Is life’s song a transcendent composition or a collection of notes arranged in perceptible patterns? Characteristics common to contemporary life have accumulated, yet “life” is still not sufficiently characterized.¹ Notwithstanding the lack of an adequate definition, life is universally acknowledged as being complex. Evolutionists assert a continuum of complexity bridging chemicals to creatures, but the minimum requirements for the simplest possible synthetic life-form are yet to be ascertained.² What has been assumed to be “simple”³ may not have been so simple. Does Earth’s life reflect levels of increasing complexity or layers of irreducible complexity? Is life so complex that it must indeed be rare, or is it necessarily abundant throughout the universe?^4,5 Is physical life (i.e., bacteria and plants) merely a “continual throughput of matter and energy,”⁶ distinguished from the inanimate only in death? If, according to Paul Davies, “[t]he living cell is crammed with miniature machines,”⁷ does death simply flip the switches to “off”? The question becomes even more complicated when considering soulish nephesh creatures or spiritual humans.

Apart from the philosophical or religious implications, origin-of-life researchers have their own set of concerns regarding the definition of life. Since science deals only with physical matter and processes, it is inherently reductionistic. Dr. Fazale Rana observes that “[u]nderstanding the operation of a system is not the same as explaining where it came from.”⁸ Unless life is reliably defined, how will researchers know when they have successfully found it or its origin?⁹ As they contemplate the possibility of chemical evolution on the early Earth, how fuzzy or distinct is the line that divides macromolecules and chemical reactions from independently functioning and replicating microbes? Is there anything actually primeval and vestigial lying within contemporary cells,¹⁰ or do such assertions by evolutionists simply beg the question?  When they look beyond Earth, how might scientists identify life’s precursors or extraterrestrial life-forms fundamentally novel in structure and function? Are hopes to indefinitely extend human life grounded in solid science or is the dream of transhumanism merely a cruel distraction from a Creator who can truly bestow Life?

Even so, definitions still matter in the here and now. Validation of artificial, synthetic, or novel life in the laboratory will depend on the precision of life’s definition.”¹¹ Scientists sometimes describe life’s complexity as being instructed, specified, contextualized, and organized, but will a positive case for intentional complexity be made? Intentionality implies a Mind and Volition. Has a such a Being likewise endowed us with some level of free will? Davies observes that animals (even bacteria) seem to contain “some inner spark that gives them autonomy, so that they can (within limits) do as they please.”¹² Making use of our free will, to Whom will we credit our existence?

¹ Fazale Rana, Creating Life in the Lab (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), Chapter 2.*
² Ibid.
³ Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off (Covina, CA: Reasons to Believe, 2014), 60.
⁴ Ibid, 51.
⁵ Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000), Chapter 5, “Panspermia — Eternal Life in the Universe.”*
⁶ Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle: The Search of the Origin and Meaning of Life (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2000), 37.
⁷ Ibid, 35.
⁸ Fazale Rana, Creating Life in the Lab (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), Chapter 2.*
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle: The Search of the Origin and Meaning of Life (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2000), 34, 49-50.
¹¹ Fazale Rana, Creating Life in the Lab (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), Chapter 2.*
¹² Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle: The Search of the Origin and Meaning of Life (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2000), 36.
*Kindle version did not include page numbers.

Abiogenesis is the assertion that all life naturalistically and mechanistically developed from inorganic, inanimate matter. Outdated textbooks characterize this seamless molecules-to-men progression as indubitably supported by the scientific evidence. Those who discern a break in the continuum may prefer panspermia in order to relocate the discontinuity to an unknown extraterrestrial site and/or intelligence. In reality, scientists struggle to sufficiently define “life.” As biochemist Juan Oró observed, “It is easier to recognize life…than it is to define it.”¹

Mainstream researchers working in origins-of-life (OOL) disciplines acknowledge that there is currently no viable OOL scenario based on today’s knowledge of early Earth conditions. The environment was too hostile and the time constraints too short. Many molecular transitions proposed by various OOL models may be scientifically plausible under highly specified conditions, but their undirected progression without confounding interruption is not scientifically probable.²

In Chapter 1 of Schopf’s “Life’s Origin,” Oró interacts with the worldview implications of a secular and cosmic OOL. He offers a utopian prescription for “children on the Universe” to coexist peacefully on Earth: treat[ing] others as we would like them to treat us.”³ However, his naturalistic worldview provides no solution or redress when its pivotal Golden Rule (borrowed from Christianity) is not observed. Why peace rather than war when nature is “red in tooth and claw” and “survival of the fittest” has brought you thus far? Unfortunately, the material universe is a vast and uncaring parent, and to be its child is to be bereft of ultimate meaning and significance. Children of a Creator, however, possess an eternal identity and purpose. To be created intentionally and loved sacrificially confers a knowledge of one’s value.

But what humans expend great cost and energy to create a mechanistic form of life – a self-replicating machine, programmed by scientists and composed of organic compounds fashioned from existing matter? It might happen in the not-so-distant future.⁴ Yet are we so boundless in our character and capabilities that we might endow any future version of it with “inalienable rights”? Might we grant access to other dimensions to which we have no passage or enact transcendent moral law over which we have no governance?

Human endeavors to create life should not be unanticipated; we are creative because we are made in the image of our Creator. Nevertheless, even the successful development of synthetic life certainly would not be evidence of an unplanned advancement of molecular transitions on the early Earth. Rather, it would be a brilliantly contrived and highly controlled endeavor indicative of intelligent agency.

Hebrews 2:3-4 tells us that “…the builder of the house has more honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.” Perhaps we will find that what is true of “houses” will be also be true of man-made organisms. As elegant as a synthetic cell might be, the sophistication of its human designer will far exceed it. Then, in turn, the grandeur of God is still greater. He is the Builder of all things, providing both the minds and materials for every innovative endeavor.

¹ William J. Schopf, ed., Life’s Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 3.
² Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, Origins of Life (Covina, CA: Reasons to Believe Press, 2014), 26-7.
³ William J. Schopf, ed., Life’s Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 40-1.
⁴ Fazale Rana, Creating Life in the Lab (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 20.