There are two accounts of the birth of the universe, or genesis. The first genesis says that the world exists because God created it, and that the laws of nature––the harmonious arrangement of cosmic and organic functions––and the origin of all beings, is simply explained by the activity of one great will. It declares that the marvels of nature point to intelligence rather than chance. This account is summed up by four words: “In the beginning God” (Gen. 1:1).
The second account, however, explains the formation of the universe without God. This is how it proceeds: In the beginning the heaven and the earth made themselves. Before that, there was absolutely nothing. Thus out of nothing, something was made, and chance accomplished this stupendous miracle. By definition the primeval matter was only slightly removed from nothing, and differed but little from an absolute vacuum. Outside of this there was no kind of existence––no matter of any kind, living or dead. There was nothing! Yet progressively matter began to give itself that which it did not possess. Though uniform, it generated variety, and though inert, it gave itself force and motion. These atoms, which were almost nothing, and could borrow nothing anywhere, endowed themselves spontaneously with hidden powers of so prodigious a nature that the whole vast universe sprang forth from them. For not only was something made out of nothing, but chance was bringing order into the chaos of blind energies so that development could take place. Unconscious disorder became the parent of incredible order. It distributed forces and organised matter so that the nondescript whirlwind of cosmic atoms had the extraordinary good fortune to become one vast harmony of inviolable laws, like a gigantic orchestra. Just as a man born blind running his brush haphazardly over the canvas would produce a Rembrandt, so it was with the combination of the atoms and the equilibrium of the universe. A question of thousands of centuries yes, but eminently plausible in many otherwise intelligent minds.
Led by chance, the atoms––those products of nothing––go on to perform an even greater miracle, managing to mix in such a marvellous manner that life itself arose from the combination. Now scientists have analysed the elements of living bodies and found out the proportions in which the elements combine, and yet are unable to produce even one cell animated with life. Experiments have shown without question that life does not occur spontaneously in the midst of inanimate matter. This would require a miracle––and science allows no miracles. Yet, strange enough, science allows this otherwise impossible miracle to be performed by ever–convenient chance!
Thus we are solemnly informed that the mixing of inanimate atoms by blind chance has produced beings capable of feeding, growing, organising and reproducing themselves according to a kind of inborn programming. This is how life appeared! Matter was its author––matter in which life did not exist and which could not get it anywhere! No doubt the first forms of life were very elementary––there was between them and dead matter the smallest possible difference. Yet just as the narrow crevice may conceal prodigious depth, so in reality is the difference between even elementary life and lifelessness. This is another miracle that must be put to the account of blind and wonderful chance!
The accidental combinations of living molecules brought forth new wonders. Caring little for natural laws, the first animated cells were able to transmit the life they had received from nowhere, and in a more and more complex form. Chance went on with its work on primitive matter, hatched out of nothing, and formed organisms more and more intricate. Being wise, though unconscious, chance brewed the elements steadily for millions of years, until superior animals and man appeared at the surface of eternal Nature––these being the far–off descendants of almighty nothing, that productive and original void. Thus the universe expanded, miraculously in bloom as a flower with no roots, or a river without a source.
Which of these two accounts of genesis is the more reasonable? We are told it is not reasonable to believe in God––a God who created everything––yet on the other hand we are assured that it is perfectly reasonable for everything to have sprung by chance from nothing. This genesis by chance is an incoherent and absurd fable, yet it is preached everywhere by so–called intelligent men with a quite religious zeal. Why? Not because it is in any sense believable or reasonable, but because it takes away the necessity of God’s existence. That, is the crux of the matter.
