The Mystery of Life

Recommended book. What is Life and where did it come from?
Rev Howard Taylor.

It is very difficult to define what life is. After describing the many branches of biology the 1997 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica remarks: Despite the enormous fund of information that each of these biological specialities has provided, it is a remarkable fact that no general agreement exists on what it is that is being studied. There is no generally accepted definition of life.

InAugust 2009 The Times asked and answered: What turns a living tree into a lifeless piece of wood?” The answer? No one knows.

Why, up till the present time, are scientists not able to make life out of lifeless matter? It could be believed that `life' involves a dimension of reality that goes beyond the scope of our four dimensional world of space-time and therefore beyond complete scientific definition, or it could be that one day simple organisms will be manufactured by humans. Whatever is the case a reason why life seems so hard to produce is its sheer intricacy - way, way beyond the intricacy of anything ever made by humankind.

When I was a child our science lessons taught us that the amoeba was the simplest form of life and that it was nothing much more than a piece of jelly. We now know that the amoeba is fantastically complex (beyond all our human imagining.) It is not, though, the most basic form of life that can exist independently of other life. That honour is held by a bacterium. Is it simple? No, it, like the amoeba is astoundingly elaborate, way beyond the wit of any scientist fully to describe or comprehend.

Most of us easily take life for granted for we are surrounded by it. Billions of blades of grass grow and wither every year. We may feel amazed when we see the computer technology necessary to send vehicles to Mars and see how control can be exercised from earth over every movement of the vehicle, and yet it is easy never to have a sense of awe at the greater complexity and information content of relatively simple forms of life. According to the atheist scientist Dawkins the amoeba has enough information storage space to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1,000 time over!

When Christ spoke of the lilies of the field and said that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these, some of his listeners may have thought he was exaggerating. But he wasn't. Indeed it is one of the great understatements of the Bible. The more the botanist's learning penetrates into the lilies of the field the more complexity, wonderful mystery, and beauty he finds. Again according to Dawkins the `information' storage capacity of a single lily seed, that enables it to grow into a lily, is more than sufficient to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica sixty times over.

Nature's simplest cell of life has a multitude of components, but for our purposes we will think of three essentials. The outer constituent is really a highly complex chemical factory called the cytoplasm; it is far more complex than any chemical factory made by humans. Its purpose is to manufacture the proteins necessary for the cell's life. How does this `factory' know how to manufacture the correct proteins? It is controlled by a computer program in the nucleus of the cell. The computer program is called the DNA molecule. It is a string of millions of particular chemicals (organic bases). In the proteins and the DNA there are four types of these bases that act like `letters' in a small alphabet. Just as letters in an alphabet can be arranged to make words, sentences, messages, and instructions; so the four `letters' of the DNA spell out instructions to be passed on to the cytoplasm to control its manufacture of proteins. The order of the letters cannot be a random jumble of letters. They have to be in such an order as to convey useful information enabling the cell of life to replicate or survive. Biologists give the letters `T', `C', `G', and `A' to these four bases. In principle then it should be possible to write out this `genetic code' in the form `CCGTCAGGATT....'. If the code for the simplest bacteria cell were to be written out it could not be contained within a book of a thousand pages. Tens of thousands of pages would be needed for grass. Millions of pages would be needed for the code of a human DNA. Each different form of life has its own code. The code that produces a blade of grass is different from the code for a rose, or a spider, or a mouse, or an elephant or a human being. One mouse differs from another and one human being from another. Unless they are identical twins no two humans have exactly the same DNA.

The DNA does not `speak' the same language as the cytoplasm (which uses a twenty letter `alphabet'), so there has to be an interconnecting translation system using a different `alphabet'. This called the RNA. It too is marvellously elaborate. As we will see the simplest cell of life is much more amazing still. However we pause here, to note that at the heart of all life is information, and meaning. We must then be faced with the question: where did this information come from? Note, we are not talking about intricate and beautiful patterns such as those we might find produced by the forces of nature. We are talking about information. If we travelled to another planet and found beautiful and intricate configurations of colours we would not necessarily be right in assuming that an intelligent painter had been at work. However if we found a form of writing, conveying huge amounts of useful information then we would be right in deducing that an intelligence had written it. Here on this planet if archaeologists find ancient marking which they suspect may be writing they will lose interest if they discover that it was only patterns and not writing after all.

Drusilla Scott tells us of Michael Polanyi's reaction to the claim that the discovery of the DNA double helix is the final proof that living things are physically and chemically determined.

No said Polanyi it proves the opposite. No arrangement of physical units can be a code and convey information unless the order of its units is not fixed by its physical chemical make-up. His example is a railway station on the Welsh border where an arrangement of pebbles on a bank spelled the message - "Welcome to Wales by British Rail". This information content of pebbles clearly showed that their arrangement was not due to their physical chemical interaction but to a purpose on the part of the stationmaster ... The arrangement of the DNA could have come about chance, just as the pebbles on that station could have rolled down a hillside and arranged themselves in the words of the message, but it would be bizarre to maintain that this was so ... In the latter part of the twentieth Century some astronomers are looking for intelligent life else where in the universe. They are doing so by listening for meaningful messages (not just regular bleeps or random noises). If they find such they rightly will be convinced that intelligent life is its source. Richard Dawkins writes about the nature of life: "What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, warm breath, nor a 'spark of life'. It is information, words, instructions . . . Think of a billion discrete digital characters . . . If you want to understand life, think about information technology." The fundamental organic bases that are the `letters' of the genetic code can be made in the laboratory. Conditions similar to those thought to have been found millions of years ago on earth, can be produced using, electric sparks, hydrogen, ammonia, and water. Simple basic compounds similar to those that go to make up the genetic code are produced in this way. The problem for those who want to give a materialistic account of the origin of life is how these `letters', (without, intelligence, sight or any form of perception) could plan to get together in just the correct sequence to provide the information necessary for life. Some would say that given enough time a monkey, just randomly hitting the keys of a typewriter would type out the Encyclopaedia Britannica. This kind of argument, used by the late philosopher Bertrand Russell, assumes there is an infinite length of time to allow this to happen. The problem is that if orthodox science is correct the whole universe is not infinite in duration (a mere 15,000 million years, which is probably long enough for a monkey randomly to type out the first two sentences of Britannica). Another problem is that the enormous increase in order required for such an achievement would swallow up the remaining order in the universe and destroy it. Fred Hoyle puts it in a more picturesque way. He says that the whole universe would not be able to contain the waste paper baskets needed to store the rubbish that the monkey first typed out.

Another alternative to the argument that given an infinite time all combinations of atoms would be realised is the argument already referred to namely that there may be a trillion trillion universes. Richard Swinburne argues that this hypothesis is less plausible than a belief in Divine creation. With this I agree. However there is I believe something inherent in nature that is, in principle, not explainable by wonderful and intricate combinations of atoms. But before mentioning a logical problem for those who believe there will one day be a naturalist explanation for self-replicating molecules we briefly consider DNA.

Fred Hoyle is an astronomer who has turned his attention to biology. Although, not himself a Christian believer, he is deeply critical of the atheist attempt to say that such wonders could have arisen by chance. I am well aware that many regard his views as somewhat eccentric and it would be unwise of me to use him as an ally. Even if this assessment of him is fair (and I am not sure that it is), it does not mean his arguments should not be faced honestly. However unusual some of his opinions may be, I know of one example where he clearly is misrepresented by his opponents. He is famous for his junkyard illustration. What are the chances of a whirlwind blowing through a junkyard assembling a Jumbo Jet from its pieces scattered about the Junkyard? Of course there is no chance that it would ever happen. Fred Hoyle says that life is so complex that to say it came into existence by chance processes is like saying that the whirlwind assembled the Jumbo Jet.

Fred Hoyle is criticised for this. He is told that biology is not his subject and he has misunderstood what biologists are saying. I have looked at this argument and am convinced that he has not misunderstood anything. Dawkins in his book `The Blind Watchmaker' is one that criticises him. He claims that Fred Hoyle has missed the point. Dawkins says that evolution of such wonderful mechanisms as the eye do not need such a huge `single step' increase in complexity. Dawkins says that the increase in complexity comes gradually over millions of years. Natural selection is a cumulative process, which weeds out unhelpful changes in a species and preserves those changes most able to help the species to adapt, compete and survive. Successive increases in complexity are very small but given millions of generations they explain life as it is today. But has Fred Hoyle really missed the point?

In Fred Hoyle's book The Intelligent Universehe uses the junkyard illustration not in relation to the formation of an eye but the formation of the very simplest form of life. Dawkins himself acknowledges that this simplest form of life had to be formed in a single-step. He says

"we cannot escape the need to postulate a single-step (his emphasis) chance event in the origin of cumulative selection itself." Earlier in the book (p. 91) Dawkins says: "if a complex organ of life is ever found that could not have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications . . . I shall cease to believe in Darwinism". Two chapters later he acknowledges that the simplest cell of life is such a beast. If he is consistent he should give up Darwinism.

Darwin himself in `Origin of Species' says:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possible have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." One of America's experts on `artificial intelligence' and a great all round scientific thinker, Douglas Hofstadter, who, as we shall see later resists appeal to ultimate `spiritual' explanations, nevertheless says: "A natural and fundamental question to ask, on learning of these incredibly, intricately interlocking pieces of software and hardware is: 'How did they ever get started in the first place?'..... from simple molecules to entire cells is almost beyond one's power to imagine. There are various theories on the origin of life. They all run aground ton this most central of central questions: "How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for it's translation originate?" For the moment we will have to content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer.' The new book, to which I earlier referred, by the greatly respected American Biologist, Michael Behe, argues that many of our organs have an enormous irreducible complexity. His own words are: "By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution. Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, on one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to work upon." So how does Dawkins, an atheist, explain how life got started at first? He cannot invoke the slow processes of cumulative selection in evolution because he tells us the simplest form of life had to be in existence before the processes of evolution could get started. He uses a simple argument. Although the chances are small, there are so many planets in the universe it was likely to happen somewhere and so it did on planet earth! But is this a valid argument? If Dawkins is right then there is possibly a working machine as complex and full of information as a Jumbo Jet on another planet somewhere in the universe! Supposing now we were to discover writing conveying huge amounts of information (similar to an Encyclopaedia Britannica) would anyone believe that such a phenomenon would ever some into existence by chance even if there were an infinite number of planets?

He estimates that there are 10²⁰ (100 billion billion) planets in the universe and that therefore as long as the odds are not more than 10²⁰ to 1 against the formation of the simplest form of life in a single step move then his theory is all right. He says that these odds are probably "ample to accommodate the spontaneous arising of DNA or RNA". Anyone who knows just a little of what the DNA & RNA are will recognise this as untrue. The more biologists discover about DNA & RNA the more wonderful complexity they unveil. This makes Dawkins' problem so very much greater. Significantly Dawkins does not even attempt to explain why he thinks 10²⁰to 1 is sufficient odds. It is just an assertion he makes.

Fred Hoyle has another figure for the odds against the chance formation of the enzymes necessary for any life to exist. It is not 10²⁰ to 1 but 10^40,000to 1, and he has calculated it. This is Fred Hoyle's figure for the formation of an enzyme (a type of protein). The chances of forming a DNA molecule, which is tremendously more complex than an enzyme would be unimaginably smaller even than this. I am not qualified to assess Hoyle's calculations but I am sure that Dawkins' argument is hopelessly flawed and that is the point I want to make here.

Perhaps it is no wonder that in one place Dawkins confesses:

"Does it sound to you as though it would need a miracle to make randomly jostling atoms join together into a self replicating molecule? Well, at times it does to me too." (My emphasis). Walter Hearn a biochemist who, at present, is adjunct professor of science at New College for Advanced Studies at Berkeley, has been aware for thirty years of efforts to try to understand prebiological or "chemical" evolution that would be a necessary precursor to the formation of the simplest form of life. He comments: There is a certain irony in experiments set up to show that life was produced in small steps in an appropriate chemical environment by random molecular motions. In all such experiments, "pure" chance is "contaminated" by the purposeful intent of the researchers, who go to great lengths to control the variables in their experimental set-ups. If the "world inside the flask serves as a model of the random processes of nature, what does the "investigator" beyond the apparatus represent? We can add to the mystery of the `miracle' by noting that the DNA, by itself, is useless; as we said earlier it must be translated via the RNA so that its `message' can be put to use by the cytoplasm `factory'. The problem is that the RNA that links the DNA with the factory, is itself manufactured by that very factory which cannot function without the RNA and the DNA! Indeed each component part depends on the other for its manufacture. Try to imagine a factory for making computers - the factory itself being run from the beginning by the very computers it alone can manufacture! This is only one of the enigmas of life in its very simplest form.

But even if it is found that RNA (without DNA) has itself powers of self-replication which are derived from simpler self-replication there is still a logical problem pointed out by John Haldane. He argues that the emergence of even relatively simple self replicating molecules (perhaps early forms of RNA) from non self replicating molecules is in principle a `radical emergence' which is, by definition, not compatible with a naturalist theory of evolution. His argument is that theories about the origin of self-replication posit the possibility that self-replicating molecules, being more adaptable, were able to survive and mulitply. However this very adaptability has to be generated by self-replication itself. Thus self-replication is being used to explain self-replication, which of course is impossible. I refer to radical emergence again later.

So far we have thought of the cell of life in terms of an extremely complicated mechanism as if it were in principle a complex machine or computer. It is much more than this and very much mystery remains. For example I quote again from Douglas Hofstadter:

...if you wanted to find some piece of your DNA which accounts for the shape of your nose or the shape of your fingerprint, you would have a very hard time. It would be a little like trying to pin down the note in a piece of music which is the carrier of the emotional meaning of the piece. Of course there is no such note, because the emotional meaning is carried on a very high level, by large "chunks" of the piece, not by single notes. Incidentally, such "chunks" are not necessarily sets of contiguous notes; there may be disconnected sections which, taken together, carry some emotional meaning. Something that always puzzled me about the DNA code and may be related to this problem is this. Each cell in my body (there are trillions of cells in each human body), contains the same DNA computer program that determines, as I grow in my mother's womb, my physical characteristics. How is it then that, at the time before any of my limbs have begun to form, that cells which become part of my arms (say) know they are there for the benefit of my arms and those in my toes (say) know that they are there for my toes? Biologists call this the problem of `differentiation' and it is still a great enigma. it seems to me to mean that there must be another plan or control greater than the DNA that is switching on the parts of the DNA relevant to finger growth in the cells of my fingers while keeping the parts of the same DNA that have to do with the growth of other parts of my body switched off. If there is this greater plan where is it located? Please note that although the example of the human nose, fingers and toes is given here, this problem relates to all forms of life.

Many falsely assume that the DNA is merely a scaled down version of the living creature, or that the creature is a scaled up version of the DNA. This is not so. Research Chemist Ernest Lucas tells us: "The single fertilised egg does not have miniature arms and legs. These new structures appear later as the cells multiply and divide". As well as the reason given in the previous paragraph, complicated and wonderful though the DNA may be, it cannot, of itself, account for the enormously greater complexity of many parts of my physical body. It might even seem, that in order for the DNA to be changed into an individual life form, a set of mechanisms far more complex than the DNA must operate on it. In this case the various parts of the DNA would serve as triggers for these mechanisms. So where could this greater mechanism be which controls and is controlled by the DNA?!

Paul Davies writes:

If every molecule of DNA possesses the same global plan for the whole organism, how is it that different cells implement different parts of that plan? Is there, perhaps, a `metaplan' to tell each cell which part of the plan to implement? If so, where is the metaplan located? In the DNA? But this is surely to fall into infinite regress. It was this problem that prompted Rupert Sheldrake - research biochemist and formally Fellow of Clare College Cambridge - to propose `morphogenetic fields' that he claimed must surround each living organism influencing their development. He further believed that these fields even transcend the bounds of space and time so that behaviour patterns of previous members of a species affect the development of new members of the species. His theories go so much against the materialist presuppositions of orthodox science that they have been largely rejected.

However the problem of differentiation remains. Paul Davies wonders whether the DNA acts as a `receiver' rather than the source of the genetic information. If he is right where is this greater information? What is its source if not in the individual cell? Did a DNA strand produce Adam, or was it the other way round, or was it a bit of both?! Certainly I believe that the individual life forms (such as bacteria, grasses, spiders, elephants and humans) and their respective DNAs are open structures - open to realities beyond the mere chance mutations that Dawkins sees as the basis of all evolution.

Causation, then, would not just be `bottom-up' (DNA causing the individual life form to come into being), but also `top-down' (the life form, over many generations acting on the DNA). This could not make sense unless ultimately the `top-down' causation came from Mind and began, not with the individual life form, but God himself. If I am right then there is much more to life than very intricate mechanism. However we must wait for more research into the riddle of `differentiation' before being too assured in our comments. For the time being we must be content with a sense of very great mystery and awe.

Up to this point I have not made any assessment of `evolution'. That is the presumed very gradual process that is supposed to have begun after the simplest life form came into being by a single-step move. I have no strong Biblical or theological reason to reject this theory. So I am not a `Creationist' who as a matter of principle rejects evolution. However I do not believe that purely accidental process and random changes, even given millions of years of the `survival of the fittest', could change a single cell (without brain, nervous system, liver, eyes, ears, blood, lungs, leaves, feathers, bark, roots, petals, etc. etc.) into all the wonderful forms of animal and vegetable life we see around us.

Both anti-evolution creationists on the one hand and those who merely accept evolution because it is the current orthodoxy need to heed the warning given by Daniel Osmond (Professor of Physiology and Medicine - University of Toronto) who writes:

I do not wish to build a "God of the Gaps" argument built upon gaps in evolutionary knowledge. This would be dangerous because science has a habit of filling gaps, sooner or later. Nor would I wish to predict that, because these particular data are either unavailable or very difficult to obtain, evolutionary gaps will never be filled and use this prediction to argue in favour or Creatorship and Purpose. My point is simply that, in the presence of such huge gaps in knowledge concerning their most important theory pertaining to biological origins, all scientists should exhibit a more realistic, humble attitude. With such huge gaps staring us in the face in the empirical domain, we should refrain from usurping other domains, not accessible to empirical study, with an air of arrogance of superconfidence. Lesslie Newbigin, writing about the philosophy of science in general says: Scientists do not abandon a theory simply because some experiments have yielded results which do not confirm it; they abandon it only when a better theory is available. This point is particularly striking in the field of biology. A succession of scientists have pointed out enormous inconsistencies and impossibilities in the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection among random mutations. Cosmologists have confirmed that the known time-span of the universe is insufficient even for the earliest steps in this process. There is almost total blank in many of the places where the intermediate stages between species should be represented in the fossil record. These and other facts that make the theory untenable are widely recognised. But until a better theory is produced, this one remains in place. It can never be proved; it might reasonably be held to be disproved by many arguments. But it remains the accepted theory until something held to be more acceptable takes its place. I do not want to get into the detailed arguments for and against evolution because in this chapter I am concentrating on the `boundary areas' of scientific enquiry. However if it is true that the origin of species is evolutionary development from other species, I do not believe it will be due to random mechanistic processes alone. As I have said above we will have to recognise an openness in the very structure of life so that it can respond to a greater ordering principle in or beyond the universe.

John Polkinghorne quotes Augustine in his commentary on Genesis and compares the quotation with words of Darwin:

St. Augustine in his great commentary on Genesis wrote that "in the beginning were created only germs or causes of the forms of life which were afterwards to be developed in gradual course" - words that are not far removed from those of Charles Darwin himself when he wrote: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that ... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been , and are being evolved." Now I must say something about increases in order that do come about in nature.

`Chaos Theory', as it was first called, tells us that nature is inherently unpredictable. This is not only so at the level of the very tiny building blocks of nature but also in everyday life. An obvious example is weather. Even if the weather forecasters and their computers were able to know the position, temperature and velocity of every molecule of the earth's atmosphere they would not in principle be able to predict the weather for more than a few days ahead. This is because infinitely small variations in initial conditions have a big and unpredictable effect on the future progress of a dynamic system. John Polkinghorne gives the example of the tiniest force possible to imagine. It is the gravitational force (the weakest of all nature's forces) of an electron (nature's smallest `particle' of matter) exercised from the other side of the universe (the furthest distance away). If such a tiny force were introduced it would, after a tiny fraction of a second, significantly alter the results of experiments dealing with the collision of gas molecules. A more popular example is the so-called `butterfly effect'.

A butterfly flapping its wings over Africa might, a few weeks later, lead to a hurricane in America. It is not that the butterfly would be the cause of the storm, but the butterfly would be one necessary part of a chain of much larger events that did lead to the storm. A personal illustration might help here: I once lost my wallet on a mountain walk in the Scottish Highlands. The reason I went for that walk was that Henry, a friend whom years earlier I met in Africa, was visiting me in Glasgow and wanted to go for a mountain hike. I met him in Africa because he was a geologist and had been sent by the Geological survey to the part of Africa where I worked. He could not have been sent unless he had made the decision to study for a geology degree. So, if he had not decided to study geology, I would never have met him and would not have gone for a walk that day and therefore would not have lost my wallet. Yet it would be absurd to say that his decision to study Geology caused me to lose my wallet.

In the butterfly example the butterfly does not cause the hurricane, but it is one necessary part in a chain of events that leads to the hurricane. The weather and the circumstances of our lives are determined by millions of little (and big) events that precede them. Even the most trivial of everyday circumstances may play a tiny but necessary part in causing a major development for our lives - but not in the sense that it caused the major event to happen. Chaos theory tells us that however trivial is a change in initial circumstances, it will have unpredictable but significant consequences. Thus we do not live in a predetermined mechanical world. John Polkinghorne believes that this is very significant for prayer.

In some circumstances unpredictable consequences can produce outcomes that greatly increase the order of a system. This, at first seems to contradict the well established second law of thermodynamics that tells us that left to themselves things move from order to chaos. Our bedrooms and offices easily become untidy. It takes effort and intelligence to tidy them up. Allowing a wind to blow through our rooms would not put things back in their places but mix them up even more. This is because untidiness or disorder are much more stable than order. My house is an orderly construction of bricks. If a powerful earthquake comes it will destroy the house and leave it a jumble of bricks. Further earthquakes will not alter what it is, namely a jumble of bricks. Even if the earthquake were to shake the bricks for ever it would not reassemble my house. That is because the order is much less stable than a disorder. Reassembling the house would not just need energy but also intelligence.

However sometimes order does increase spontaneously and in unpredictable ways. The formation of snow flakes (each full of beautiful but unpredictable patterns different from one another) is an example. It is not necessary to go into the technical details here but we can say that such sudden increases in order take place in what are called `far from equilibrium conditions' where there is an exchange of energy between one system and another. This, however, does not violate the famous second law of thermodynamics because, when the total picture is considered, there is always an overall loss of order.

Some people have believed that this phenomenon could explain the spontaneous generation of life on earth. However when one considers the `computer', `chemical factory' and `translation system' that must all be produced and connected simultaneously, I hardly think this is a viable suggestion. Anyway one is still left with the problem that every atom in the universe is ordered. Its order, must surely, be drawn from a greater Order beyond it, that is itself not subject to the second law of thermodynamics. Without this greater Order our universe (even if it were one of an infinite number of universes) could not have generated all the order we find in it.

But there is another problem. The increase in order is, as we have said, in principle unpredictable in its results. It cannot be used, then, to explain the increase in order from the DNA to a baby, because the baby's make up is fixed in a wonderfully definite way.

In temporal terms we speak of life as the time between birth and death. God first filled Adam with the breath of life:

Gen 2:7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (NIV)

He continues to be the source of all life. The Psalmist sang to God:

Ps 36: 9 For with you is the fountain of life.

The Eternal Logos or Word who is the source of the rational structure of the physical universe. He is also spoken of in John's first epistle as the `Word of Life'. (1 John 1:1)

Earlier in the New Testament John says of the Eternal Word:

"In Him was life and the life was the light of men" John 1:4

Life comes from relationship and therefore with a fully reconciled relationship with the Source of life that life will be Eternal.

John 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

John 1:11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (NIV)

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