"We are survival machines-robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment."
- Richard Dawkins

"So unless God created life elsewhere, we are alone, and for the materialistic evolutionist, this is a frightening thought."
- Raymond G Bohlin

The book of Genesis begins like this "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of god was hovering over the waters". The earth that we lived in was once a mass of formless, uninhibited and lifeless ball hanging loosely somewhere in a dark corner of the space. Then the sun appeared and emitted through its radiance enormous energy-loaded packets of life in the form of sunlight. The sun became the source of energy and survival kit for life forms ever since. Then a new era had just begun since the earth was now well equipped.

Professor Raymond G Bohlin had stated in one of his article that over the last two decades scientists have begun tabulating many characteristics of our universe, galaxy, solar system, and planet that appear to have been finely tuned for life to exist. Christian astronomer and apologist, Dr. Hugh Ross documents all these characteristics in his book Creator and the Cosmos and is constantly updating them.

Some examples include the size, temperature, and brightness of our sun, the size, chemical composition, and stable orbit of Earth. The fact that we have one moon and not none or two or three. The distance of the Earth from the sun, the tilt of the earth's axis, the speed of the earth's rotation, the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun. If any of these factors were different by even a few percent, the ability of Earth to sustain life would be severely comprised. Recently it has been noted that even the presence of Jupiter and Saturn serve to stabilize the orbit of Earth. Without these two large planets present exactly where they are, the Earth would be knocked out of its present near circular orbit into an elliptical one causing higher temperature differences between seasons and subjecting Earth to greater meteor interference. Neither condition is hospitable to the continuing presence of life.

Ross has further calculated the probabilities of all these factors coming together by natural processes alone to be 1 in 10-53; that's a decimal point followed by 52 zeroes and then a one. A very liberal estimate of how many planets there may be, though we have only documented 18, is 1022 or 10 billion trillion planets, one for every star in the universe. Combining these two probabilities tells us that there are 10-31 planets in the entire universe that could support life. Obviously this is far less than one; therefore, by natural processes alone, we shouldn't even be here--let alone some kind of alien life form.
(As quoted by Dr. Bohlin)

The first two chapters from the book of genesis designated God as supreme manifestation of a master Designer: Architect/Physicist who constructed the entire blue print of the universe; and an exceptionally genuine and efficient Chemist/Biologist/Genetic engineer who invented and assembled strings of chemical components known as DNA or Deoxyribonucleic acids. Many well-known scientists ruled out the possibility that this remarkable mysterious entity could have appeared by chance. However, the bible says in Genesis 2:7 that "The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground….". Could 'dust' probably here refers to the basic constituents of several chemicals and certain molecules including nucleic acids consisting of nitrogenous bases, phosphates, and sugars - the building blocks of DNA? Remember that our genes are made up of DNA.

The discovery of the structure of DNA double helix by Watson and Crick more than four decades ago astounded many scientists. It's simplicity yet so profound and wonderfully made status revealed the uniqueness and perfectionist in its Creator.

According to the evolutionists' view, life started on this earth from non-living matters with no outside interference whereas the creationist view that life came into earth with the help of external intelligence. I rather agree with the evolutionists' view to a certain extent considering the fact that evolution did take place. But is the evolution of life from non-living chemicals really that impossible? The following is an excerpt from Dr. Bohlin's article: The difficulties fall into three categories, the Chemical Problem, the Thermodynamic Problem, and the Informational Problem. These issues are presented comprehensively in a book by Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen titled The Mystery of Life's Origin and in a chapter in the edited volume by J. P. Moreland, The Creation Hypothesis.

Chemical Problems are illustrated by the difficulty in synthesizing even the simplest building block molecules necessary for life from inorganic precursors. Amino acids, sugars, and the bases for the important nucleotide molecules that make up DNA and RNA were all thought to be easily synthesized in an early Earth atmosphere of ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrogen. But further experiments showed this scenario to be unrealistic. Ammonia and methane would have been short-lived in this atmosphere; the multiple energy sources available would have destroyed the necessary molecules and water would have broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen was scrupulously avoided in all prebiotic scenarios because it would have poisoned all the necessary reactions.

Thermodynamic Problems arise from the difficulty in assembling all these complex molecules that would have been floating around in some prebiotic soup into a highly organized and complex cell. To accomplish the task of achieving specified complexity in life's molecules such as DNA and proteins, the availability of raw energy for millions of years is not enough. All systems where specified complexity is produced from simple components requires an energy conversion mechanism to channel the energy in the right direction to accomplish the necessary work. Without photosynthesis, there is no such mechanism in the prebiotic Earth.

The Informational Problem shows that there is no way to account for the origin of the genetic code, which is a language, without intelligent input. Informational codes require intelligent preprogramming. No evolutionary mechanism can accomplish this. Life requires intelligence.

Therefore, in the beginning God created the DNA and the rest is history.. The Bible says God created man but we don't know how long it took Him. ? Creation order pointed out clearly that there exists an ascending pattern in the occurrence of life forms on earth. This supports the theory that simpler life forms came first and then more complex forms and ultimately higher animals although I don't deny the fact that man was specially created by God in a special way.

But even today this very mission that God had initiated from the beginning hasn't been accomplished fully and is still waiting to be accomplished. It just happened that God is far beyond our time scale.

But why life at all? Why do we exist in the first place? Is God simply trying to propagate His own/created DNA on this earth to generate a gene bank? If so, then this earth is but a genomic library with each individual corresponding to a single bacterial colony growing on a nutrient agar plate. Who are we is a difficult question to answer? But we do know our body - the overall product of our genes. All the information pertaining to our body functions, shapes, sizes, and even our body colors etc. are all written in our genes- the genetic code.. The central dogma of molecular biology explains that DNA is transcribed into messenger RNA (Ribonucleic acid), which in turn finally translated into proteins and enzymes functioning in our body.

James Watson who won the Nobel prize for the discovery of the DNA's double helix structure, once stated that "our children will more be seen, not as the expression of God's will, but as results of the uncontrollable throw of genetic dice".

In his famous book 'The selfish genes', Richard Dawkins mentioned that our body is only a container, which serves as a vehicle to propagate our genes from generations to generations. Our body can die and decay whereas our genes are invincible, immortal coils that pass on from forefathers to parents to offsprings and so on and on - by means of reproduction. There is no doubt, however, that our genes had to under go a series of modifications from time to time and eventual mutational changes resulting in dire consequences. But these genes have their own ways to thrive and survive even drastic conditions. Dawkins further elaborate his striking vision of human evolution from the first living, replicating cell:

"Replicators began not merely to exist, but to construct for themselves containers, vehicles for their continued existence. The replicators which survived were the ones which built survival machines for themselves to live in…..survival machines got bigger and more elaborate, and the process was cumulative and progressive…… Four thousand million years on, what was to be the fate of the ancient replicators? They did not died out, for they are past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating loose in the sea: they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines."

However, we know that DNA in every life form carries an encoded message unique to individual life. Robert and Patricia Mondore had remarkably expressed in one of their article 'The Code word' - Thanks to the research of Crick, Watson and Williams, we are now able to decode the message found in DNA. It is the message of life spoken in every creature of our planet. From this, one might be prompted to ask, "a message from where" or more specifically, "a message from whom? Is there anything found in the Scriptures that could back the claim that DNA is an encoded message sent by God?"
"In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God…."
(John 1:1)

Could this 'Word' possibly be the coded message from God? If so, how do we explain this apart from carrying all the genetic informations of life forms on earth?. Furthermore, the first chapter of John specifies in verse14 that "The word became flesh and dwells among us….."

Every Bible reader knows that this 'Word' represents the second person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ -who took the form of human and was borne in a virgin. Could this 'Word' from God manifest inside the womb of this virgin, and reproduced in the form of human (embryo)?. Perhaps, a highly advanced human cloning took place already. More interestingly, in the bible, the woman was not created out of dust just as the man, but she was created out of the man's body- yet another marvel of genetic engineering at its peak?

John 1:1 concludes, "the Word was with God and the Word was God." The following verses go on to declare that "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men." How appropriate in a comparison of DNA to a spoken language, to realize that the name of the Creator of every living being in the Universe is "The Word."

Phillip Johnson, in describing DNA writes, "The Gospel of John begins with the memorable statement that 'in the beginning was the Word." That is exactly how we would describe the creation of a literary work or a computer program, or a building. In the beginning was the concept and the working out of the concept in the mind of the author or designer. Thereafter the concept was recorded, or realized, in matter." Jesus, the eternal Word is the expression, the language of God that spoke mankind into existence and them came to earth and spoke face to face in a language mankind could understand.

Mondores further exclaim that - There are those who consider DNA as evidence of evolution claiming that its ubiquitousness proves all life must have evolved from a single source. Using their own logic there is a far stronger case that the highly encoded messages found in DNA could only have come into existence through intelligent design. The fact that it is found in every life form is proof that all life was formed by a single Designer. Encoded messages can no more be attributed to nature than could the writings of Shakespeare. To create a great work of literature takes an intelligent life. To create life, takes God; the Logos; the Living Word. To those of us who know the Designer personally it seems clear. We wonder how others can miss it. The passage in John goes on to offer the explanation that, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--."

Human beings as a whole reflect the God-like attributes, which we inherited from the moment we were created. It is still however, unclear how far we are short of the final 'form' that the Creator wants us to be according to His own design and master plan. But one thing we do know and sure about is that we bear the likeliness of our Creator, since we were made out of His image and probably genes (?). After all it is God's given genes- the gift from God.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
(Genesis 1:27)

Everything we know of life leads to the opposite conclusion………Life is not a product of chance or necessity…………. Life is a product of intelligence.
-(Bohlin).