[Greetings friends and listeners.]

How did life on earth start?

Some evolutionists say it just started spontaneously or by itself, that it started from an amoeba like creature in a warm ocean soup millions of years ago. Can this theory be proven? If so, can we duplicate this clam in a laboratory?

In this broadcast, we will examine this long held claim and settle this issue or this theory concerning the origin of life on earth. How did the miracle of life start in the very first place? I used the word miracle [of life] because it defies explanation, as we will see later.

In pursuing this discussion, let us be open minded, logical, and reasonable. On the other hand, we also need to ask the question whether it is possible that there is one being greater than all creatures and all humanity combined; a great power which was responsible for creating life on earth. We will also study the proof for this claim. But first let's examine the "warm ocean soup" theory as claimed by some evolutionists. They talked about the "pre-biotic soup" theory.

Some evolutionists attempt to show how life began by describing a hypothetical distant past scenario. This scene is a description of a newly formed earth gradually cooling with an atmosphere of gases like hydrogen, nitrogen, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and oxygen. May I interject right here that evolutionists are already starting their theory on stage 1 with already complex array of creation having all the elements necessary for life. They should answer first of all, who created the earth, all the elements, and the proper conditions necessary to support life. Stage 1 of the argument should be addressed first before proceeding to stage 2. But let us be lenient and follow their theory for now. They say this kind of atmosphere was subject to forms of energy such as electrical discharges from lightning which reacted to form elementary amino acids. Again, they do not address the first question of who created the various forms of energy including lightning and such compounds as amino acids. But we will allow them to continue for now. They theorize that compounds must have accumulated until the primitive oceans reached the consistency of a hot diluted soup, then a reaction took place and elementary amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, formed. In time, they developed into DNA chains and finally cells. Somehow, life emerged from this pre-biotic soup theory or story. Well, that is a very imaginative story, but as is commonly said, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Can this theory or story or claim be done or proven in a laboratory?

Actually, researchers have done a lot of experiments along this line for very many years now. By combining many elements and compounds, they have produced a variety of amino acids and other complex substances. They have also experimented by sending a spark to the mixture of gases. However, in spite of all their experiments, to this very day, researchers have not been able to create life at all. Even with the help of the most complex and advanced laboratories in this world, not even the simplest form of life was created. Not even a single living plant or animals have. Not even a simple amoeba. Therefore, forget about the more complex spring of DNA which is the blue print of life. And to think that they are starting with matter, energy and laws and technology. What they have shown us is that life simple emerged from chemicals, even the right chemicals or a combination of chemicals even mixing the right chemicals for an extended period of time under predetermined quality conditions. Why is this so? Why has man, in spite of his intelligence not created life?

Some brought up the subject of cloning. Yes, we take pride in having discovered the ability to clone some organisms and animals. For some who might not be familiar with the word clone or cloning, please allow me to describe this word a little bit. Cloning is the process of producing one or more organisms from a single common ancestor without the use of the normal male and female reproductive process of the specie, while a clone is an organism which has been produced asexually from a single ancestor. There's another way to explain and understand the process of cloning which is similar to asexual or non-sexual reproduction of plants. Most of us are familiar with the fact that we can also produce other plants even without the use of seeds also known as non-sexual or asexual reproduction. How? By budding, grafting, layering, use of cuttings, tubers, or marcotting. The camote plant, for example, can be reproduced by simply cutting off a stem and planting it. Same with malunggay, cassava, and other plants.

What some genetic scientists discovered is that, in principle, you can also do the same process with animals. They simply get a cell from one animal and through complex procedures, make it grow into another animal, an exact replica of the parent. This is what we call cloning. In this case is a process of reproducing another animal without the use of the normal male and female reproductive activity of the parent animal. But this is creating new life from nothing. We still started from a living cell or cells from a parent animal and simply made the cell or cells multiply to become another animal in the same way that we propagate plants by cutting, layering or grafting. The fact and conclusion remains that cloning is very far from creating life from non-living matter.

Intelligent man, with all his great advances in technology has never yet been able to create an organism. But all these developments have not stopped some in the scientific community from searching where life could have originated. So we ask where did life come from? Did life come from outer space?

In answer to this question, biophysicist Francis Crick who won the Nobel Prize for helping determine the molecular structure of DNA, wrote a book, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, published in 1981. On page 88 he said, "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going." Admitting that odds against life arising on earth by chance make it a sheer impossibility, he and other noted scientists have adopted a new and different belief called panspermia. What is this panspermia? It's the belief that life could not have arisen spontaneously on earth [and rightly so], but started when microorganisms or spores drifted or were carried to earth from elsewhere in the universe. Now, this needs proof. Of course again, this notion of panspermia doesn't explain how matter, energy, and life arose in the first place. It merely removes the first and basic question of the ultimate origin of life to the "warm ocean soup" and on to some far off corner of the universe. But what is the statistical probability of life happening by chance on earth?

Some learned scientists have really been seriously looking for answers to the puzzle concerning the presence of life on earth. This is because there are just too many factors and variables involved. And each factor should not deviate or be variable enough to prevent life from even starting. All things have to be just exactly right.

Let us suppose that all these conditions were not designed by a creator God. But simply came about spontaneously by chance. What are the odds of it happening?

In answer to this challenging question, Sir Fred Hoyle, one of Britain's top famous astrophysicists, and his colleague, Chandra Wickramasinghe, a professor of applied mathematics and astronomy at University College in Cardiff, Wales, computed the odds for all the proteins [note, just proteins alone not counting other factors and conditions needed for life to be possible on earth] necessary for life to form by chance in one place. Do you know the answer to their mathematical computation? Do you have any guess? Would you say the odds are 1 in 10, or 1 in 100, or maybe 1 in 1000? No, the odds were one chance in a number which we cannot read because it is followed by 40,0000 zeroes! We cannot read that number; neither can we have a name for it. Why? Because it goes way past the billion, trillion, and quadrillion marks. In fact if we right down that number, it will contain zeroes enough to fill about seven pages of a magazine size paper using small prints as used in magazines. Can you believe that? It's not 1 chance in 40,000 even, but rather that 40,000 is just the number of zeroes alone.

To put that number in another perspective, let us note that there are only about 1,080 types of subatomic particles in the entire visible universe. A probability of less than 1 in 1,050 is already considered by mathematicians to be a complete impossibility. Therefore, the possibility of life arising according to the traditional scientific scenario, meaning by random chance alone, they concluded, is "an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup." This is a remark from the book, Evolution From Space, published in 1981, page 24. Please let me repeat that significant statement. It says there, the possibility of life arising according to the traditional scientific scenario, meaning by random chance alone, they concluded, is "an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup." In other words and to make it short, it simply means, impossible.

To quote the conclusion of Professor Hoyle in his book, The Intelligent Universe, published in 1983, on page 242, he said, "Life could not have originated here on the Earth, nor does it look as though biological evolution can be explained from within an earthbound theory of life... This much can be consolidated by strictly scientific means, by experiment, observation and calculation." Now, this is true. Yes indeed, we need to look elsewhere for the answer to the origin of life on earth.

But who created life on earth? This theory of evolution being popularly taught in schools and generally accepted in our modern society has dismally failed to give us convincing answers to the origin of life, let alone a believable explanation for the great complexity of life on earth. It is time we turn somewhere else for the answer to these very important questions.

We asked who created and started the miracle of life on earth. Most of us are familiar with the state of lifeless bodies lying helpless, unconscious and dead. They were once alive and active but now are simply dead bodies. In most cases, they still have all their tissues, organs, and all their body components intact. There may be no body part missing. Perhaps, just a few minutes ago, such body was alive and active, now, it's considered dead. We note that when life has left a particular body, no amount of ritual, song and dance, magic, voodoo, incantation, even medical science and all the specialized abilities and advances in knowledge of men can restore life back to that body. Never. But why?

What is this thing called life–L-I-F-E–anyway? Have you ever asked that question? For one thing, it cannot be classified as matter because it has no weight and does not occupy space. Comparing the weight of a once alive creature or person, and immediately when it becomes dead, the weight is still the same. In like manner, the size of a once living creature or person and when it becomes dead, the size is still the same. So what then is this thing called life? You know that we cannot see life itself but we can see its effects on a living creature. We cannot touch or smell life itself but we can touch and smell the creature which has life. Therefore, life in intangible but real. It is unseen and invisible but when it's there, it is undeniable for all to see.

Let us further understand this thing called life. Another fact we all know is that none of us have the capacity or power to give it to someone outright or to transfer it to another creature or person, nor do we have the power to impart life to a non-living thing, like giving life to a stone or rock, or a piece of metal. The only possible manner in which we might be able to transmit life is through the miraculous process called reproduction. But we did not invent this ability ourselves. We are just simply users of that great gift which a loving being we call God has generously designed for us to enjoy and use. But even then, there is something very significant to this seemingly simple process. Have you considered that not one single person even at the right age and health has the ability on his or her own and by his or her own power to singly transmit life to another no matter how much he or she does? Why? Because the great Creator designed that it should take two individuals, a man and a woman, who are of the right age and health to be able to transmit life. But then, only during the fertile period of a woman's life.

Therefore, what is this thing called life anyway? It is something which we did not originally have to begin with. It was give to us simply as a gift when we still have no power, no will, nor knowledge even to ask for it. And once it is already given to us, we still know for a fact that even our very own individual life is not in our absolute power or ability to control. Yes, we can take very good care of ourselves, we might recover from some illness or accident, but the final time will come when there is nothing more that we can personally do nor which others or anyone else can do for us. When our time comes, our life simply goes away. It goes back to the original giver of it when we die. This is a very significant fact of life. If we have life, there is a Creator, and Maker and Giver of that life, and we call Him God. Since it is non-material but spiritual, it belongs exclusively to that spirit power which we call God. Therefore, He just let us use it temporarily on this earth. In other words, He loans it to us and when He determines that our time is up, He gets it back, since He is the original Maker and rightful Owner of it.

God's instruction book to mankind, the Holy Bible, states this fact. The Creator and Giver of all life informs us through a passage recorded in the Bible in the book of Ecclesiastes 12:7: "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." This verse tells us something very important: our personal, physical existence is based on the dust on the earth. And as such, it is a temporary journey in our lifetime. Since He absolutely has power over this spirit or life, He can also grant us a non-perishable, non-destructible body or existence. And this eventual reward will make us capable of joining His eternal ruling family. We can become real children of God. But this will greatly depend on what we have done with the spirit of life which He has loaned us while we are physically alive on this earth.

We hope to discuss more of this very vital, interesting and important subject in some of our future broadcasts. Meanwhile, you can request for your free copy of this booklet titled, What Is Your Destiny?

But for now, let's go back to our main topic.

On the subject concerning the origin of life, evolutionists claim life just appeared spontaneously on this earth from the material elements. Is that true? Can it be proven?

Let's consider the law of biogenesis. This basic law called biogenesis which means that life can only come from life, means that non-living things like metals and minerals cannot produce life nor themselves. A simply process of observation and experimentation will readily prove this point. In fact, it is so obvious such that in the lower grades of schooling one of the lessons is to identify the living things from the non-living things. Included in the lesson are the differences between the living things and the non-living things. It is also an observable fact that a non-living thing, by itself, cannot become a living thing. For example, a piece of iron bar can never become a living thing like becoming a certain plant or a type of an animal. We know that we, living humans and all living animals and living plants by virtue of this universal law of biogenesis, may also have the capacity to transmit life through reproduction given the right factors in life. Why? Because life exists in us and in them. But when that existing life is gone, our capacity to transmit life is also gone. Therefore, it strictly follows the law of biogenesis that life can only come from life.

Let's apply this obvious and universal law then to the theory of evolution. Can the sterile rocks and the lifeless minerals produce life on their own? Of course, and obviously not. In fact, even granted for the sake of argument that life has been given to a certain creature but if that creature is placed in an environment or sterile rock and lifeless mineral and thus there is no means to get food, that creature will eventually die.

Talking about life, have you also considered that animal and human food comes ultimately from living things? All of us very well know that we cannot live by eating non-living things as stones and rocks (except for some traced minerals) but from plants which are living things. If we eat some animal products, we know that those animals also took their food from plants which are living things. Therefore, to even sustain life, there should be life to begin with. It is a cycle and that cycle of life should be started first. Definitely, it did not start with activities in the sterile, warm, ocean soup as claimed by evolutionists. We have proven that out.

The law of biogenesis dictates that life can only come from life. And the universal presence of life on earth demands that there is a Creator of that life. And this Being who created all life and everything else, is commonly called God. The presence of a creation and our very own presence bears witness to the fact of the existence of God. We really cannot hide from this fact.

The more important question now is, what this most powerful yet noble, righteous yet benevolent, loving Creator God [has] done for us?

Stay tuned to this program for the answers to those questions and many other vital questions.

[Until next broadcast, at the same time and station, in behalf of the Good News of the World Tomorrow, this is Edmond Macaraeg, saying thank you for listening.]