DNA IS SO COMPLEX IT IS UNREASONABLE TO ACCOUNT FOR IT BY CHANCE
If we don’t understand who God is, we’ll never understand what/who humanity is. That is why we started our study of worldview issues with who God is. Get that right and everything right follows. Get that wrong, and everything wrong follows.
Who are we? Are we merely biological machines, just higher carbon-based life forms than all the other animals? Or are we a special form of life.
If the true God is the God of the Bible... the traditional Judeo-Christian God... as we presented last week, then humanity is what/who the Bible says we are.
Therefore,
we believe that humans are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). God wanted humans to multiply, inhabit and subdue the earth, as co-regents with Him, in a manner that would bring glory to Him. The ultimate purpose for humanity is to know God and enjoy Him forever.
Those who reject this view of humanity are lost in a maze of incomprehensibilities as to who humans are and why we are here. The answer is so clear and so obvious that if you don’t accept the obvious, you are like a blind person groping your way through unfamiliar terrain. You can know nothing for sure. You don’t know who you are, why you’re here, where you came from, or where you are going.
There are three things that secularists cannot explain about humanity:
- Secularists cannot explain our body
- Secularists cannot explain our mind
- Secularists cannot explain our soul
Concerning our body, which we will look at this week,
secularists cannot explain DNA. We all know that elephants only give birth to elephants, giraffes to giraffes, dogs to dogs and so on for every type of living creature including humans.
And we know that, while all elephants, giraffes, dogs and humans look similar to their own kind, they are all slightly different. No two elephants are identical to each other and now two humans are identical to each other. The big questions, from a scientific point of view are, “Why? How?”
The answer lies in a molecule called deoxyribonucleic acid or, helpfully,
DNA, which contains the biological instructions that make each species unique and each individual within a species unique. DNA, along with the instructions it contains, is passed from adult organisms to their offspring during reproduction.
But there are two components of DNA:
- The molecule itself
- The information embedded in the molecule
The computer has been used as an analogy. In the analogy, the molecule itself (a physical chain of chemicals) is the hardware. The DNA (the encoded information that actually determines the results) is the software.
In origin-of-life research, in their efforts to create life, scientists are trying to chemically create a DNA molecule. Using computer terminology, that is like only
building the hardware. But as we know, building a laptop out of plastic, silicone and copper wiring has nothing to do with writing the software that makes the computer functional. Even if scientists managed to chemically create a DNA molecule, it would only be the physical chain of chemicals… or the computer hardware. There would be no software to make it functional. And the big thing is, scientists have no idea where the encoded genetic information comes from, and therefore, no idea how to re-create it.
Yet in any other area of life, including the world of computers, the
source of encoded information (the software) is an
intelligent agent (the programmer). Therefore,
it is reasonable to infer that an intelligent agent was necessary at the origin of life.
Scientists have been searching the heavens for signs extraterrestrial intelligence. For the last 50 years there were vast satellite dishes searching the heavens for radio signals indicating intelligent life. The SETI Institute that is the focal point for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is being shut down because of the Great Silence…
50 years of nothing! I bring it up because if they received radio signals with a fraction of the design of DNA, they would assume it had been sent by an intelligent source. Yet, they refuse to admit intelligence behind the genetic information in DNA though they have no credible alternative explanation for it.
Scientists might be able to explain how a DNA molecule could come into existence without God, but they cannot explain how the information encoded in the molecule came into existence without God. Just as they might be able to build a computer without a programmer, but they cannot create software to make the computer operate.
A DNA molecule is like a computer, with both hardware and software. Scientists can explain the hardware but they cannot explain the encoded information in the software that makes DNA work.
Scientists have no explanation for DNA. Their resistance to accepting God as the author of DNA is rooted, not in science, but in an anti-supernatural presuppositions. Many scientists simply don’t want to believe in God, so they grasp at whatever evidence they can concoct to support their unbelief, no matter how weak it might be. If you cannot or will not believe in God, all that is left are weak alternatives.
Christians can rest comfortably in the assurance that science supports the divine creation of humanity. As you guide your own spiritual development, and the development of others, master this information about DNA. Simple as it is, it will arm you with powerful ammunition to advance a truly Christian worldview.
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