adopt the correct shape?  

DNA (Language for Life) 

Now is where things really get interesting because we’re going to see how cells actually make amino acids and then proteins. It all happens because of DNA in the nucleus of the cell.

DNA is a very complex information and language system, and it’s the most efficient processing system in the universe. About 100,000 chemical reactions take place in the cell per second and it all happens because of DNA, which has about the same amount of information that you’d find in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.[5]

The DNA molecule is just a medium to carry the information of life. The molecules themselves are not alive, just like words printed in a book aren’t the actual story. But for the story in the author’s head to get into your head, he or she has to put the information onto a medium so it can pass from the author to the reader. The immaterial information in the molecules comes from the mind of an author––God, but something has to read the information. Information is one thing, but you have to be able to understand the language for it do any good. There is language in DNA and the cells know how to read it!  

Information 

To understand how the information in the DNA is transferred, think of how symbols in language take information from one form and change it into another. In Morse Code, for example, you can use sounds or symbols. As long as you know how to read the code, you can translate the sounds and symbols into letters of the alphabet.  

Music is another example of how information is communicated. The sounds required to create music are depicted on paper as musical notation, but the ink marks on the page are not the music itself. Musicians must translate the language of music and then use their instrument or voice to adhere to the rules of that language. When a musician sees a whole note on the staff, they understand to sustain the sound for 4 beats. All of this information is encapsulated in a small symbol. The whole note acts as a code, instructing the musician on how to express it in the physical world. 

When it comes to DNA, there are molecules in the DNA that carry a line of code that must be translated. Think of the language of DNA as having a 4-letter alphabet used to make words. In this case, the four letters are really just molecules that make up the rung of the ladder in the twisted DNA.

Scientists use the letters AGCT and each letter represents a molecule with a name starting with the letter. Adenine, for example, is the A. Just like letters in a specific order can communicate information, so too can the rungs of the ladder in the DNA. The way these rungs are ordered is the code. But how this code is read and then used to make proteins is astounding. Here is how it works.  

Within the cell, there is a remarkable piece of nanotechnology known as RNA polymerase. It moves along the DNA strand like a zipper, unwinding it for copying.

The RNA copy exits the nucleus through a pore and moves to another cellular factory known as a ribosome, which reads it. The ribosome reads the chemical bases transcribed from the original DNA strand and gathers nearby amino acids to begin protein synthesis. The ribosome precisely determines which amino acids to assemble and in what sequence, based on the RNA's base sequence. Once the protein exits the ribosome, it is accompanied by other molecules that protect it as it travels to another machine, which ensures the chain of atoms folds correctly. When the protein is fully formed, it is released into the cytoplasm to carry out a specific function.  

This is basically the same technology used in factories all around the world that assemble things. A computer programmer will write a program, which is basically a bunch of commands and instructions written in a code the computer can use, and then the machine will follow the instructions in the computer code to make whatever it’s designed to make. No one in their right mind would think a Ford assembly plant that uses computer programs to build car parts wrote its own code and then started making the parts on their own. It’s even more true for proteins. 

The pressing question now is: How did the genetic code in DNA originate? Scientists have never observed matter generating even a single bit of code. Information does not arise from matter; rather, matter arises from information, suggesting that a mind initiated everything. Therefore, whether matter was intentionally designed for life or developed through natural, physical processes, the purpose that directed and guided this process predated the process itself. Before atoms ever bonded, someone must have determined, "This is how an amino acid will bond to another to form a protein." Essentially, even if the laws and processes that led to the emergence of the first life can be explained entirely in natural terms, they must have originated from an intelligent mind. Teleology suggests there was a predetermined direction from the beginning, indicating design.

[1] Franklin M. Harold, The Way of the Cell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 329. 

[2] John C. Lennox, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (Oxford: Lion Books, 2009), 127. 

[3] Allen Lane, The Fifth Miracle (London: Penguin Press, 1998), 60. 

[4] Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 284. 

[5] John C. Lennox, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (Oxford: Lion Books, 2009), 136.