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Christian Chronicles, February 2004 - Volume 7, Issue 98
| The
Editor's Pen | Perspectives: Without Form & Void
| Mid-East Update | Fruit of the Vine |
| On Spontaneous Generation | In
the Beginning... Jesus |
This issue of Christian Chronicles will focus on the creation of the universe. Since the Bible does not begin with a lengthy dissertation on the existence of God, but simply says, “In the beginning, God…” we will also not present both the evolutionist’s and the creationist’s perspectives, but will simply state what is obvious to most rational minds, that an intelligence far beyond our own is responsible for the creation of matter, and its formation into the heavens and earth as we know them today.
We are fortunate to have a physicist writing our center article this month. In keeping with our editorial policies, he has asked to remain anonymous. However, he presents logical proof that events did not happen in a random fashion and somehow then come together in such a way as to generate either the universe or the life that it contains. His approach is more scholarly and scientific than theological, and that is fitting, since it is secular science that attempts to dispute the record of the Scriptures. Any candid mind will admit that the universe did not create itself when it grasps the facts presented in this wonderful article.
The space that is normally given to the Perspectives article will be used to present an exposition of the Gap Theory, the interesting debate about what is meant by the biblical use of the Hebrew terms “tohu wa bohu,” rendered “without form and void” in most English translations. Careful attention will be paid to the word, “hayah,” variously translated either “made” or “became.” A proper understanding of this brief verse (Gen 1:2) will be helpful in settling the issue of whether the earth is six thousand years old, or much, much older. As a way of piquing interest, let me here state that it is probably both six thousand years old and also much older than that.
It is fast approaching the time when we shall again present issues on Salvation and on Prophecy, in March and April respectively. We like to discuss those topics at least once each year, as they are essential to our fullest understanding of the Scriptures.
Israel is gripped in the jaws of a quandary. On the one hand, she needs security against the suicide bombers that Hamas and Hezbollah send to kill her men, women and children. Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister has ordered and begun the construction of a concrete and razor wire wall to separate the Palestinian sections of the land from the Israeli lands. At the same time, the court of international opinion stands firmly against the wall, as reminiscent of the Berlin wall. The world says to Israel, as President Reagan of the United States once said to Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, “Tear down this wall!”
So, what’s new? When has Israel not faced the ire of the world for defending herself? Suicide bombers strike and kill dozens, and Israel retaliates by killing a handful and destroying a few buildings. The world reacts, not to the Palestinian atrocities that lead to Israel’s retaliations, but to the retaliations instead, as if Israel should quietly accept her fate, being thankful to be there in the first place. For the past three and a quarter years, terrorist groups, sponsored by Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia and others have operated more or less freely inside the national borders of one of the tiniest nations on the face of the earth, without compunction, and, mostly, without recompense.
But there is a new twist, and one that does not bode well for Israel. The Palestinian Authority has requested a hearing by the International Court of Justice at the Hague to determine the legality of that security wall. The hearing date has been set for February 23rd. While there may be a recognition of Israel’s right to defend herself, most believe that Israel will lose this case. Of the Palestinian Authority’s counsel in the case, the Jerusalem Post said on February 8,
“Referred to by one international law expert as "the best international lawyer in the world," James Crawford will pose a difficult challenge for the Israeli legal team at the upcoming hearing on the security fence at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Crawford is chairman of the Faculty of Law at Cambridge University and the former director of the Lauterpacht Research Center for International Law. The latter is now headed by Israel's counsel, Cambridge law professor Daniel Bethlehem, who will square off against Crawford at the February 23 ICJ hearing.
Crawford, said to be very committed to the Palestinian cause, has represented several Arab and Muslim countries in past hearings before the ICJ. He was described by one legal journal as a "leading silk" in public international law.
Another journal said he is "recognized for the vibrancy of his argument... brilliant at thinking laterally... one of the most creative public international law lawyers around."
As might be expected, however, Israel’s chief counsel in this ICJ hearing is not an intellectual lightweight. Daniel Bethlehem holds the post of Director of the Lauterpacht Research Center of International Law. However, he lacks the international fame and political connections that Crawford enjoys, and will find himself engaged in a legal struggle on a very political world stage, a stage that is already tilted toward the Palestinians.
At the end of the day, God declared that all of the disputed land belongs to Israel some four thousand years ago. If Israel feels that she needs to build a wall to keep the suicide bombers out of her territory, then the International Court of Justice has no business sticking its nose into her affairs. For that matter, neither does the international court of world opinion have any legitimate basis upon which to criticize Israel. What we are seeing is the Gentile-controlled Court exerting its authority over the clear and everlasting declarations of God, and this will eventually prove to be the primary catalyst of Daniel’s smiting stone.
God said, “Let the earth bring forth… the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself” (Gen 1:11). Fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself; this tells us much about our own fruitfulness. If you plant an orange tree, it will bear oranges. If you plant an apple tree, it will bear apples.
When we grow and become adults and have children, those children are born of human seed, and they have all the frailties and foibles that are common to mankind. We are human beings, and we bear human fruit.
However, when we are reborn, we are not born of human seed, but of Divine seed. John said, “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His Seed remains in him…” (1 Jn 3:9). When Christians are fruitful, the Seed that is in us is planted in the souls of the lost, and a new “tree” is “born.” As men and women, we bear human fruit, but as Christians, our fruit grows on unearthly branches. It is heavenly fruit indeed.
All of nature speaks of the wisdom and orderly management of our great God. No doubt, God created fruit trees for us to eat and enjoy the fruit thereof, but there is an underlying purpose in His creating fruit the way that He did. Paul wrote, “For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made...” (Rom 1:20). The Seed of the great Creator God is in every Christian, and when a Christian bears fruit, that fruit remains alive eternally (see Jn 15:16). We are ordained by God to bear fruit that remains!
In the beginning God
created the
heaven and the Earth.
And the Earth was without form
and void,
and darkness was upon
the face of the deep.
Gen 1:1-2
Some theologians claim that the created realm is six thousand years old. Some claim that it is much older than that. Feelings run very high on both sides of that coin, and to be honest, there is room in the Scriptures for agreement with both views. The fact is that we cannot know for certain which is correct, but there is a way to reconcile the difference, lending credence to both. To suggest that any man can know all of these workings of God is to make God not much bigger than man is, and it is therefore better to suggest that we do not know for certain than to claim the authority of dogma for what can, ultimately, be no more than an educated guess.
The argument for a six thousand year old universe is essentially based upon three primary considerations: 1) the Earth was created in six days; 2) a day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day; and, 3) if one adds the generations in Genesis eleven, he arrives at approximately a six thousand year old creation. It certainly seems compelling, and it may well be the correct interpretation. However, there are some problems with that position as well.
In the first place, we cannot know that the proper method of approaching Genesis eleven is to simply add up all the ages and “begats.” That word begat (Heb yaw-lad) can mean “to become the father of,” but there are also alternative uses of the word. It is used to show lineage. That is, it can also mean, “to become the ancestor of.” The primary purpose of the genealogies in the Bible is not necessarily to show every generation, but to trace specific bloodlines so that we understand the lineage of the various characters. Thus, there might be many, many generations between one who begets and one who is begotten. That would not in any way make the Bible inaccurate, but it might make a dogmatic position somewhat less possible.
In the second place, while science is often seen as the adversary of faith, it is not necessarily so. Science can be used to support the Scriptures as well as its use by charlatans to attack them. Science is not in and of itself inherently evil. It can be used in evil ways, but it can also be used beneficially. The rate of decay of a carbon atom is an established fact. It is a steady phenomenon that can be measured, and by which decay, the age of things can be roughly determined. But let us not be dogmatic here either. Science often proves itself wrong from one generation to the next, and such may be the case with the decay of carbon atoms. Nevertheless, for the sake of this discussion, let us assume for a moment that it is correct. It suggests that the Earth is far older than six thousand years. How then to reconcile what we think we know of science with what we think we know of Scripture?
The answer is to be found in what has come to be called the “Gap Theory.” This line of thought suggests that a vast gap in time exists between verse one and verse two of Genesis. We will discuss that theory, and see if it does not offer answers that its negation does not provide. This article, however, is not going to settle the issue for all time for anyone. God will do that when we live where He lives, outside the material realm, in the ageless reaches of the eternal heaven. Until then, we can enjoy discussing His Word together without beating each other up over things about which we cannot be dogmatic. Our salvation does not depend upon the age of the universe, but upon the shed blood of the Lamb of God, and we can all agree upon that even if we disagree about other Scriptural elements. This is a fascinating discussion in theological circles, with many facets that should be examined. We will lack space to cover it completely, but we hope herein to introduce enough material to motivate further study.
The debate centers around the Hebrew word hayah. The KJV and others translate this word as “was,” as in “was without form and void.” However, a much more common use of the word means “became,” as in “became without form and void.” Both the Strong’s Concordance and the Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Hebrew Definitions give it the primary meaning of “became.” It may seem like little more than a semantic difference until one begins to think about it carefully. If the word is rightly translated “was,” then there is no difference between verse one and verse two. That is, when God created the Earth originally, He created it without form and void (tohu wa bohu). In this case, there is no gap, and our understanding of several details of the Scriptures becomes quite muddled indeed. If, however, it is rightly translated “became,” then a number of difficult issues become suddenly very clear. In that case then, God originally created the Earth in absolute perfection, but it later became without form and void. Isaiah 45:18 says that God did not create the Earth in vain (tohu), but that it was originally created to be inhabited. Jeremiah, on the other hand (4:23) saw the Earth in the context of a judgment as without form and void (tohu wa bohu). According to the Gap Theory, God originally created the Earth in the full glory of His perfection, but at some point thereafter, executed a judgment upon it, rendering it without form and void. The suggestion has been made that perhaps the original Earth was inhabited by the angelic host and, with Lucifer’s fall, was subjected to the judgment that caused it to become uninhabitable, or without form and void.
This is where the discussion becomes intriguing. If the proper translation is “became,” then the Earth, in its elemental form, might indeed be eons old. For, following that verse (v.2), we have the account of the six days of creation. Thus, the Earth could, at least conceivably, be both ancient in its elements, and relatively recent in its present form.
Following the judgment in the Gap Theory, the Earth would have been dark, wet and cold, but the Spirit of God had never left it. Then, moving upon the face of the waters, God said, “Let there be light!” The six days of creation as described in verses 3-31 would have begun in that instant.
The Gap Theory answers the question of the time of the creation of the angels, and of their fall. It also could help to reconcile faith with science (or, more accurately, science with faith). Even the dinosaurs might have lived on the Earth during that initial period before tohu and bohu. The angels were seen rejoicing over the events of verses 3-31 (see Job 38:7). Where did those angels come from if they had not been previously created? In both Isaiah (14:12-20) and Ezekiel (28:11-19) we read of a rebellion and a judgment in heaven. It is certain that these passages speak of the rebellion and fall of Lucifer and the angels who followed him. Many conservative theologians speculate that this rebellion took place on the Earth in its originally created form, and that the creation account in verses 3-31 of Genesis chapter one reflects the re-creation of the Earth.
It is nowhere indicated in fact whether or not there was such a gap as the Gap Theory suggests. Neither can anyone say how long that gap might have lasted if there was a gap. That the translators chose to translate the Hebrew word hayah as was does not prove that it is the correct English translation of that word. It would have been equally correct to translate it became. The original manuscripts were inspired, but the translations were subject to the frailties of man, although we certainly believe that God guided the hands of the translators in the protection of His Word to the degree that no essential knowledge was lost that might prevent man’s salvation and reconciliation. The point is, the Gap Theory is at least potentially valid, and has the advantage of standing up to scrutiny when comparing Scripture with Scripture, while also giving some reasonably possible answers to the tricky question of the time of the creation of the angels and their fall. The non-gap position looks only at the Genesis passage without considering the other references in Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah. At the same time, the Gap Theory also lends credence to God’s reshaping, if you will, of the Earth in only six days of creation.
Whether those six days were days of twenty-four hours or some other measure of time is debatable, for it was not until the fourth day of creation that the sun, moon and stars were created and the daily cycle of sunrise and sunset actually began. A day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Perhaps that period of re-creation lasted six thousand years. Or maybe only the first four of the six days of re-creation lasted a thousand years each, with the remaining two days (and the seventh as well) lasting only twenty-four hours each. Or, maybe time was entirely different then, owing to an increased speed of Earth in its revolutions around the sun without the weight of water from the Flood. This would account for the vastly increased ages of the pre-flood inhabitants of the Earth. There are many factors to consider when one begins to delve into the Biblical account of creation, and one must be mature enough to understand that he does not know as much as he would like to know about these things.
In short, there is much that we do not know, and while it is fascinating to speculate and to attempt to come to some reasonable explanation of these things, in the end, it is probably wiser to preach and teach those doctrines about which we can speak with the authority of dogma, even as, in private, we wonder and marvel over the great mysteries that our infinitely intelligent God has not yet revealed to us. If the Gap Theory is correct, then we may have a bit of a deeper understanding of the sequences of creation. If it is not, we have lost nothing of our understanding of the greatness of our God. It is perhaps more profound that we do not know as much as we might like, for that magnifies our Lord, as we are diminished.
How Serious is Creation? A serious question. Believing that no one is accountable for designing and constructing your car would readily be corrected by the dealer, bank, and police, and is further contradicted by looking under the hood, even to those who appreciate little of mechanics or engineering. Imagine that cars became so sophisticated that they could repair themselves, or even more miraculous, duplicate themselves, or even better, through the generations make copies of themselves better adapted to the environment in which they are driven. Unless the original manufacturer were completely altruistic and wished to go out of business after the first production, there would be deep and dangerous legal challenges to be overcome before manufacturing the first self-replicating automobiles. Generations of cars and people later, no one would remember who built this amazing invention. The masses would not wish to acknowledge their automobile's creator so they may not have to pay for it or follow the manufacturer's requirements on how the product should be used. A sophist lawyer could argue that an original manufacturer need not even exist, because the self-replicating automobile might have come together just once out of parts lying around, and then they would perpetuate themselves and account for all the self-replicating automobiles that are around at that time.
Obviously this is a parable of arguments that are now being applied to living things, which threaten the most fundamental biological interpretation of humanity itself. The official announcement will soon be made that the Human Genome Project (HGP) is completed, which required reading the raw code to all the natural "software" for creating and running a human being. Already there have been a slew of legal and ethical challenges; in particular, many labs who decrypted the information have attempted to patent it, not even knowing in most cases what the information means to genetic operation. The HGP, funded by the United States government's Department of Energy, solely and entirely attributes natural processes as being accountable to the human genome, and if true, then the user of the product-- the souls of man himself who are the drivers of the vehicle, are the ultimate authority of how this information should be used. Christians believe God is the direct Author of this information, but to technological culture and law, this is certainly not a platitude. Referring only to empirical scientific information and conventional scientific beliefs, The minimum prospects of a living thing coming together by itself based upon its sophistication for which we can directly account will be rigorously quantified.
A Universe in a Deck of Cards The numbers we face in dealing with this issue are so large that they are more than there is of anything in the entire known Universe, and are comprehended only in terms of the number of digits required just to write the number. A "million,” a six-digit number in the American system, is comprehensible-- a thousand by thousand pixel image on a computer screen is a million dots making up the image, and a printed photo the size of the page in this newsletter is about five million pixels. Two hundred copies of that would be a billion pixels, a nine-digit number in the American system, so a good-sized coffee table book of large photos contains about that much. But continuing to add digits soon leaves the domain of objects which can fit in the mind’s eye or even the possibility for existence in the observable Universe.
Now, here is an important number to remember-- the number of atoms in the entire observable universe is about a 79-digit number. If there is a collection of anything that requires more than a 79-digit number, even if they are composed of single atoms, that collection will not fit in the Universe. Numbers this large are quickly exceeded when counting ways to arrange even a very modest number of objects. The number of ways to deal out a standard deck of 52 playing cards is about a 67-digit number. As a standard playing card has about a 23 digit number of atoms in it, how much matter would it take to print all possibilities for a single deck of playing cards? We should multiply that 67 digit number by the 23-digit number of atoms, and the result is estimated just by adding the digits together—for example a two-digit number times a three- digit number will be at most a 2+3 digit number, perhaps one digit less. Thus to actually manifest all the possibilities for a deck of playing cards requires a 67 + 23 = 100 digit number of atoms, which much exceeds the matter in the entire observed Universe, a 79-digit number.
The Game of Life We can similarly approach the problem of the possibilities for what we directly appreciate about the structure of living things. Directly functional structure at a molecular level in living things is usually manifested by proteins, which have a bewildering variety of shapes and functions. A protein is built by a cell one piece at a time by chaining together one of 22 types of molecular building blocks called amino acids. Thus there is a correct spelling of a protein just as a word is spelled using the proper sequence of the alphabet. What is truly amazing, is that for the proper sequence in the right environment, this "chain" bends and weaves itself into place to form the intended structure.
As two examples which are really almost exactly the same protein, consider our hemoglobin, which carries the oxygen in our blood allowing our breathing to sustain us, and chlorophyll, which has the corresponding role for carbon dioxide in plants, allowing their breathing to sustain them. Both molecules are held by an intricate protein basket that holds the molecules so they can do their jobs. By scattering X-rays we know that the design of chlorophyll and hemoglobin proteins are exactly identical, not only in composition, but in structure, to at least one atom in ten thousand. The sequence of the building blocks for a globin, one of the proteins that forms this basket, is 146 amino acids long. How many possibilities would there be for arranging amino acids of this length? We have 22 possibilities for the first one, and 22 possibilities for the second one, and so on, so we should multiply 22 times itself 146 times for each possibility in the sequence, and then divide by two, because a protein spelled out backwards is still the same molecule. The number of possibilities is a 195 digit number. To simultaneously manifest them all, we should multiply again by an average of 19 atoms per amino acid to compute the number of atoms we will need, coming to about a 197-digit number of atoms. Oops, we exceeded our 79-digit budget again of all the number of atoms in the entire observed Universe to try out all the possibilities for protein the length of globin to be absolutely assured of actually making globin.
So Much Unique is Mundane The existence of one combination out of an incomprehensibly large number of possibilities is not at all itself proof of design. When the opportunity for rare events is just as broad as the possibilities, getting one of those incredibly rare events can be close to or exactly certainty. To those of you who own a shuffled deck of playing cards, congratulations, because it is a practical certainty that the order of your deck of cards is unique through all time, that is, it has never existed before, does not exist now except in your hand, and once shuffled again, unless that arrangement is recorded by you and deliberately reorganized by you, will never exist again for the entire history of the Universe. Even though numerous casinos and bridge clubs are continually churning out random arrangements of a deck of cards, the uniqueness of your deck is not threatened, as all their efforts will not ever make an appreciable dimple in manifesting the range of possibilities. However, there is your deck.
Finding a Purpose in Life To truly say that there is something special about a particular configuration, there must be an implication of some purpose that is afforded only by that sequence of cards. Is there a magical sequence so that when the cards are stacked in that order, like Frosty the Snowman the deck will get up and dance around? If so, there is a one in a 67-digit number chance of hitting upon it. There is implication of design only if a possibility is manifested that satisfies a function that is distinct among a number of possibilities too large and resources too insufficient to have been worked through, as though someone chose it knowing that one out of an inexhaustible number of dud possibilities.
It may seem stepping outside of science to impute a purpose to nature, but it is not. There are many ways to address the scientific question, "Why do we get hungry when we don't eat?" We could answer with a physiological, nutritional, or psychological explanation, but any non-scientist parent could answer this question to a child, "Because if we don't eat, we will die!" Situations that perpetuate stability last, and those that are unstable do not. Such an approach to answering scientific questions is called teleology. Accordingly, we can come up with a teleological and quantifiable answer to why we get hungry when we don’t eat with a cruel experiment, which sadly has practically been done on prisoners of war. We could feed people only so much per day, and statistically figure out what is the minimum rate of feeding people necessary to keep them alive. Likewise, we can provide a teleological answer to, ”Why is that particular genetic code there?” by varying the code and seeing how often the result is viable.
Not By One Bit For computers to code software written onto the hard drive, they use a list of digits having one of two states, called "bits". That list of bits is uploaded into the processor to run the software. Likewise, cells use a list of digits with four states instead of two, called "quits," to code the software written primarily into DNA, analogous to the hard drive on a computer. For example, the code for making globin, which we have just studied, is about 1700 quits long. All the software that runs a human is about 3 billion quits long, which on a computer would take 6 billion bits to store, or 750 megabytes. This 750 megabyte software is in each of the approximately 3 trillion cells in the human body. The one process we understand of how DNA coding works is how that cellular software is used to make proteins. Just like when running a particular program, a copy is uploaded from the hard drive into the RAM for temporary storage, when a cell is making proteins, a cell calls for particular algorithm to be uploaded from the DNA, called genomes, into the body of the cell. A typical length for a genome is about 3000 quits
Because mistakes occur in the duplication and use of this software, just as in good computer management, cells keep a backup copy. The difference is that sometimes, both software copies are running at the same time. If one of the genomes on each corresponding copy is defective, hopefully at worst, its defective product is simply not functional and does no harm, not causing the system to “crash.” Otherwise the organism dies as those genes are turned on, or never lived in the first place because of defective genes. Coding defects that would be inherited are typically bred out through sexual reproduction, as an organism getting both defective copies will not even have a chance to develop. There could be countless defects in your own genome that we never have the chance even to become aware of that would be deadly were it not for the right code running in the other copy.
Sometimes these defects are preserved in a population because they happen to have an environmental advantage that perpetuates the defective copy. Sickle cell anemia, for example, produces defective hemoglobin, and corresponds to a single quit typographical error in the genome code. If both genomes inherited were defective, the human would have never have been able to develop, but when one of the defective proteins is produced, it is believed that sickle cell anemics are immune to malaria. Sickle cell anemia proves that the code for hemoglobin cannot be varied even by one quit and still be viable, as one example, and there are others. Thus for most genomes that code for proteins, which is less than 2% of the HG, it is likely that there are relatively few, if not only one, working combinations of all the possibilities we can imagine to try. For the rest of the code, we don’t understand its specific role. Some geneticists have judged the rest as "junk DNA," but 98 % of a 750 megabyte file would be a lot of junk, which one would think the process of natural selection would snip out through time, not add in, as making that much “junk” DNA requires so much unnecessary metabolism. If it literally is junk, we should be able to throw it away entirely, or at least some of it. Experiments in mice last year proved that changing just one quit in so-called "junk DNA" results in fatal developmental defects.
Divide and Conquer? In poker, the hand that beats all hands, the Royal Flush, which is an ace, king, queen, jack, and 10 all of the same suit, has a chance of being dealt in one of about 650 thousand deals of five cards at once . If you could select or reject the cards dealt to you one at a time, you could go through a deck once, and build a Royal Flush after fewer than 52 deals. In management theory and the general study of mathematics, a fundamental principle for solving otherwise impossible problems is to break the problems into smaller pieces and solve those. In the case of building the Royal Flush, the very process of building it mandates an intelligence behind it selecting the steps against the incomprehensible cumulative odds of getting the whole thing right at once.
A popular assertion is that life got here one mutation at a time, or in other words, a random change in the genetic code, and the “intelligence” behind it is the environment making the selection. While a mutation in a single quit can activate or modify a genome already there, as we have seen in the precise example of the genome for hemoglobin in sickle cell anemia, the entire genome must have been dealt out correctly all at once sometime in the past for the organism to have been viable in the first place. The odds of getting the Royal Flush being one in about 650 thousand five-card hands tangibly means that a bunch of new casinos would have to plan to be in business long enough to deal out roughly about 650 thousand five-card hands each for most of them to ever expect to see a Royal Flush dealt out at each place of business.
Welcome to Casino Universal Likewise, has the Universe existed long enough to expect to see life dealt out as a winning alignment of molecules? Let us commit all the resources of the Universe since it has existed to trying out genetic code, and see how much it could have worked through. We will call this amount a Universe Run. We will be beyond generous in estimating the resources available for this venture. We will take all the matter in the observable Universe, and dedicate all of it to trying out code ever since the Universe has existed. I will be generous even beyond the remotest outer limits of the scientific imagination. The actual molecular manifestation of quits in DNA, called nucleotides, contain an average of about 65 atoms per quit, and as there is a 69-digit number of atoms in the observable Universe, that makes it possible for about a 67-digit number of nucleotides to exist at any possible moment, if ALL of the matter in the Universe were dedicated to it.
Now, how fast could we work through possibilities for them? Let’s give it the fastest speed possible, the speed of light, never minding that molecules, atoms or atomic nuclei do not remain intact at temperatures corresponding to interactions at near-light speed temperatures. Nucleotides moving amongst each other at near the speed of light would give the Universe a computational speed of about an 18-digit number of computations per second. Let’s let this process run all the age of the Universe, which the oldest estimates are teens of billions of years—let’s give it twenty billion years, which is a 17-digit number of seconds. Under all these most incredibly generous assumptions imaginable, the Universe could have tried through a 67 +18 +17 = 102 digit number of quits by now.
The Universe is Not Enough Human DNA has about 3 billion quits of information. Your particular code is one in a 1.8 billion digit number — take care that is not nominally 1.8 billion we are talking about, but rather a number which just to write out that number requires 1.8 billion digits. Compare this against our Universe Run, which is a 102 digit number of quits.
However, there are an untold number of possibilities for a viable human, as there are more than 6 billion unique examples of feasible genomes on the planet right now realized through every person (minus identical twins). We have computed a greatest upper bound for the number of possibilities to be worked through to get a human. In other words, we require at most that many. However, whatever combinations of genes are in a particular person’s DNA, the protein genes themselves must be dealt out exactly for viability, so when we compute that, that will be a least the upper bound. In other words, we require at least that much computation to get one of those.
There is some redundancy in the ways that quits can spell out a particular amino acid sequence, which is accounted for in the following calculation. The longest gene in the HG is dystrophin, a protein essential for muscle tissue, as sufferers of muscular dystrophy appear to have a defect in their gene coding for dystrophin. To get that code right by chance, which is 2.4 million quits long, someone would need to work through a number of quits for which the number itself is about 1.4 millions digits. We now know from the results of the HGP that there are about 30,000 to 35,000 human genes, of which the average length is about 3000 quits, significantly less than the gargantuan code for dystrophin. Could we take our chances on getting one of these? Well, the number of quits to be worked through is itself about a 1300-digit number. We are not yet even close to being down to the number of digits in a Universe Run, 102. By the way, the simplest bacteria contain about 3000 quits in their DNA, so the math is equally foreboding for the prospect of the code for the simplest life to have happened by itself. The most generous number of quits a Universe Run could work through all the possibilities of corresponds to about a 220 quit length sequence, and the possibilities for actual biological resources on this planet are much smaller than the entire Universe. In conclusion, to get a bacterium genome or an average human genome, there would have to have been about a 1200-digit number of Universes to have existed to realize them, not to mention the even longer genomes.
Closing Remarks Having given all benefit of the scientific doubt, and then some, to the plaintiff, the necessary resources for life to have come about on its own are literally incomprehensibly greater than the Universe itself.
The belief in a non-intelligent origin for life cannot be defined in terms of an explicit process resulting in the life on Earth, but only as explicit disbelief in an Intelligence accountable to that process. Any candid or rational mind must conclude, therefore, that life did not generate itself spontaneously on the earth, but was created under the Authorship of a vastly superior Intelligence. That the theory of spontaneous generation arose in the first place speaks directly to Romans 1:25, and explains much of the evil that is in the world today. It speaks also of a profound rebellion against an incomprehensibly intelligent and benevolent God who would let man so detract from His glory and yet still continue.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). The Bible tells us that in the beginning God created, and the whole account of the creation of heaven, earth, and man is found in the first two chapters of Genesis. Yes, almost all of what we know about the creation is found in those 56 verses. If we read no further, we would never see Jesus Christ in these verses. But John 1:1-3 says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” See also Ps. 33:6-9.
We can now see the God in Genesis 1 was the same as the Word (Jesus Christ) in John 1:1. W. E. Vine says:
“I. WORD (logos) denotes (1) the expression of thought -- not the mere name of an object – (a) as embodying a conception or idea... (II) the personal Word, a title of the Son of God; this identification is substantiated by the statement of doctrine in John 1:1-18, declaring in verse 1 and 2 (1) His distinct and super finite Personality, (2) His relation in the Godhead (pros, with, not mere company, but the most intimate communion), (3) His Deity; in v. 3 His creative power; in v. 14 His Incarnation (“became flesh,” expressing His voluntary act;), the reality and totality of His human nature, and His glory “as of the only begotten from the Father... His was the Shekinah glory in open manifestation.”
So we can see the Word (Logos) in John 1:1 is the personal manifestation, not of a part of the Divine nature, but of the whole Deity. That Word is Christ.
John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” One can see that the Word is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, which is none other than The God, in the beginning. 1st John 5:7 says, “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” Again, The Word is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation 19:13 says, speaking of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, that …His name is called The Word (Logos) of God.
We have seen what John wrote about The Word (Jesus Christ) being in the beginning. What did Jesus Himself say about His beginning? We are reminded of the gravelly voice of Dr. M. R. DeHann as he said: “You have never found the full interpretation of any passage of the Scripture until you have found in it somewhere a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you continue to search you will find Him standing somewhere in the background, sometimes clear and unmistakable, sometimes faintly and dimly, but He is always there.”
John 5:39 says, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.”
Yes, Jesus was “in the beginning”. We know that the Book of Revelation is the revealing of the Lord Jesus, but really, the whole Bible is His unveiling, starting in Genesis chapter 3 right on through Revelation chapter 22.
The Devil, from the time of the Garden of Eden, has been attacking God’s word by causing people to doubt. He caused Eve to question what God said when he said, “Yea, hath God said?” After all these years the devil has not changed. He keeps raising questions and people keep doubting. He has used many of the modern-day translations of the Bible to cast doubt and destroy God’s word. The Scripture says, “Let God be true and every man a liar” (Rom 3:4). In John 8:58 Jesus says, “Before Abraham was I Am.” The Bible is either the infallible revelation of God, or it is a book of lies. If we can’t trust every word, then Jesus becomes an imposter and the greatest liar that ever lived. But Praise God, He is Truth!
Many critics of the Bible assert, without any facts, that Abraham was not a real historical figure. But, Jesus, knowing there would be doubts, assures us that Abraham was, and that He was before Abraham.
Jesus, in His high priestly prayer, prayed the night before He went to the cross, “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (Jn 17:5). We can see that Jesus had no problem, even in this most disturbing hour, teaching us that He always was. Again in John 17:24 Jesus says, “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
On and on one could go with Scriptures that prove Jesus was in the beginning, but let us now go back to John 1:1. He is presented as the one “in the beginning”. He antedates the very first word in the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That beginning can be dated. Although we’re not sure man can accurately date it, the world is certainly more than 6000 years old. We are dealing with the God of eternity. When we go back to the creation, The Word is already there, for it says in the beginning was The Word not is The Word. It was not in the beginning that The Word started, it already was. As someone once said: “In the beginning was The Word, and there is not a man on earth who can put a date on it or understand it or fathom it.
Yes, John 1:14 says: and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. This emphatic statement is made to be believed, not to be proved. There alone is faith.
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