Why I believe the Bible’s record of the origin of life.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Gen 1:1. There was a time in my life when I did not know God and I did not believe this verse. I was a supporter of the evolutionary theory and felt it explained things quite well but in the back of my mind there were always a couple pieces of information that seemed to be missing; gaps in the theory that I couldn’t explain. I reasoned within myself that these gaps were the result of unfound discovery and that someday the scientific community would uncover the truth.
The first and most significant was where did all the matter and substance around us that we see, feel, touch, smell, and taste come from? Evolution just has no explanation for this at all. The theory as I understand it today, only goes back to what has been described and for the most part accepted as a “big bang” event but that’s pretty much where the trail seems to end. The day the scientific community declares that matter appeared out of nothing is the day that they will have finally come to the truth; that there is in fact a god and He is God.
Another gap that I recognized has to deal with the process of evolution. By its very definition the theory of evolution requires that things happen gradually by miniscule steps over very long periods of time. Minute mutations, augmentations, or adaptations take place and if the change improves the organism’s ability to survive it is allowed to carry forward to future generations and changes that fail to improve the survivability of an organism will die out along with the organism that doesn’t survive. Reality doesn’t show this extremely small and gradual change. In my opinion the size of the transitions the scientific community accepts are too substantial to fully support the evolutionary process. In fact, it should be very difficult for us to recognize the changes that actually unfolded if the process were true. Just the difference between humans and the rest of the inhabitants now or in the past is too great to support it.
Another rather significant factor for me is that the evolutionary theory doesn’t provide explanation for self-awareness, cognitive thinking, emotions, and yes even a belief in a supreme being or God himself.
The extremely delicate balance that exists in our environment for me also speaks volumes to an intelligent design. How the atmosphere that surrounds us contains just the exact mixes of gases we need plus provides just the right amount of filtering of harmful radiation from the sun and yet maintains just the right temperature range on our planet for our survival. How we have both land and water and we depend on both for our very survival. How the plants and animals are so well proportioned and balanced for a common symbiotic relationship that ensures our mutual survival. We could not exist without plants and plants could not exist without animal and/or human life. For both of us to evolve in the exact right period of time without both dying off before it could come to pass, is just too staggering to accept as truth.
Even the very essence of our own bodies is too much. Think about an eyeball and how many different specialized cells are required to produce one functioning eyeball. And the process has repeated itself billions of times over eons of time with each eyeball being unique. Now expand that to the entire human body and consider the trillions of cells that must repeatedly be created each with their own unique purpose and all starting from a single egg and sperm. It is just waaaaay too far-fetched to be accidental in my opinion. I cannot accept it to be anything less than intelligent design by God.
I know this is a bit cliche but there is a rather common analogy that I've heard that helps me put this into perspective. Suppose you were an astronaut and you were sent on a maiden voyage to Mars where human beings have never been. Suppose you open the door to the landing module and step out onto the surface. This in itself would be amazing but as you explore the surface you happen upon a shiny object in the dirt. You reach down and pick it up and to your surprise you discover a mechanical wrist watch. Not only that but you look at it and to your absolute amazement it is running and the time displayed matches the time at your home on earth. It this far-fetched and unbelievable or what? The simplest mechanical wrist watch contains about 130 moving parts. The human body contains over 100,000,000,000,000 different types of cells. How much more complex is the human body compared to that wrist watch and yet the scientific community believes we are a result of random chance but would laugh themselves silly if you came home from that journey and reported what you found.
No, for me there is only one explanation. God did it. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Every day when I look around me I see the signature of God on the vast mural of his canvas everywhere.
Just my
