Ah, Life!

As we begin again the next weekly cycle of Bible portion reading, we are told about the early days on earth. The Bible, in Genesis, says that God spoke to the waters and the land and commanded them to bring forth living beings.  That’s it - one statement about the origin of life on our planet - God said so.

Volumes have been written in the scientific and philosophical journals about the origin of life. Everyone from Socrates to Aristotle and Plato to Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawkins have put forth their theories about how life began.

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment (you know him - Satan, the angel of death, the great avenger, the evil inclination). Let’s take his side and look at the non-Biblical view of life’s beginnings and see what it implies.

Scientists speak of the primordial soup of amino acids that randomly combined to form the earliest living cells. The most widely accepted theory states that for many, many, many years, all of the organisms that existed on earth consisted of just a single cell. No Venus fly traps, no Chilean bass and no dinosaurs. Just complex one-celled beings that contained the same components that exist in the cells of all living organisms today - rhibosomes, nuclei, chromosomes and more. And as these cells consumed more of the nutrients surrounding them, they grew ever larger, fatter and obese.

As they perused their environment, they realized that fat wasn’t where it’s at so if they wanted to continue to survive, they would have to make a decision - either lose weight or divide themselves into two.

Lucky for us, they chose the latter.

Suddenly, during what is called the Cambrian explosion, every genus and phyla that we have today (and perhaps some that are no longer around), came into being. That included, according to science, the “potential” for every variety of plants, fish, birds and animals.

Only one problem - who made that decision?

Do we think that an unthinking mass of protons, neutrons and electrons decided that existence was worth existing and then on its own, developed the capability of reproducing itself?

That would imply that life, at all levels, is worth perpetuating; that the continued survival of each specie, and in fact, every individual cell, serves some purpose that transcends its own intrinsic existence. Otherwise, why bother?

The smallest cells “knew” this. Somehow, deep inside, we know it too.

The Bible commanded all beings - “Be fruitful and multiply.”

You see? When God speaks, even CELLS listen!