Animate Evolution
The impossible leap
At this point in evolution, it was not the unlikely, but the impossible which occurred. An inanimate body has only its ground-state equilibrium, and therefore it tends toward and is stable only at its lowest energy level; it is impossible for it to be the cause of a chemical which is stable at a state higher than its ground-state equilibrium, especially since that chemical also has the ground-state equilibrium which it tends toward, and it must actively fight this tendency within itself to maintain this super-high energy. The way a living body is organized, as we saw, is inexplicable in terms of the materials which organize it, because its soul (its unifying energy) is, even in the lowest form of life, free from domination by its own quantity.
I say the leap is impossible; but of course, since it happened, it is possible, and therefore is by definition an effect; and in this case, since the effect is that existence is limited less than can be expected, the cause has to be the cause of finite existence itself or God. No finite existence can account for the emergence of a living being; certainly no material finite existence, even a living one, can, because it can only produce something outside itself by manipulating energy. But energy is not capable of surpassing quantitative limitation. The surpassing must be given to it from something in control of limited existence.
What I am saying is that miracles happen all the time, in the course of nature; divine intervention lifts the finite beings beyond their own unaided capabilities. Any parent knows this in his heart of hearts. He looks at his offspring and says, "How could I have done such an awesome thing?" It is only by being saturated with materialist mentality that a person can speak of "making babies." What happens is that one provides the material conditions for the intervention of God Almighty; it is only because it is common that it seems self-explanatory.
In any case, at the emergence of life, God miraculously brought the first living being into existence once the inanimate world on earth had evolved to the complexity by which one complex molecular system could support such a form of organization. And, as I said, God continues this feat with the conception of every single living body. It would be well to pause in wonder here. Life is literally a miracle; it is natural, but its nature is lifted beyond the mere material.
Hence, the very first act that made life emerge was a lifting of a material body beyond itself to an essentially higher kind of existence which it could not attain as material; and so life shows the love of God for his material beings. But notice that God did not simply impose life upon the material world; the world waited until what could support life emerged by manipulated chance into it, and then this was lifted up to heights that it could maintain, but which it could not reach by its own efforts. This shows God's infinite respect for his creatures.
Next