by Bill Nugent
Article #71
Fred is a distinguished looking man. Tall, rail thin and balding, he has chiseled features and piercing dark eyes. He’s a tenured professor of microbiology and a prolific writer in his field. Fred has a serious disposition. If this were a world of pastry, Fred would definitely be heavy cake. Glowering, brooding and usually quiet, Fred can be explosively confrontational when driving home a point.
Through his studies Fred had come to the conviction that random interaction of lifeless atoms on the primitive earth could not have accidentally formed a living cell. He became part of the Intelligent Design Movement among scientists and began to seek God. As a result of this search, Fred had recently become a born-again Christian. He also began to share his faith with his colleagues.
Fred tried to keep his conversations about Christianity on a polite and scholarly plane. Sometimes, however, tensions rose to fever pitch and his conversation today with Harry was one of those times.
Harry is a tenured professor of biochemistry. A short, plump man, Harry has a cheerful temperament yet possesses a tongue that can lapse into cruel sarcasm. Additionally his personal life is wracked by scandal and he seems to be utterly void of morals. The points, counterpoints and barbs fly back and forth in this slightly heated conversation.
Fred, mindful of his Christian convictions, seeks to keep it from spiraling down into an ugly verbal slugfest. Fred then calmly and forthrightly brings up the issue of the impossibility of life forming from nonliving chemicals. Fred had waited patiently for the opportunity to bring up this point because he regards it as the Achilles’ heel of the whole edifice of evolution.
Fred began “The proposition that life came from nonlife is one of the few areas of evolution open to accurate evaluation by rigorous experimental science.” Fred continued “Microbiology has proven that single-celled life is complex beyond imagining. Biochemistry has proven that even the components of life — proteins, DNA and RNA — are complex compounds composed of many hundreds of atoms each in precise order. Computer driven probability analysis has proven that the probability of even the proteins forming randomly is so remote as to never happen in a trillion years! As far as I’m concerned the last word has been spoken. Life did not come from nonlife. There had to be a Creator!”
At this point Harry, was not about to surrender. Fred marveled at the obstinacy of the secular mind. Incredibly, Harry raised his voice and attempted to make the case that life formed randomly on another planet and was transported here. This is the view called “Panspermia.” Fred then countered that it would be easier for Harry to argue that the Moon was made out of cheese than to suggest Panspermia!
Fred quoted the writings of great scientific minds such as Crick, Hoyle, Salisbury, Morowitz and many others who, taken together, made an airtight case for the impossibility of life forming randomly if even the whole Universe were composed of primordial soup.
Fred persuaded Harry with reams of evidence. Like so many other men of science, Harry finally began to see the fingerprints of God in the intricate patterns of life. Fred gently encouraged Harry to turn to God in repentance and obtain the salvation freely given by God through Christ. Christ’s death and resurrection on our behalf has opened heaven’s gates! *
*the above novelette is a fictional presentation of discussions that commonly occur among scientists today as more and more evidence emerges for the necessity of an Intelligent Designer of life.