To properly answer the question of the “origin of life,” one must first answer the question: “What is life in its essence?”
So far, we have three answers to the question of the “essence of life.” The first answer is vitalistic, the second is hylzoistic, and the third is reductionistic. Each of these answers to the question of the “essence of life” corresponds to a certain worldview, so the vitalistic view mainly corresponds to the theistic worldview (though there are also vitalists among evolutionists).
The hylzoistic view corresponds to the pantheistic worldview, while the reductionistic view corresponds to the naturalistic worldview.
According to the vitalistic answer, life is of an immaterial nature. It is some kind of “plus” that is above matter and, in fact, makes that matter alive.
According to the hylzoistic answer, there is no distinction between the living and the non-living; rather, everything is alive—”even molecules breathe.” There are not two worlds—the dead and the living—rather, “everything is alive.”
According to the reductionistic understanding, life represents highly organized matter.
No one has yet defined “what life is.” If you were to ask a biologist, who studies the science of life, “What is life?” he would tell you, “I don’t know.” This is the paradox of a science that cannot define the fundamental object of its research.
It is difficult to answer the question: “What is life in its essence?” That is why we speak about the attributes of the living, but we must never forget that the attributes of the living are one thing, and “what life is in its essence” is another.
What would be the attributes of the living?
Attributes of the Living
The first attribute, which is usually mentioned, is…
- Metabolism. There is a constant exchange of matter between the organism and the external environment. That is why living beings are called “open systems,” in which there is a continuous flow of matter and energy.
Thus, living systems are able to use energy from their environment and transform it. This property indicates the ability of a living system to maintain its internal structure and to reproduce at the expense of its surroundings. Here, we come into the domain of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which speaks about entropy. Every process in the universe tends toward greater entropy—greater disorder—meaning that the degree of freedom, or disorganization, should be maximized. Starting from bacteria all the way to humans, every organism, if it is alive, defies the Second Law of Thermodynamics because it possesses and maintains a highly organized structure. They achieve this by taking in molecules with higher energy, which they utilize to some extent (more efficiently than human-made machines) for maintenance, while releasing simpler molecules into the external environment, which are less organized than the ones absorbed.
However, reductionists will say: “Even a candle has metabolism—it takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide.” But a candle changes its state. The essential difference is that a living system preserves itself through exchange with the external environment, while a non-living system, if supplied with external energy, disintegrates and falls apart. For a non-living system, this means the end. This essential difference is based on the fact that living beings (and this is the second characteristic)…
- Are highly organized and complex, where each part has its own purpose or function, which does not exist in the non-living world. Without this, living systems would not be able to extract energy from their environment.
The third characteristic is:
- “Growth from within.” It is not enough to simply say “growth,” but rather “growth from within.” We must be very precise. Living beings grow from within. Growth is also found in the non-living world (growth of crystals, growth of a snowball…), but that growth is external.
The fourth characteristic of living beings is:
- Preservation of individuality. Despite the constant exchange of matter and energy with the environment, despite catabolism and anabolism, breakdown and construction, and internal growth, living beings remain identical to themselves. They are not identical in form, but they remain the same entities.
A human being, over the course of seven years, completely replaces all of the matter in their body. Some people ask: “Will God have to collect all our atoms when He recreates us?” This means that if someone is 23 years old, they have completely changed their bodily composition more than three times, yet they remain the same person. They are not identical in physical form, but they are the same entity.
We remain this way thanks to the genetic information we inherited from our parents. Regeneration, renewal, and the process of construction always happen according to the same plan. It does not matter whether we obtain amino acids from cornbread or from Viennese schnitzel. They are first broken down into amino acids, and specific proteins are always formed first due to the constancy of the genetic information we carry.
The next characteristic of living beings is:
- Sensitivity. There are different levels of sensitivity.
Plants are alive, but they do not have the breath of life. This is very interesting. When biology examines the life of plants, bacteria, or protozoa, it is a completely different type of life compared to the life of animals.
We know, based on the Bible, that animals have the breath of life. This is mentioned for animals in Genesis 7:22, and for humans in Genesis 2:7. And that animals themselves are souls is stated in Genesis 1:24.
Animals have a different kind of life than plants, at a higher level.