The origin of life – an unsolvable problem for materialism

When we address the question of the origin of life, we refer really to the origin of the first metabolic unit which can reproduce and perpetuate itself.

Before the great advances in microscopy and other observation techniques, it was believed that cells were relatively simple entities, a protoplasm where chemical interactions gave them their dynamic and reproductive properties. Not until the structures of the cell were observed by high resolution electronic microscopy and by means of other techniques that it was known that it was not a matter of mere chemical interactions, of more or less complexity, but of very complex interactions where a whole set of highly miniaturized complex machines made up of pieces of protein material fulfilled very specific functions within a vast biological-industrial complex, with systems for storage and retrieval, translation, transcription and maintenance of information, of regulation and control of processes, of capture, transformation and application of energy, of selective entrance of materials, and their automated transport by codified identification systems, with clocks and timers for all the rates of function and operation.

Thus, the problem of the origin of a living system is not limited merely to the origin of its functional systems as such, but:

1) If at first the systems were formed by some chance (systems of energy capture, energy conversion, and energy application for functions),

2) then, how did these proteinic structures come to be described in a codified system of information supported by the DNA

3) which afterwards could reproduce them by means of the complex of DNA-RNA transcription together with the whole complex of protein machines which are in their turn codified in DNA?

Support of information and Information – a needful distinction

Sometimes there is the unconscious idea that DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) IS the genetic information, and that if the formation of DNA could be explained we would have solved the problem of the origin of the codes of life. It is necessary to distinguish between the support of information and information itself.

An example of it we find in a high-frequency wave, which is no information by itself, and which could be explained as an emission due to a natural process. But a high-frequency wave can be a support of information, when a source of information (the human voice, a musical source, etc.), modulates either its amplitude, its frequency or its phase by means of devices applied to this end.

Another support of information is paper and ink, which cannot by themselves explain the message expressed by their means; the sequence of letters gives the message, either a novel or technical specifications to build a machine. The same with DNA, which by itself could never explain the sequence of the chemical bases, which gives codes for an end in view. This besides the inability of any merely chemical system to produce this molecule.

The same information can be transferred from one support to another one, from electromagnetic waves bearing a Morse code (... --- ...) to letters on paper (SOS) or to binary computer code or to the Braille alphabet. The message, the information, is an entelechy that communicates meanings and which can ride on different supports, and which, therefore, is not the support itself, but independent from it.

Therefore, the DNA chains are not information, paper and ink are not information, the surface of a CD-R is not information – but they serve as media to contain information. It may be said with these words: The plays of Shakespeare are much more than the paper and ink with which the book is produced. There is another magnitude besides the material support: the message.

Thus, what we have is information, which is generated by a mind, (1) either to communicate it to another mind when both minds share the same code, or have means to translate the codes to make them understandable, or (2) to dictate instructions issuing from a mind for achieving some specified purposes, which are thereafter applied by a set of mechanisms that are capable to receive this information and translate it into results.

What was first – the chicken or the egg?

So, the problem stands thus: Were the proteinic machines first formed by chance? In this case, how did they become described and codified on the DNA support and how was formed the whole proteinic machinery for the transcription and materialization of this information to give in its turn all the proteinic structures formed first by chance?

Or perhaps the DNA was first formed by chance, with the codes of life? With all the instructions for the different components of the cellular machinery, for the capture, conversion and application and energy, and for identification and transportation of materials to different parts of the cell, as well as the instructions for the sequences and timings of the assembly? And how much time passed until all the machinery to READ these instructions and to apply them in a functional way was formed by chance?

And, while the machinery was being formed to be able to use the information on this DNA support, which is chemically very fragile, how can the non-degradation and dissolution of a rich-information DNA chain be explained, without the needed proteins and enzymes for its protection, activation, repair and reproduction?

The alternatives

The differing options that have been proposed regarding the origin of life, regarding the origin of the first functional cell, are:

a. Chance + Natural Selection

b. Natural deterministic law

c. Personal intelligent direction

a. Chance + Natural Selection

An argument used by materialists is that the machinery of life, with all its complexity, bears no comparison with the "true" machines invented and made by men, "because he machines made by men do not reproduce, and it is the capability of reproduction what makes it possible for living beings to evolve by natural selection". But this argument is wholly false in relation to the origin of life: It is not only because the machines of the cells, which are real and highly miniaturized machines, are of an exquisite complexity, and because they are coordinated in their functions in time and rates for the systems of treatment, translation and transcription of information. The matter is also that cell reproduction cannot happen UNTIL WE HAVE THE CELL AS A WHOLE. Therefore, the materialist cannot adduce any difference between the cell machinery and the machinery invented by man "because those are living systems". There is no biological life until we have all the information systems with all their machinery, both the information itself contained in its DNA material support, transcribed then by a whole set of machines made up of specific protein pieces which then translate this information for the manufacture of the needed materials and as instructions for the positioning and addressing of the materials, and for the timing and regulation of the different cellular and organismic functions of life. The whole system is needed for the highly complex functions of life TO START TO EXIST. The parallelism of the origin of a cell by chance should be established with that of a whole industrial automated set-up of such a complexity that it could reproduce itself, from all the databases with the complete specifications of all machines, their placements, the materials they have to receive and how they have to process them, and for the maintenance of the whole complex, to the machines themselves and all their environment, connections, systems of capture, transformation and application of energy, systems of regulation and control of processes, selective hoppers for the feed of specific materials, and automated hatches for the exit of other materials, etc,

Therefore, the materialist cannot dodge the real problem posed as to the origin of this machinery with the statement that "those are living systems", because these living systems do not exist until we do not have in existence the integrated whole of all these informational system with all of its machinery, where the protein machines are codified in the DNA, but where DNA cannot express its information except by means of the operation of these protein machines.

In the pairing "Chance + Natural Selection", even when great importance is attributed to "selective pressures" to give the impression that the said pressure brings about the emergence of new organs and of new biological functions, it must be considered that selection, whether natural or artificial, can only operate on that which already exists, and also additionally that it can only operate on entities that are already reproductive. Therefore, natural selection can only exist when the living cell already exists and reproduces itself. It cannot therefore be invoked as a cause of its origin. Obviously, natural selection would not be able to act to build the reproductive system of the cell, as the indispensable reproductive function would not exist as yet. In this case, what we contemplate is the origin of the integrated whole of the first cell by pure chance. And chance is ruled out.

b. Natural deterministic law

In the first decades of speculation regarding the possible formation of a living cell by purely materialistic processes, a branch of materialists expressed the conviction that the natural laws themselves would have brought about the unavoidable formation of life. Amongst others, Kenyon and Steinmann expressed this position in their book Biochemical Predestination. Nowadays this idea is still held in the popular concept that if conditions are right, life will necessarily happen. The idea is that if we should find a planet or a satellite with "earthly" conditions, we could expect to find life, naturally brought about by these same natural laws, as it is assumed.

But the reality is that the properties of the chemical systems PRECLUDE the accumulation of the needed components for life, and even the formation of the said components (DNA, polypeptidic chains, etc.) not to mention all the assembly of the compounds into dynamic and coordinated systems of code-reading, mutation-correcting, and transcribing, regulating, manufacturing protein machines, as well as systems for the capture, transformation, application and regulation of energy, of automated transport of materials, etc. Natural laws are helpless to explain the origin of life. Even more, they prevent it in the absence of a deliberate action, either immediate or mediated, because they act in a contrary direction; they are not of an integrating nature, but disintegrating.

c. Personal intelligent direction

In the same way as the complex of mechanical, electrical and pneumatic components, static or dynamic, of a coordinated and automated system of machines, cannot be explained by chance nor by the laws of matter (although when the whole complex has been built intelligently, it certainly follows the laws of physics and chemistry), those biochemical structures and their concatenation cannot be explained by chance nor by the action of natural law, either. They are the expression of Contrivance for the performance of a special purpose; it all bespeaks a Mind, and a purposeful Creating Mind at that: of the Godhead and the Power of God.

Denial – no refutation
----Materialism as idolatry

Those that refuse God His capability and power to create end up, many of them, ascribing this quality to that which objectively does not possess it —to the universe (por example, Sir Fred Hoyle [The Intelligent Universe], De Duve [Vital Dust], to the physico-chemical systems, etc.

So, such people refuse God the being, the wisdom and power, and ascribe all this to [N]ature, "Mother Nature", etc. They refuse to God the worship that belongs to Him and worship the creature, that which is justly denounced by Scripture as a capital sin of a culture that has risen in rebellion against God:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, ... Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen."

(Romans 1:18-22, 25.)

Santiago Escuain

God in Creation, and God in Providence

NOTE: This entry is a compilation of thoughts written down throughout 2007. Therefore, they date from before the publication of the article by Oliver R. Barclay in Aletheia, n.º 31, 1/2007, pp. 39-52 [a publication of the Spanish Evangelical Alliance], and do not constitute a point by point reply to it; however, I do provide some reflections to some of the questions raised by the said author.

* * * * * *

Qualitative differences between origins and operation

The detectability of special design does not exclude at all a general design in the so-called Natural Law. But the Natural Law as a framework is qualitatively different from the system of engines and inventions of the gadgets of life, of its mechanisms. The vast system of Natural Law is a system of uniform cause and effect, and constitutes the operational framework within which life is made possible but not necessary; it certainly shows design and purpose. But this system of uniform operation of cause and effect is not the cause, cannot be the origin, of the computer-like, cybernetic system of life; in the same way as the electrical, magnetic, mechanic laws that a set of machinery obeys in its operations cannot explain the origin of the machinery, of all its gadgetry —all this results from an inventiveness that belongs to another level.

Information cannot be explained by matter nor by energy. Information is the expression of a purpose that has as its ed to materialize the said purpose in its execution and to communicate information for the performance and control of the processes that bring about a proposed end.

The key lies in that in the summit of the hierarchy is the purpose of a Being that, in the last term, must be recognized necessarily as God. And information is the key of life and of Revelation. Both things come from God. He is the source of the one and of the other.

Direct intervention and providence

DI does not pretend to attribute EVERYTHING to a direct action, to a direct intervention of God —God acts often through secondary causes. What DI does is to bring in some rigorous instruments to distinguish the action, the embodiment, of a purpose, of a design through a plan that is not apparent but real, produced in an intelligent way (for instance, the production of some devices, of a machinery), in contrast with what is produced by the uniform operation of causes and effects governed by laws (the operation of the designed machine). The issue discriminated by the analytical apparatus (the filter) of the ID is that the properties of the system CANNOT give rise to the elements of this said natural or technological system. Only when this system has its components formed and in their corresponding place (chlorophyll, flagella, ribosomes, mitochondria, etc.) can it then be maintained by a whole series of conservative processes. But these processes of operation and conservation of the system CANNOT explain its origin; these demands an inventiveness, an intelligent activity, OUT OF REACH of the forces and laws by which the system works.

The criterion

The essential question is: Can the origin of all the system of nature be explained by means of the forces that we can observe in our own times? This is what is derived from the ideological position —expressed by Carl Sagan in the Cosmos series— that «the Cosmos is all that there has been, is or will be».

According to materialism, the basic phenomena and processes found in a system are the same ones as those that gave it its origin. "All is matter and movement". The argument of materialists seems to be that the properties of the systems explain the origin of the system. Rather, what comes from the exam of the forces that act in nature, in the operation of its systems which follow a CHAIN OF CAUSES and EFFECTS in the natural system, is that they are INCOMPETENT and qualitatively different of what is necessary to ORIGINATE the said system.

When performing an analysis of the facts, what is observed is that the properties of the system proceed from the design of the system. The origin of a system must be governed by a deliberate plan, with the application of energy directed by an information which applies the plan for the constitution of this organized system.

Stages and actors

Physics and chemistry are spheres of activity of the uniformity of the law of cause and effect —in biology we have an added magnitude. To pass from physicochemical systems to biological systems the need arises to SELECT the components [concept of Maxwell's demon], and for this it is necessary that an intelligent agent has INFORMATION upon which to act deliberately so as to embody DYNAMIC systems —away from the equilibrium to which physicochemical systems tend, and with a necessary specified complexity beyond (a) all possibility of chance or (b) of the uniform operation of natural law.

Thus, we have a background or stage, a physical-chemical universe where we have evidence of a uniform operation of cause and effect. And it must be said that this same universe gives evidence of design due to the absolute improbability of its structure, which requires «fine tuning», as it is shown by González and Richards in their book The Privileged Planet (see sidebar). But against the background of this universe and of these operations ruled by physical and chemical laws, the extrinsic operation of an informational activity can be detected by which the biological structures have acquired forms and functions which they would never have acquired by the uniform operation pf the said laws, but which require an intelligence to select for this purpose. This Intelligence is made evident in this way, and this both from the most direct intuition as under the most demanding criteria of a conceptual and mathematical analysis, as is shown by Dembski with his filter to ensure the presence of a design, of a deliberate purpose, in the making of an object or in the occurrence of an event, which provides the tool to establish a rigorous distinction between a true design, on the one hand, and a possible or certain happenstance. See the recommended books by Dembski, and also of Woodward, in the sidebar.

The role of chance in Chemical systems

“Throwing dice” in a chemical system will introduce irrelevant differences in that chemical system, changes in it, but it will not transform it upward into an integrated biological system, which belongs to another ontogenic nature.

Throwing dice can only bring out the potentiality already present in a dice, it cannot go beyond.

And giving more space and more time?

A bigger sphere and a longer time may in theory increase the chances that a hormone and its receptor may appear by chance —but it will also mean that their appearance by chance will be much more apart in space and in time. They will certainly dissolve by much more probable processes before they have the slightest chance to meet. Therefore, the theoretical increase of the scopes of space and time will not increase at all the probabilities of the chance occurrence of an integrated biological structure.

About science – its origin and role

Science used to be that enterprise of man to study the works of God, that is, the universe in its totality and in each of its parts. Its workings and interrelationships. Its cause and effect relationships. 1) To follow God’s thoughts after Him, 2) To fulfil His mandate of dominion as His stewards and beneficiaries. It was not a search for materialistic explanations of the origin of the Universe, but a search for the interrelationships of the matter-energy phenomena in God’s created and ordered universe. The search has revealed now that the created order includes matter / energy (physics, chemistry) and information / information treatment mechanisms (biology).

A word to Christians

"Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth."

(John 11:43-44).

If God should operate only through natural processes and laws, the resurrection would be effectively IMPOSSIBLE, because it is something diametrically opposite to all the tendency of the natural processes. In fact, the theological positions of the so-called "modernism" and of dialectic theology deny the reality of resurrection and the "prodigies and miracles" of the Scriptures. At most, from these perspectives, they would serve as didactic "myths", but they would not be at all realities that happened in time and in space.

However, this position is not "modern" at all. We find it already in Plato, Galen and many other Greek naturalistic philosophers.

For instance, the celebrated physician Galen (130-201 A.D.), who spoke against the Genesis record in the following words:

“It is precisely this point in which our own opinion and that of Plato and of the other Greeks who follow the right method in natural science differ from the position taken up by Moses. For the latter it seems enough to say that God simply willed the arrangement of matter and it was presently arranged in due order; for he believes everything to be possible with God, even should he wish to make a bull or a horse out of ashes. We, however, do not hold this; we say that certain things are impossible by nature and that God does not even attempt such things at all but that he [sic] chooses the best out of the possibility of becoming.”

On the usefulness of
the parts of the body, 11:14.

Paul had to confront all this already, amongst other passages in 1 Corinthians 15. The fundamental factor is: The power of God that has wrought in Creation, which has intervened in history and which shall be manifested bringing His kingdom in.

It is obvious that a consistent reading of the Scriptures leads to a rejection of Naturalism as a limiting concept to the special actions of God in Creation and in His interventions in the History of Revelation.

Santiago Escuain

---

On the specific but most important question of the present state of the research on the Origin of Life, we recommend reading The Last Testament of Leslie Orgel, just published.