Scientists at the Venter Institute have successfully implanted an artificial set of DNA into a host cell, creating a synthetic cell (“Synthetic biology: And man made life,” The Economist, May 20, 2010). This remarkable scientific advance implicitly raises questions about the nature of life.
In at least one scientist’s opinion, the biological concept of “life,” like the concept of “force” in physics, is an antiquated concept originally devised as an answer to gaps in human knowledge. (Philip Ball, “A synthetic creation story,” Nature, May 24, 2010)
Christians, familiar with the Bible, find “life” an attractive concept. God “breathed” life into humans, according to the Old Testament. Understanding those narratives metaphorically rather than literally certainly does not undercut the idea that life comes from God. How that happens is unimportant, even as is whether God created the world in accordance with a literal reading of one of the two Genesis creation myths or God created by establishing the “natural laws” that govern evolutionary processes.
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