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Is today the first day of the rest of your life?
Life arose on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago, and possibly earlier than that. Fossils in rocks have been found as old as 3.85 billion years. This evidence comes from looking at different isotopes of carbon. Most carbon atoms are atoms of carbon-12. Living organisms and fossils have carbon isotopes. Rocks as old as 3.85 billion years also show the same isotopes, strongly suggesting that these rocks contain remnants of life. Beyond 3.85 billion years, we cannot determine whether life existed, because rocks more ancient than this no longer exist on Earth’s surface. It is conceivable that life arose as early as 4.4 billion years ago.
Some reaschers say revelation and Science Contradict each other. revelation and science do not, and cannot contradict each other,because both are of God.
There may at times be and apparent conflict between faith and science,; but this is only apparent, and never real. God cannot contradict himself. He cannot lead us into error.
There can never be a real conflict between revelation and science, because they deal with entirely different spheres.
No scientific experiment or theory can dispense the necessity of a Creator. Unless his existence is accepted, we can never explain:
The origin of matter, even the most elementary;
The origin of motion;
The origin of the very first living organism, and of the spiritual soul of man;
The origin of the order and law so apparent in the universe.
The event of conception, the union of the male sex cell and the female sex cell, sets into motion a period of growth unequaled at any other time in life of the individual.
Just after fertilization, or conception, the ovum is not quite as large as the dot used to complete a sentence, but within approximately 9 calendar or 10 lunar months that particle of life will increase in size approximately 200 billion times and become the highly complex structure and personality known as a baby.
*Origin of Life*
The origin of life had to be by supernatural creation, because
life is too complex to arise through natural processes. The
living cell is, in some ways, like a chemical factory, but more
complex than any designed by humans. Hundreds of chemical
reactions are simultaneously going on in each cell. And the cell
is not just a bag of chemicals! It is subdivided into many
compartments, just as a human factory is divided into areas with
different functions. Both the physical design of the cell and
the chemistry in it are clear examples of intelligent design.
There have been many attempts in the laboratory to show how life
could originate through natural processes. Scientists have
succeeded, usually using extreme measures, in simulating tiny
steps of the total process of life. Anyone who expresses
satisfaction with these attempts shows us one of two things.
Either they have a poor understanding of life or they have an
incredible amount of faith in evolution. In spite of headlines
about the creation of life in a test tube, scientists are
nowhere near being able to demonstrate a natural procedure for
the origin of the first cell.
To appreciate fully the living world around us today, we need to
have another word in our vocabulary, "archetype" (ancient form).
This refers to basic designs used repeatedly by the Creator.
There is an endless variety of examples known to biologists. One
of the most fundamental archetypes is the living cell, the
building block of all life.
With the above concepts about the origin of life and the origin
of species, all the history of life and the great diversity of
life today can be understood and appreciated. The known
processes of beneficial change (recombination and natural
selection) are capable of taking a group of created populations
and developing them into the richness of life on earth. It is
unnecessary and unreasonable to resort to unknown and unlikely
processes, such as mutations, as the sources of variation that
could change simple cells into all we see alive today.
Works Cited:
THE CATHOLIC FAITH
January/February 2002
Vol. 8, No. 1
Publisher
Joseph Fessio, S.J.
Executive Editor
John A. Hardon, S.J.
Editor
John O’Connell
Maternal and Child Health Nursing
A. Joy Ingalls,R.N., M.S.
The C.V. Mosby Company
St. Louis 1983
The Cosmic Perspective
Jeffery Bennett
Megan Donahue
Mark Voit
Adison Wesley, Pearson Edu. Inc. 2002
http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Faith/2002-02/contents.html
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Copyright © 2003 Mark D. Davidson. All Rights Reserved