The Search for God Page 3.5.1
Clearly, most people reading this book or web post know that I am currently a Christian. However, that has not always been the case. In fact, for the first 29 years of my life, I was not. Still, my studies in the sciences paved the way for an easy transition.
You see, I grew up steeped in evolutionary theory. I still remember a vivid lecture by an esteemed lecturer who displayed various embryos of different creatures as support of the evolutionary theory, but all I could think was, how superficial.
Who are we?
What are we?
I had just come from biochemistry where we had been studying cells and I suddenly realized abiogenesis and macro-evolution was complete non-sense. There was no way that these genetic changes for each species could occur randomly and be functional.
Anyway, I give this slight background to say that about seven years before becoming a Christian, I believed that macroevolution was false and that only an intelligent being could have made cells and each species. Science is a powerful tool of discovery.
Scientific study is built to answer questions of how and what.
- How did a cell divide?
- What genes were activated?
- How does light bend through a prism?
But the question of why cells, genes, and light are here can only be answered with two possibilities: intelligence and no intelligence.
Either some intelligence developed, created, or merged a cell or no intelligence performed all those activities. So as scientists, we should keep an open mind to let the evidence dictate which process, intelligence or non-intelligence, is correct; not presuppose no intelligence then try to fit a theory.
I want to focus on three main topics to consider the organization of life, not even intelligent life, just a single cell, the first cell.
Beginnings
If you believe the science, then the universe had a beginning. I accept the concept of some big bang event, because science informs us the universe is expanding. The idea of a beginning to the universe can also be reasoned with using the idea of the law of cause and effect.
For every effect, there is a cause which suggests the universe requires a first cause. While I think the philosophical argument of a first cause pointing to God is persuasive, the science part of me dismisses that as untestable.
So let’s just agree that the universe was caused by something, maybe there was some internal fluctuations, and it exploded into being and has been expanding ever since. But something must be eternal, something will never come from nothing.
So either non-living matter has always existed or some living being has always existed. Agreed? If non-living matter is the eternal substance, then after it begins to expand, this non-living matter begins to cool and condense by gravity, some black holes form creating areas for more matter to form, yada, yada, yada.
Fundamental law
Okay. Now we must begin to ask what the organizing force or principle is that begins to form complex structures that will lead to life.
There is a fundamental law of entropy which, when summed up, is understood that organized things tend toward disorganization unless acted upon by an outside force.
So, we are going to say that these forces, in the beginning stages, are gravity or some attractive force pulling things into proximity—subatomic particles pulling like particles forming atoms.
Some atoms pulled and formed stars, and planets started rotating around. I am not an astrophysicist and will not attempt to speak intelligently in this area and will grant that all these things might have happened.
And I think most people who are not scientists, when confronted by learned men in these fields, fold. My intuition tells me these processes are not this simple and billions of years are still probably not adequate, but I will accept the premises because we want to know how non-living matter produced living beings.
The First Cell
So the next step is the first cell. I am well familiar with cell biology. Ask yourself what would be required to have a living cell. What does it mean to be living?
The first thing most people think of is reproduction. The cell needs to make a copy of itself. Well, what does reproduction require?
- You need instructions.
- You need DNA or RNA to provide the information.
- You need the genetic material (DNA or RNA) to tell the cell what proteins to make to allow the cell to reproduce.
Okay, how does the genetic material give instructions to make those proteins? The DNA or RNA needs the proteins to open up or begin the translation process. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
So the DNA tells the cell what proteins to make by using proteins the cell made from the DNA instructions.
- How does this happen?
- Where did the first proteins come from?
- Which came first?
Which is first?
Now we have the classic “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” scenario.
The DNA needs proteins to function, but the proteins have to come from the DNA instructions. For non-living matter to produce life, both would have to be present at the same time.
This can’t happen. It’s like saying a car design and a car and the car assembly line formed at the same time. And there is not just one protein but at least 10 proteins needed for DNA to make a protein.
Both DNA and proteins had to form at the same time, someone had to make them. I highly recommend the book Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer.
Check out this video describing the book:
The difficulties are just beginning because cell reproduction cannot occur without a safe environment from the surrounding forces of entropy trying to tear the carbon and nitrogen and oxygen away.
So we need a cell wall that is itself incredibly complex. The reproducing cell needs to make more cell wall material. The instructions for the cell wall come from DNA and RNA, but the cell wall has to be present first to protect the cell.
Let’s say that somehow a barrier was made naturally with things like a micelle; then how did the cell learn and add instructions to make the cell wall that formed naturally?
Who taught DNA or RNA what substances the cell wall used to protect the interior and then wrote that information into the DNA or RNA? Another impossibility.
But yet, we still don’t have life because all these processes require energy and additional building materials. The cell must acquire materials and energy to replicate. We have this impervious cell wall protecting the interior cell.
How does more carbon, oxygen, and water, get into the cell? The cell wall has channels and gates that allow passage, each of which are—you guessed it—proteins. Each of those channels and gates are proteins that have to be made by DNA or RNA.
So again, the proteins that are required to bring in energy and material to replicate and make proteins are themselves proteins. So maybe proteins formed first? By random chance?
Check out this video.
How many proteins do we need for a functioning cell? Thirty? One hundred? According to one article, there are 52 proteins in the smallest prokaryotic cell.
So let’s use that number. We have all these proteins (at least 52) that have to form based on natural forces without any intelligence. Does this make sense? The probability is incomprehensible; it’s like winning the cosmic lottery!
“Exactly” is what the non-intelligence creation group says. The fact that humans exist and that life formed is proof that even though the probability is low, we won the lottery. Wait, wait. What is the argument?
Because life must have formed naturally, without intelligence, even if unlikely, our existence is proof that the natural process is how humans formed. Again, this argument has determined the way the first cell and humans formed, then it says that because we exist, it proves that is how we formed.
Does anyone else see the circular fallacy? Why not look at the data, then determine what best explains the data? We only have two options, intelligence or non-intelligence.
Where did DNA come from?
Please also remember, a protein is only half the story, even if I grant that 52 or more proteins formed completely by wind, water, lightning, heat, lava, whatever, then where did DNA come from? Where did the instructions to build the proteins come from?
DNA by itself is a sign of intelligence. The cell is more complex than the entire automobile supply chain of gathering raw materials, transporting them, processing the materials, making the parts for the vehicle, and constructing the vehicle.
So we have:
A cell wall with proteins (output) with the DNA instructions (the factory).
The DNA provides instructions for proteins – the instructions for the factory door, the vehicle, which supplies to gather, which vehicles will transport:
- Copy DNA – Does a factory have instructions to copy itself?
- Transcribe DNA
- Transport RNA
- Translate RNA
In addition, the cell must have proteins to capture the energy and building materials it requires to function (water, oxygen, carbon, and more). The proteins the cell uses need instructions from DNA. How did the cell know which materials it needed without the instructions first?
The cell also has “organs,” each of which are complex structures as well. Some astute readers might want to contend that not all cells need organelles, which I will grant.
Still, the instructions needed in DNA (RNA) and the machines needed in proteins are too complex to arise from random natural phenomena of lightning, ocean waves, heat, radiation, and so on.
So all these things have to be present before a cell can be considered living. The instructions for proteins from the DNA and RNA and the proteins themselves must all form at the same time. The first cell and any new cell structures have an information problem.
The first cell is impossible without an intelligence to make it.
An intelligent designer exists. Who is it?
These were my thoughts in 1994 sitting in repeated biochemistry lectures, but I had little time for action on the God front; I had to pass the next exam. Then seven years later, in 2001, when I became a Christian, science only reinforced and supplemented my understanding of Jehovah.
If you disagree about the intelligent design of the cell or if you want to learn more, I go in-depth in the science section on the website www.againstallheresy.org with numerous YouTube videos. But please do research; there are only two possibilities: completely natural random forces or intelligence.
Non-intelligence advocates
But what non-intelligence advocates teach is the following:
We can’t explain how the first cell formed, but it must have happened without intelligence because intelligence is not a good explanation; so with our intelligence, we will figure out how the first cell formed.
If you see a book, you know there is an author and publisher. If you see a car, you know there is a designer and a builder. At every level of the cell, we see design, complexity, and miniature machines, like excavators, that harvest raw materials, like iron.
These excavators were built by miniature machines, like part pressers, which require iron, which was collected by machines like excavators. Who designed the circular system?
Please make a pencil or a mouse trap by random chance. I will give you all the base materials and allow random natural forces to make those two items. Never, ever, in 10 billion years, will you get a functioning mouse trap or a functioning pencil. Life is so much more complex.
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- Science demonstrates that earthly life displays signs of intelligent design.
- Why is that significant?
- The first cell was created by the preponderance of evidence and reason.
- If you agree, the next steps.
- If you disagree, please consider reading.
References and Links
- Adventist Review – I believed that macroevolution was false
- Answers In Genesis – The concept of some big bang event
- James Clear – Fundamental law of entropy
- National Center for Biotechnology Information – The DNA instructions