Genetic Engineering (Part 2)
by Jody L. Apple

The Nature of The World

1. The world exists

Without repeating the complete line of argumentation presented with reference to man's existence, let us simply note that man, who really exists, lives in a really existing world. That world is subject to man's sensory and mental faculties and can be really known.

2. The world was created

For the same reasons we affirmed that man was created, we likewise affirm that the world was created.

3. The world was created by God

For the same reasons we affirmed that man was created by God, we likewise affirm that the world was created by God.

4. The world reflects the nature of God

Though the physical creation was not created "in the image of God" as was man, it nonetheless reflects the nature of God in its essence. The Psalmist declared that God's existence was seen in creation (Ps 19:1). Paul told the Christians in Rome that the invisible nature of God was reflected in the visible nature of our world (Rom 1:20). At Lystra Paul declared the benevolence of God was manifested in creation when he said that "he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with good and gladness." (Acts 14:17; cf. Jer 10:13)

5. The world is subject to the authority and laws of God

Man, created in the image of God, is subject to God's authority. The laws of God, however, are not restricted to man's civic, moral and spiritual domain. The physical world, though not created in the image of God, but still reflective of the nature of God, is also subject to God's authority and laws.

The scriptures repeatedly refer to the "ordinances" of God. Sometimes the term has application to God's moral laws, sometimes to customs, but occasionally it refers to the "laws" by which the universe is governed. It is in this sense that passages like Job 38:33 ("the ordinances of the heavens"), Jeremiah 31:35-36 ("ordinances of the moon and stars" and "those ordinances") and Jeremiah 33:25 ("ordinances of heaven and earth") use the term. Other verses allude to the same principle when they speak of the decrees God has made which keep the physical creation functioning as it is (Ps 148:6; cf. Ps 74:17; 104:19).

Scriptures teach that the world was not only created by the power of the word of God (Gen 1:3; Ps 33:6-9; Jn 1:1-3; Heb 1:1-3), but that it also continues by the power of that word (2 Pet 3:7; Col 1:17). Implicit within these passages are two crucial principles: (a.) the physical world was created according to God's plan, pattern and law; and (b.) the physical world continues according to God's plan, pattern and law.

6. The world is subject to man's dominion

As mentioned previously, God gave man the authority to have dominion over the world. Man has both the right and ability to exercise dominion over God's creation. Man, created in the image of God, is of greater importance to God than the world God created. The world was created for man - man was not created for the world. Man is the pinnacle of God's creation, not just another life form in the world equal to the rest of the vegetable, animal and inanimate creation.

7. The world exists for a purpose

God never acts without purpose. Though He does what He does according to His pleasure (Is 46:10; Rev 4:11), a thorough investigation of what it is that brings God pleasure yields the conclusion that there is purpose inherent in what pleases God. Consider Ephesians 1:9 which states: "having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself.." (cf. Job 42:2; Eccl 3:1, 17; Rev 17:17; re Jesus cf. Mk 1:38; Lk 4:43; Jn 12:27). Note that there is both pleasure and purpose inherent in God.

God's word does not go forth in vain (Is 55:8-11; Mt 24: 35). His will and purpose for salvation are declared (Eph 1:3). His purpose is to bring all men together in Christ (Eph 1:10-11). When God intends judgment, it cannot be stopped (Is 14:25-27). All of these passages explicitly affirm that God has a purpose in mind when he speaks and acts, and that His purposes are unyielding.

With reference to God's plan and purpose for man, the word is abundantly clear: God wants mankind to be saved. The will of God (Jn 3:16; Rom 5:8; Titus 2:11; 1 Tim 2:3-4; 2 Pet 3:9; 1 Jn 2:1-2); the will of Christ (Mt 1:21; Mt 18:11; Lk 19:10; Jn 4:34); and the will of the Holy Spirit via the role of the inspired word of God (Jn 6:63; Acts 11:14; 13:26; Rom 1:16; 1 Cor 15:2; Eph 1:13; 2 Tim 3:14ff; James 1:21) all focus on this singular purpose - the salvation of the souls of men.

If the salvation of man is an emphatic Divine focus revealed in scripture, then we can only assume (because the word implies it), that this world is suitable for the purpose that God intends. If He intends and purposes for man to be saved, then this world must be consistent with that purpose. John Hicks, the British philosopher and theologian, referred to this world as a "vale of soul making." This simply means that it is within the confines of this physical existence that man engages in his search for God (Ps 14:2; 53:2) and it is within this physical existence that God declares He can be found (Ps 14:2; 53:2; Acts 17:22-31, esp. v 27-28; Acts 15:17; Ps 19:3).

In summary: God, characterized by all that is His nature, has created man in His image and placed him in a world that also reflects His attributes. All this was done so that (a.) God, "governed" by his own seity, (b.) has made man to be subservient to His will (via authority and laws), (c.) in such a way that man lives in a world also governed by the laws of God, (d.) so that God can be found by man, (e.) in order to be saved my God.

Though the science of genetic engineering doesn't appear to have import concerning man's salvation, further study will yield the conclusion that a connection does exist.

The Implications of Genetic Engineering

In order to fully understand the nature of genetic engineering and some of its consequences, let us turn to an examination of the laws of nature. Having done so, some of the implications of genetic engineering will be more evident.

The Laws of Nature

1. Life begets life

Though it is obviously one of the most hotly contested areas in science in recent generations, the notion that only life begets life was at one time a truism that science formerly defended.

The experiments of Lazzaro Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur, for example, demonstrated that life begets life. Spallanzani's first work, published in 1767, was a critique of the theories of George Buffon and John Turberville Needham. These two gentlemen maintained that all life contains inanimate matter as well as what they called "vital atoms." These "vital atoms" regulated all physical activity and, at death, returned to the soil. They said that the small objects in motion in pond water were not alive, but rather "vital atoms" escaping from that which was alive.

Spallanzani debunked this notion. Along with Leeuwenhoek, who was noted for his microscopic innovations as well as the intricate studies of minute life forms, he concluded that various forms of microscopic movement were caused, not by "vital atoms," but rather by living organisms. He demonstrated by means of a series of experiments with gravy, which when boiled and placed in vials that were immediately sealed yielded no detectable motion of "vital atoms," that Buffon and Needham were in error. He concluded that the objects moving in pond water were introduced from elsewhere, probably from the air.

In like manner, Louis Pasteur demonstrated that life begets life. Franceso Redi, in the late 1600's, had already proven that the maggots in meat came from the eggs of flies that were deposited on the meat and not from the meat itself. But the concept of spontaneous generation, though slowly but surely disproved on a larger scale, was still held as it applied to the minutia of living organisms. Covering meat with a fly proof net kept flies and subsequent maggots from the meat, but covering grape juice with the same netting did not keep the juice from fermenting. Pasteur showed that even the smallest of creatures come from germs that are in constant floatation in the air. By providing suitable filtration small enough to inhibit these micro-organisms, Pasteur proved that only living things produce living things. Life was not then, nor now, being spontaneously generated.

Abiogenesis, that is the origin of life apart from life (either from matter or simply spontaneously from nothing) is not subject to the scientific method, is not consistentiv>h the observable world, and thus flies in the face of objective and verifiable data. It is also fraught with numerous philosophic (i.e., non-scientific and anti-scientific) assumptions. Some scientists have argued in defense of abiogenesis as follows: though we can't prove it, it must be the case, because our theory (the general theory of evolution) demands it.

Even within the discipline of genetics, life begets life. Dr. Ian Wilmut, the embryologist that headed the research team that produced Dolly, did not began with lifeless matter in the lab. He began with living cells - living components of living sheep. He did not create an oocyte or mammary gland cell from scratch and fuse them together. He began with living material in order to produce living material.

Every genetic experimentation conducted in every lab always entails the manipulation of living organisms. No scientist can create life from non-living materials.

2. Mind begets matter

In addition to relying on the assumption that non-living materials can produce living beings (abiogenesis), evolutionary science has also relied on the assumption that matter itself can be produced by other matter, or that it can arise out of nothing. Big bang theories of the origin of the universe begin with primordial matter - its specific content often presupposed, as with Stanley Miller's 1953 experiments.

Biblical principles affirm that such is not possible. The only way that something can be created from nothing is if God does it (cf. Heb 11:3). God can speak and create light (Gen 1:1ff). God can bring all that exists into existence by means of His spoken word (Ps 33:6-9). But God is "mind" and not matter (Jn 4:20ff). He is not "nothing."

All experimentation engaged in which attempts to disprove this principle, fails of its own accord. The very nature of scientific experimentation involves design, purpose and mind, qualities that do not reside in rocks and dirt. There is no way for scientists to proceed in demonstrating anything, let alone the creation of life, without innately involving mind. Science demands knowledge and knowledge demands mind.

3. Time is powerless

Evolutionary theory demands eons of time for the numerous infinitesimally small increments inherent to the theory's notion of change. This demand for vast expanses of time is the necessary requirement to replace mind and purpose. Mind can direct vast changes simultaneously, but mindless, directionless evolution relies upon chance changes that occur ever so slightly, ever so rarely over millions and billions of years, which, when viewed from a cumulative perspective, allegedly accounts for the substantive changes of life forms from start to finish.

There are numerous problems with this line of thinking: (a.) time has no intrinsic power. Things happen "in" time, or "across" time, but not because of time. Iron oxidizes over extended periods of time, but it is the exposure to oxygen that produces the chemical composition we know as rust, not time itself. Time may be considered as a vehicle, a vacuum, or some other entity, but regardless of the typology associated with it, time remains powerless;

(b.) what cannot occur due to inherit impossibilities in a brief span of time, does not automatically become possible given a great span of time. This corollary simply restates the first principle. Time has no power. What is literally impossible does not become possible due to the passage of time. Time does not make the "undo-able" "do-able." Though what was not subject to accomplishment at one point in time may, because of technological advances and increased knowledge, become subject to accomplishment at a later date, it is not the passage of time per se that brought this about. In the passing of time someone developed new techniques and acquired new data that ultimately lead to new achievement.;

and (c.) the assumption that time has power is unscientific. What is the standard of measurement that would be applied to time in order to determine its power? Why might some evolutionary changes occur in species over thousands of years, others over millions of years, and yet others over billions of years? Those who contend that things occur over the process of time are forced to realize that different changes occur at different rates. Is this because time has the ability to regulate its power as needed? No, but in an attempt to remove mind and purpose from the equation, evolutionary theorists have scrapped the mental and relied upon the physical.

4. Life reproduces after the principles of law

As our earlier discussion noted, owing to the very nature of God, authority and law are inherent in all of God's creation. These principles of law have application within the physical world, especially within the living organic world. Biblically speaking the plant and animal creation reproduces after its "kind." (Gen 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25; 6:20; 7:14; Lev 11:14-16, 22, 29; Deut 14:13-15). The term translated as "kind" does not correspond in a one to one fashion with the modern taxonomic classification of living things today. But the term is consistent with the principles that inhere in God's creation, and consistent with what is truly known in the scientific world today.

To say that things reproduce "after their kind" is simply to say that there are limits to the extent of cross-breeding or trans-species experimentation. "After their kind" does not mean that new species cannot develop. Dog breeders, for example, were recently celebrating the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the German Shepherd. But the nature of "dogness" is not such that it does not allow for the development of new species within the boundaries of "kind." Life that belongs to the same "kind" descends from the same genetic ancestors. Through the course of time that gene pool might be partitioned to allow, due to isolation and inbreeding for example, the development of subclasses within the original "kind." These subclasses would not be a new "kind" but would rather be a subset of the existing "kind" they derived from. Our discussion of the "limitations" and "boundaries" that God has established with regard to humanity generally (cf. Acts 17:24ff), also has application in the pursuit of biological inquiries, genetics included.

To be sure, future experimentation may demonstrate that some living material from one species may be used in auxiliary fashion in another species in a way not currently known. Animal valves, for example, are already used in human heart patients. But the presence of animal tissue, cells, parts, etc. does not necessarily cause other animals/humans to become like those parts, that is like them in "kind." The principle of life reproducing after its "kind" is not necessarily violated through the introduction of animal/human cells or parts into other species. It would seem however, that the actual germ reproduction of these species is counter to the principle.

Does the Bible address the specific limits of genetic engineering? Careful consideration of the scriptures yields principles and practices consistent with truth, both spiritual and scientific. It seems that some semblance of limitations is presented in 1 Corinthians 15 when Paul notes that "all flesh is not the same flesh" (vs. 39). He goes on to say that "there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds." Paul's point of emphasis in this chapter is to note that there exists a fundamental distinction that exists between the earthly and resurrected bodies of Christians. Even though there might be numerous similarities between them, they remain fundamentally different.

It seems that this principle has roots in the distinctions that exist between the four types of flesh that Paul lists. The classification of life as men, animals, fish or birds does not sufficiently address the thousands of life forms existing today, but it does indicate an awareness of some recognizable distinctions. Is Paul saying that no living combination of men with animals, fish or birds will ever be genetically engineered? Certainly that is not the thrust of the chapter - but even so, is there a principle inherent in the distinctive examples Paul cites that has some application today? The text indicates clear distinctions between four types of flesh, but it does not elucidate further.

Though it may not be possible to determine the exact "boundaries" of scientific and genetic inquiry from this passage, if the realm of genetics is part of the natural world and governed by laws pandemic to the rest of creation, there must be laws and patterns inherent in this discipline.

See also:

Genetic Engineering (Part 1)
Genetic Engineering (Part 2)
Genetic Engineering (Part 3)