A Christian and a Scientist

When the walls came tumbling down around Eastern Europe, people in those countries begged Westerners to come in and share their ideas.   One of the first Christians to respond was a scientist named Charles Thaxton. Thaxton is co-author of a book on the origin of life. The core of life is the DNA molecule--a twisted strand of chemicals that functions like a coded message. DNA is the command center of the cell; it tells each part how to function. The tiny molecule packs in as much information as all the volumes in a typical library. According to evolution, life originated when chemicals floating in a pool of water linked up to form the first DNA molecule. But Charles Thaxton argues it couldn't have happened that way. There's no laboratory evidence that something as complex as the DNA molecule could form by itself--with all the right chemicals linking up in just the right pattern. Besides, the theory doesn't make sense. DNA is a message. Do chemicals have the power to write messages? Let's say we walk into a classroom and find the words "George Bush, call your wife" written on the chalkboard. You ask me how it got there. And I tell you the chalk itself wrote the message--that the calcium carbonate in the chalk wrote the words. You wouldn't accept an answer like that for a minute. The information is not contained in the chalk chemicals. What if we wrote "George Bush, call your wife" in ink instead of chalk? Would that change the meaning? How about finger paint? What if took a stick and wrote it in the sand? We could even hire a skywriter to fly overhead and spell it out in smoke. And we'd still have the same message. To say DNA first formed when the right chemicals linked up is like saying the chalk wrote the notice on the blackboard. Our everyday experience tells us a message can only be created by person, a mind. By analogy, the DNA code could only have been created by powerful Mind--what we Christians call God. This is the argument Charles Thaxton presents to scientists when he travels through Eastern Europe. Everywhere he is met with open astonishment. You see, the standard evolutionary theory on the origin of life came from the Soviet Union. Charles Darwin speculated that life began in what he called "some warm little pond," but the first scientific theory on how it might have happened was devised by a Soviet scientist named Oparin. Oparin's underlying motive was to promote communism. Communism rests on atheism--and for atheism to be persuasive, it has to give a complete and consistent worldview. For decades, communist propaganda used Oparin's theory to persuade people that atheism can explain everything--that we don't need God to explain life, or anything else. Today Eastern Europeans are hungry for alternatives to the atheism they were force-fed so long. They are amazed to hear Charles Thaxton say science itself points to God. In Romania, a university professor followed Thaxton back to his hotel room. With tears in his eyes he said, "It's a miracle. Never before have I seen a Christian and a scientist in one body." The heavens do indeed declare the glory of God--and so does the tiny DNA molecule.

09/24/91