THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF ALL

 “COULD there be a more important question in all of human existence than ‘Is there a God?’” asked geneticist Francis S. Collins. He makes a powerful point. If there is no God, then there is no life beyond the present one, no higher authority on moral issues.

The reason some people doubt that God exists is because many scientists do not believe in him. However, popular views can sometimes be very wrong.

Regrettably, many of the world’s religions have added to the confusion by teaching things that contradict well-established scientific knowledge. A notable example is the unbiblical notion that God created the world in six 24-hour days a few thousand years ago.

Faced with conflicting theories and philosophies, many give up their search for the truth about God’s existence. But what could be more worthwhile—and of greater consequence—than finding a trustworthy answer to such a fundamental question? Of course, none of us have seen God, nor were we present when the universe and life came into existence. So whether we believe in God or not, our views involve a degree of faith. But what kind of faith?

True Faith Rests on Solid Evidence

Faith—at least in some measure—is an important part of our lives. We accept employment, expecting that we will get paid. We plant crops with the assurance that the seeds will sprout. We trust our friends. And we have confidence in the laws that govern the universe. This is an informed faith, for it is based on evidence. Likewise, faith that God exists rests on evidence.

At Hebrews 11:1, the Bible says: “Faith is . . . the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.” Another version says: “Faith . . . makes us certain of realities we do not see.” (The New English Bible) To illustrate: You are walking along a beach when, suddenly, you feel the ground quake. Then you see the water rush out to sea. You recognize the significance of these phenomena and that they warn of a tsunami. In this case, the quake and the vanishing water together form an “evident demonstration” of the yet unseen reality, the approaching waves. Your informed faith, in turn, moves you to flee to high ground and safety.

Faith in God too should be an informed faith, a response to convincing evidence. Only then can God become an ‘unseen reality’ to you. Must you be a scientist to examine and weigh such evidence? Nobel laureate Vladimir Prelog acknowledged that even “winners of the Nobel Prize are not more competent about God, religion, and life after death than other people.”

An honest heart and a thirst for truth should move you to examine the evidence fairly and let that evidence lead you in the right direction. What evidence is available for examination?

 

Consider the Evidence

YOU are on a remote, uninhabited island. While walking along the beach, you see “John 1800” engraved on a boulder. Do you assume that because the island is isolated and uninhabited, the marks must be the result of wind or water erosion? Of course not! You rightly conclude that someone made that inscription. Why? For one thing, a string of well-defined letters and numbers—even if they are in a foreign language—does not occur naturally. Second, the statement contains meaningful information, indicating an intelligent source.

In everyday life, we encounter information encoded in many forms—such as Braille or letters of the alphabet, as well as diagrams, musical notes, spoken words, hand signs, radio signals, and computer programs involving the binary code, using zeros and ones. The information-conveying medium can be virtually anything, from light to radio waves to paper and ink. Whatever the case, people always associate meaningful information with an intelligent mind—unless such information is contained in a living cell. That information, say evolutionists, just happened or wrote itself somehow. But did it? Consider the evidence.

Can Complex Information Write Itself?

Safely stored in the nucleus of nearly every living cell in your body is an amazing code called deoxyribonucleic acid, abbreviated DNA. It is carried by a long, double-stranded molecule that looks like a twisted ladder. Your DNA is like a recipe, or program, that directs the formation, growth, maintenance, and reproduction of the trillions of cells that make up your body. The basic units that make up DNA are called nucleotides. These units are called A, C, G, and T, depending on which chemical base they contain. Like letters of the alphabet, these four characters can be combined in many ways to form “sentences”—instructions that direct replication and other processes within the cell.

The entire package of information stored in your DNA is called your genome. Some sequences of letters in your DNA are unique to you, for DNA contains your hereditary information—your eye color, skin color, the shape of your nose, and so on. Simply put, your genome can be compared to a vast library of recipes for every part of your body, and the end product is you.

How large is this “library”? It is about three billion “letters,” or nucleotides (bases), long. If it were transcribed onto paper, the book would fill 200 volumes the size of a 1,000-page telephone book, according to the Human Genome Project.

These facts call to mind an amazing prayer recorded some 3,000 years ago. Found in the Bible at Psalm 139:16, it reads: “Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing.” Of course, the writer did not have science in mind, but in simple language he conveyed an amazingly accurate concept to illustrate God’s awesome wisdom and power. How unlike other ancient religious writings, which were filled with mythology and superstition!

Who Assembled the “Library”?

If reason tells us that “John 1800” engraved into a rock must have an intelligent mind as its source, should not also the infinitely more complex and meaningful information found in DNA? After all, information is information no matter where it is found or what the medium may be. Computer and information scientist Donald E. Johnson said that the laws of chemistry and physics are unable to create complex information or systems that process that information. And it stands to reason that the more complex a package of information, the greater the intelligence needed to write it. A child could write “John 1800.” But only a superhuman mind could write the code of life. What is more, “the complexity of biology has seemed to grow by orders of magnitude” with every new discovery, says the journal Nature.

To attribute the complex library of information in DNA to blind, unguided processes conflicts with both reason and human experience. Such belief also stretches faith to the breaking point.

In their efforts to remove God from the picture, evolutionists have, at times, drawn conclusions that were later found to be wrong. Consider, for example, the view that some 98 percent of our genome is “junk”—a library of recipes with billions of useless words.

Is It Really “Junk”?

Biologists have long held that DNA is a recipe for the manufacture of proteins and nothing else. However, in time, it became evident that only about 2 percent of the genome consists of code for proteins. What is the purpose of the other 98 percent of DNA? This mystery DNA was “immediately assumed to be evolutionary junk,” observed John S. Mattick, professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

The scientist who is credited with coining the term “‘junk’ DNA” was evolutionist Susumu Ohno. In his paper “So Much ‘Junk’ DNA in Our Genome,” he wrote that the remaining sequences of DNA “are the remains of nature’s experiments which failed. The earth is strewn with fossil remains of extinct species; is it a wonder that our genome too is filled with the remains of extinct genes?”

How did the concept of “junk” DNA affect the study of genetics? Molecular biologist Wojciech Makalowski says that such thinking “repelled mainstream researchers from studying noncoding [junk] DNA,” with the exception of a small number of scientists, who, “at the risk of being ridiculed, explore unpopular territories. Because of them, the view of junk DNA . . . began to change in the early 1990s.” Now, he adds, biologists generally regard what was called junk “as a genomic treasure.”

In Mattick’s opinion, the junk-DNA theory is a classic example of scientific tradition “derailing objective analysis of the facts.” “The failure to recognize the full implications of this,” he says, “may well go down as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.” Clearly, truth in science needs to be determined on the basis of evidence, not by popular vote. That being the case, what does recent evidence reveal about the role of “junk” DNA?

What the “Junk” Does

A factory that makes cars uses machines to manufacture the parts. We can liken the parts to the proteins in a cell. The factory also needs devices and systems that assemble those parts step-by-step and others that serve as controls, or regulators, in the assembly line. The same is true of the activities inside the cell. And that, say researchers, is where “junk” DNA comes in. Much of it contains the recipe for a class of complex molecules called regulatory RNA (ribonucleic acid), which play a key role in how the cell develops, matures, and functions. “The sheer existence of these exotic regulators,” says mathematical biologist Joshua Plotkin in Nature magazine, “suggests that our understanding about the most basic things . . . is incredibly naive.”

An efficient factory additionally needs effective communication systems. The same is true of the cell. Tony Pawson, a cell biologist at the University of Toronto in Ontario, explains: “The signalling information in cells is organized through networks of information rather than simple discrete pathways,” making the whole process “infinitely more complex” than previously thought. Indeed, as a geneticist at Princeton University said, “many of the mechanisms and principles governing inter- and intracellular behaviour are still a mystery.”

Each new discovery about the cell points to ever higher levels of order and sophistication. So why do so many people still cling to the notion that life and the most sophisticated information system known to man are products of a random evolutionary process?

                             

                                    Which Approach Is More Reasonable?

NO HUMAN witnessed the beginning of life on earth. Nor has anyone seen one kind of life evolve into another kind—a reptile into a mammal, for example. Therefore, we must rely on the available evidence to draw conclusions about the origin of life. And we need to let the evidence speak for itself rather than force it to say what we want it to say.

Many atheists, however, view science through the lens of materialism—a philosophy that assumes purely material causes for the origin of life. “We have a prior commitment . . . to materialism,” wrote evolutionist Richard C. Lewontin. “That materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Hence, materialists embrace the only alternative they have—evolution.

Religious people too may have preconceptions that distort their attitude toward science. For instance, as mentioned earlier, some creationists cling to the erroneous notion that God formed the world in six literal days a few thousand years ago. Having made that prior commitment, they try to force the evidence to fit their extremely literal interpretation of the Bible. (See the box “How Long Is a ‘Day’?” on page 9.) People who have such extreme interpretations of both the Bible and science are left without satisfying answers when they try to seek evidence for their faith.

Which View Fits All the Facts?

With regard to the origin of the complex molecules that make up living organisms, some evolutionists believe the following:

1. Key elements somehow combined to form basic molecules.

2. Those molecules then linked together in the exact sequences required to form DNA, RNA, or protein with the capacity to store the information needed to carry out tasks essential to life.

3. The molecules somehow formed the specific sequences required to replicate themselves. Without replication, there can be neither evolutionary development nor, indeed, life itself.

How did the molecules of life form and acquire their amazing abilities without an intelligent designer? Evolutionary research fails to provide adequate explanations or satisfying answers to questions about the origin of life. In effect, those who deny the purposeful intervention of a Creator attribute godlike powers to mindless molecules and natural forces.

What, though, do the facts indicate? The available evidence shows that instead of molecules developing into complex life-forms, the opposite is true: Physical laws dictate that complex things—machines, houses, and even living cells—in time break down. Yet, evolutionists say the opposite can happen. For example, the book Evolution for Dummies says that evolution occurred because the earth “gets loads of energy from the sun, and that energy is what powers the increase in complexity.”

To be sure, energy is needed to turn disorder into order—for example, to assemble bricks, wood, and nails into a house. That energy, however, has to be carefully controlled and precisely directed because uncontrolled energy is more likely to speed up decay, just as the energy from the sun and the weather can hasten the deterioration of a building. Those who believe in evolution cannot satisfactorily explain how energy is creatively directed.

On the other hand, when we view life and the universe as the work of a wise Creator who possesses an “abundance of dynamic energy,” we can explain not only the complexity of life’s information systems but also the finely tuned forces that govern matter itself, from vast galaxies to tiny atoms.—Isaiah 40:26.

Belief in a Creator also harmonizes with the now generally accepted view that the physical universe had a beginning. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” says Genesis 1:1.

Invariably, new discoveries tend to make the philosophy of materialism increasingly hard to defend, a fact that has moved some atheists to revise their views. Yes, some former atheists have come to the conclusion that the wonders of the universe are visible evidence of the “invisible qualities” and “eternal power” of our Creator, Jehovah God. (Romans 1:20) Would you consider giving the matter further thought? No subject could be more important or of greater consequence.

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