Once upon a time, in a pre-galaxy billions of years ago, there was a perfectly timed explosion ushered in by the creative energies of absolutely nothing. As luck would have it, this spontaneous combustion, rather than destroying everything around (since there was a pre-existing void of nothingness), it brought planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies, and universes into existence from nothing all held together through a completely natural miraculous process called gravity to keep the randomness from collapsing on itself; allowing for precise orbits and with planets and moons of the perfect size and distance – even laying the foundation for uncreated life to emerge on a magical Goldilocks planet known as earth.

Fortunately, after mutating over many billions of years with no entropic decay, a single-celled amoeba came onto the scene and life was born. Thank Jove, it was able to reproduce asexually and prevent itself from being eliminated as fast as it inexplicably emerged, solidly grounded on the building blocks of pure chance. Once again, blessed by pure happenstance, that amoeba through the smallest of incremental steps began a long arduous ascent up the evolutionary ladder. It benefitted from the pre-existent diverse flora that had already sprouted and predated this stunningly organically cunning amoeba. The earliest variances from this simple life form, I like to refer to as amoebic dissentery.

Imagine the subjective projection of beauty that could be inferred were we able to observe this process through super, duper, warp speed time-lapsed photography – if only there were rational minds capable of constructing and using such technology. I would have loved to capture the magic moment where these most simple of life forms gradually and incredibly slowly began to develop and harness the ability of locomotion, to grow appendages, acquire auditory, olfactory, vision, tactile, and taste capabilities. Consider the depth of knowledge we would gain from seeing how complete body systems with distinct, intricate, and fully interdependent systems (muscular, nervous, skeletal, digestive, excretory, circulatory, and respiratory) all of which themselves were irreducibly complex. Thank felicity for these miniscule, incremental, and always beneficial completely random evolutionary steps, transforming into a wide array of fauna made up of stunningly diverse creations that happened to form themselves into a food chain.

I would especially loved to have gained the direct knowledge of how virtually every life form managed to mutate in a fashion whereby they became two distinct and interdependent sexes that needed to copulate with one another in order to continue the species. What amazing luck that this miracle-like piece of good fortune managed to occur in an unbroken process or complex life of every form would have become immediately extinct or never have come into existence in the first place.

We can only speculate from the handful of fossils that have survived billions of years the steps and branching off that took place. The settled science has however concluded with certitude that we are close ancestors of the ape and based on observation in certain circles, they make a convincing case. Just think, however of that auspicious moment when what had been an animal in a blink of an eye suddenly transformed into a human being – with all the evolutionary attributes.

Lest we forget, consider the introduction of blood. This incredible body fluid that travels through a system of veins and arteries to ensure all the body systems can function. Through white and red blood cells and an intricate process, blood not only gives life, but purifies the body and fends off would-be attackers. This completely uncreated elixir is essential for all complex and even the vast majority of simple life forms to exist. Not only that, but it has clotting capabilities that, unless you got a Pfizer shot or have similar misfortune, the clotting happens outside the body to prevent exsanguination since clotting inside the body (again, see mRNA shot), leads to death. What a happy coincidence!

There is just so much complex fortune here that I neglected to mention the brain growing from nowhere, being fed through a circulatory system of the heart, blood, veins and arteries, and one day acquiring sentience. I’d really love to know the first bug, slug, or other fauna that was suddenly self-aware. Note that this not only necessitated to creation and development of a brand-new material brain, but a mind which gives the brain functionality.

In the case of man, we have an even greater evolutionary trajectory unique to us alone – almost as though we were designed with a purpose.

But enough of that creationist lunacy. Just look at what the human brain could do through an evolutionary process achieved via by blind luck alone:

• Manage the acquisition of consciousness
• Gain the ability to engage in abstract thought
• The capacity to reason and make decisions and choices
• It harnessed the capability of not only feeling, but expressing emotions
• Developed a moral code which imprinted itself on us (aka: a conscience) with stunning similarity across people groups and carried the starting assumption that people had unique innate worth
• Create and master numerous languages and transferred baseless concepts known as knowledge and skills in various spheres. A sampling includes, in no particular order: reading, writing, statistics, biology, psychology, philosophy, medicine, kinesiology, ethics, farming, child rearing, music, art, physics, mathematics, technology, sports trivia, mattress testing, lobbying, check kiting, fraud, social media influencing, video game playing, gambling, acting, teaching, child sex trafficking, abortionist, prostitution, politics, personal injury law – and so much and more with countless sub-categories
• Direct the actions of the body to perform fine and gross motor skills with precision and so natural as to seem automatic

Let us also not forget that natural laws cannot be explained under naturalism since they would necessarily be only repeatable patterns which, based on their own theory of changing over time – with regular necessary breaks in the procreational pattern through successive steps that are needed in order for life to evolve.

This summary is certainly far from exhaustive, but as this is a fairy tale, we need to keep it short.

I know what you’re going to say: But there are some very deep thinkers who have assured us that there is a consensus that there is no God. My response is as follows:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour him or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. – Romans 1:18-23

So, here in a nutshell we have two divergent and irreconcilable explanations for reality. Let us consider even further to address specifically the nature of the Judeo-Christian God in contrast with the panoply of competing gods of ancient lore or that have continued to modern times under the other dominant religions of the world.

Before proceeding, however, I want to be fair to the prominent detractors who have attempted to explain how life came into being without God or a god. Here are some of the pre-eminent theories:

• Evolution

Of course, we all know that this was the brainchild of Charles Darwin who, in his book, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” he claimed to answer where we came from. Many of you may be hearing the full title of Darwin’s tome for the first time since, as the title suggests, it comes across as a tad racisty. Not to be outdone, white supremacists wanting to find the most quotable material for your next KKK events will find that his other transformative book, “The Descent of Man” will be well worth your time. A sampler for ready reference can be found here.

Okay, just because Darwin espoused blatantly racist conclusions derived from his research does not invalidate his premise; but our next problem is that it is impossible to garner a clear definition for evolutionary theory. Darwinian evolution of itself is now just a subset for a vast array of competing evolutionary theories. Those wishing to play it safe like to simply state that evolution means “change over time.” Such a facile framing should be recognised as a dodge to avoid the main quandary that Darwin claimed to address – namely the origin of species. This doesn’t even furnish a “just so” attempt at how everything began. It merely claims that a random process inched pre-existing life along an evolutionary path toward increasing complexity and/or adaptability.

• Panspermia

This fanciful theory insists that life originated in space. Instead of the first basic life form landing on earth from nowhere, the ingredients were carried here through space in the form of amino acids, sugars, and the molecules to form RNA. Like materialism, it thrives on a complete dearth of any evidence; thus, it is all theory and is to be taken on faith – and not only faith, but blind faith. Perhaps it was pieced together by Richard Dawkins’ blind watchmaker.

For those of you relying on a rational mind rather than a purely material brain, you may recognise beyond the fact this is pure speculation, it has the same problem as evolution theory and pure naturalism. Put simply, it does nothing to explain the origins of the ingredients let alone the chef who brings together these uncreated materials. Oh, and it also doesn’t explain how these component parts became imbued with life.

Panspermia necessarily assumes a creator since we know that constituent parts being randomly pieced together does not explain the origins of life. What gave us minds, consciousness, sentience, the capacity for logic or even claim to know truth and reality? Panspermia answers none of this, yet those committed to an explanation that excludes the possibility of God will gloss over this minor limitation.

• Primordial soup

The specific terminology is rarely heard anymore, but Darwin was the first to spitball this concept that, instead of forming in space, the concoction of ingredients originated in some undiscovered source on earth. The popularity of this thesis is that, since teams of scientists have managed to create proteins “from scratch” in a lab, this means that given the right conditions, this could well explain how the first life came into existence.

Okay, class. Put on your thinking caps and let’s see if we can figure out the minor flaws in this theory.

First, the perfect conditions needed to be created. When dealing with a chance process, perfect conditions are the last thing we should expect. Relying on the goldilocks planet theory, however, which itself raises more questions than it answers, let’s spot them the conditions being just right.

Next, to create these proteins from scratch, they merely began with some amino acids. Uh oh! I thought they really meant from scratch. Where did the amino acids come from? Was there a creator of these building blocks used in the perfect environment in order to replicate a protein? Let’s move on.

A protein is only a portion of the RNA, let alone the DNA that forms the complex building blocks for life. This is a far cry from proving some kind of natural process that could bring about the flora in all its splendor – let alone the fauna.

Furthermore, we should assume these scientists were intelligent. Ergo, an intelligence created in a carefully managed environment based on pre-existing materials to piece together a small portion of an RNA molecule. This is not to insult the scientist’s capabilities since I barely even understand this. The problem is that their efforts do not prove the conclusions they are trying to draw, but instead it actually points even more to the necessity of a creator.

• Self-replicating molecule

Admittedly, this sounds an awful lot like the amoeba premise, but since the gene pool of options is shallow, I’m presenting this as a unique explanation.

This was posited by Richard Dawkins in an interview with Ben Stein in his documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” in which he addresses the refusal by universities to allow anyone to offer an alternative to naturalism (namely, intelligent design). Professors were fired for their crime of seeking intellectual rigour and debate against the dogmatic commitment to materialism.

We see that not only does Dawkins suggest that the first self-replicating molecule came from space, but was intelligently designed and originated from alien life. Here we have an admission of the need for a creator, but the aliens too need a creator. He does nothing to solve the problem other than moving it to another (assumedly non-goldilocks) planet. Again, there is no explanation for the existence of a mind with all the implications thereof.

 

• Multiverse

This did not originate with Marvel Comics, but came from the minds of a large swath of clearly desperate I.D. deniers. The theory is simply an expansion of the infinite number of randomly generated monkeys tapping out on self-creating typewriters and managing comprehensible conditions from chance joining of necessarily uncaused detritus to inexplicably result in so many options that a goldilocks planet could conceivably have come about by happenstance since limiting the number to our universe is insufficient to lend the theory credibility.

I don’t think I need to comment more on this completely speculative theory which seems to only validate the fact that their explanation for existence needs to be outsourced to fantasy in order to prevent it from being outright risible. Imagine if Christians were forced to depart from scripture to invent a multi-god theory to make our faith work. We would be justly mocked.

• String Theory

This one must be right because Stephen Hawking was so brilliant that he solved the dilemma. Of course, it is largely incomprehensible to most, but ultimately it involved layers of complexity managing to orchestrate together with pre-existing matter to bring our universe into existence. Again, it is mere speculation that relies on pre-existing materials and laws that cannot be explained without a reasonable origin story. It also doesn’t explain life and all that goes with it.

• Big Bang Theory

This was arrived at once, after long assuming that the universe always existed, it was discovered that not only did the universe and time have a start, but that start happened rapidly and with great precision and order. I wonder where I’ve heard that concept before. (See: Genesis 1)

Understand that the natural evolutionist doesn’t adopt the view of all life starting from a simple single-celled organism capable of asexual reproduction because this comports with the evidence, but because they have no choice. To somehow contend that two interdependent genders (male and female) came into existence even in something as basic as a fruit fly, they would need to explain how this event is the result of chance. Trying to bury this impossibility under the subterfuge of an over-arching and non-specific framework of “evolution” does not make their problem go away.

Richard Dawkins gave the game away once again when he stated that “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Ponder that for a moment. What he is conceding here is that intelligent design is the logical conclusion. The atheist tries to remove the fig leaf from the first created human beings to cover the complete lack of intellectual rigor I have exposed here.

Given the title of my blog, we may as well have replaced panspermia with pixie dust and aliens with fairy godmothers. What we have here is a smorgasbord of invented efforts to hold the door closed on all the evidence for God. Note that if you take the Bible at face value, all the key challenges naturalists try to answer are resolved immediately. All that is left are the little questions which we can ask God to explain once we throw off this mortal coil.

My next blog will pick up where we left off in Romans and take a deeper dive into the moral and logical arguments that work against naturalism and affirm the God of the Bible.