What is the theory of abiogenesis? What is the definition of abiogenesis?

For Evolution to be logical spontaneous generation is a necessity, that is the production of the organic from the inorganic—of life from dead matter. This is no new theory, for Aristotle believed that lower organisms could arise from the dead remains of higher organisms, as, for instance, fleas from manure, lice from morbid pustules in the skin, moths from old furs, and mussels from slime in the water.

“THE SPONTANEOUS GENERATION OF LIFE”

The teaching of evolutionists was marked by confident assertions without proof, by grand words and high-sounding phrases. “The spontaneous generation of life” was one of their confident assertions, which meant, according to them, that matter, which never had life at any time, such as stone, rock, minerals, etc., would in the course of time become alive, and that without any intervention on the part of the Creator.

Life, whether natural or spiritual, is a difficult subject to consider. It is acknowledged that the most complex of all the sections of the British Association is the biological—that is, the section that has to do with life. Take the subject of natural life, the only life the British Association discusses, there is a great deal of knowledge, on the human side, of how it starts, of its characteristics, of how it ends, but the most learned person in the world cannot tell us what life in itself really is. That is a secret known only to God, a secret no human person will ever be able to penetrate. And this can be more emphatically stated of spiritual life, than of natural.

Attempts from time to time have been made to discover the secret of natural life. For instance, very extensive experiments were made to ascertain if it could come of its own accord, to see if it could come spontaneously. These experiments have proved beyond a doubt that

LIFE CAN ONLY COME FROM PRE-EXISTING LIFE, that spontaneous generation of life, as it was called, can never be.

Life is thus naturally self-communicative, propagates itself, proceeds from nothing else but life. This is conceded by science today, as far as science can speak in such a matter. It is a thing not manufactured nor evolved, not working up from below, not the product of dead matter, but an imperial power ruling this, even while freely yielding itself to it, permeating and so lifting it into a higher sphere, according to the constant law of progress disclosed by the world as a divine product.

The lifeless or inorganic lies at the bottom of the whole, and need not detain us. In the crystal it seems to prophesy the organization which it never attains: for there is a bound here which cannot be passed. No life except from life is the well-ascertained conclusion of science itself.

The plant takes up the lifeless into itself, and by some process peculiar to the living thing transforms it into the living. Out of this it builds up its tissues, a multitude of small cells combining in the most marvelous way to construct a most complicated structure; each filling its place and taking its part, with a division of labor and unity of interest such as have never been excelled anywhere else. Here is an instinct before instinct, a wisdom below consciousness, and which cannot belong to these particles of living matter, or in some ways the higher life that follows it must be a degeneration from it. The life that has come in is something one cannot define — cannot separate by any chemical or other test from the matter which it permeates and controls in so marvelous a way. The invisible and intangible assumes here at the start a kind of royal state, yet in service: not separating itself from what is lower than itself, but lifting it up and transforming it. And this is the progress Scripture shows us to be constantly in nature. It is not evolution: the lower does not lift itself to higher condition; the higher element is not developed from the lower, but stoops to it and raises it. Thus already the principle begins to be revealed, which will carry us on to quite other scenes before its full power is declared.

The lifeless or inorganic lies at the bottom of the whole, and need not detain us. In the crystal it seems to prophesy the organization which it never attains: for there is a bound here which cannot be passed. No life except from life is the well ascertained conclusion of science itself.

The plant takes up the lifeless into itself, and by some process peculiar to the living thing transforms it into the living. Out of this it builds up its tissues, a multitude of small cells combining in the most marvelous way to construct a most complicated structure; each filling its place and taking its part, with a division of labor and unity of interest such as have never been excelled anywhere else. Here is an instinct before instinct, a wisdom below consciousness, and which cannot belong to these particles of living matter, or in some ways the higher life that follows it must be a degeneration from it. The life that has come in is something one cannot define—cannot separate by any chemical or other test from the matter which it permeates and controls in so marvelous a way. The invisible and intangible assumes here at the start a kind of royal state, yet in service: not separating itself from what is lower than itself, but lifting it up and transforming it. And this is the progress Scripture shows us to be constantly in nature. It is not evolution: the lower does not lift itself to higher condition; the higher element is not developed from the lower, but stoops to it and raises it. Thus already the principle begins to be revealed, which will carry us on to quite other scenes before its full power is declared.

That laborious student of nature, the distinguished author of the Origin of Species, expressed, at the close of it, his belief "in life having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or one." Thence would he derive, not only species, but man! Faint indeed was the whisper heard by him in his studies, and even that, how misunderstood! Still he does trace us back to the Creator, though in a way of his own. Others, as laborious, if not so distinguished as he, refuse even this. Biogenesis (birth from the living) concedes, they say, too much. The latent power of matter may effectuate everything, though here their microscopes fail them and the origin of life is for them "not proven."

The vegetable has life; and life is a mystery entirely beyond us. Nothing has demonstrated this better than all the labor that has been now for a good while bestowed upon it in the opposite interest. That it is known only to proceed from life is now admitted even by those whose every hope for their theory depends on the speculation that in another age of the world, somewhere, somewhen, it may have been different. In our present inquiry, we are happily delivered from the necessity of discussing such things. Scripture still leaves it a mystery, and we must: no less real on that account than the countless mysteries that everywhere surround us.

On the first day light is. Next a firmament is separated in the midst of the waters to divide the waters from the waters. Thirdly the dry land appears, and the earth bringing forth grass, and herb, and fruit-tree. There is the provision of God, not merely for the need of man, but for His own glory; and this in the smallest things as in the greatest. On the fourth day we hear of lights in the firmament. The utmost possible care appears in the statement. They are not said to be created then; but God made two great lights (it is no question of their mass, but of their capacity as light bearers,) for the Adamic earth — the stars also. Then we find the waters caused to bring forth abundantly "the moving creature that has life." Vegetable life was before, animal life now — a very weighty truth, and of the greatest moment too. Life is not the matter out of which animals were formed; nor is it true that matter produces life. God produces life, whether it be for the fish that people the sea, for the birds of the air, or for the beasts, cattle, or reptiles, on the dry land. It is God that does all, whether it be for the earth, the air, or the waters. And here in a secondary sense of the word is the propriety of the phrase "created" in verse 21; and we shall see it also when a new action comes before us in imparting not animal life but a rational soul. (Verse 27.) For as we have on the sixth day the lower creation for the earth, so finally man himself the crown of all.

In verse 21 we get the word "created" for the second time. It appeared in verse 1, the original creation of the heaven and the earth. The intervening verses have told us what God made out of His original creation. Why does the word occur again here? We believe, because here the waters were commanded to bring forth "the moving creature that has life." We see nutrition growth and reproduction in the vegetable kingdom. Here we see another order of things altogether, creatures with powers of sensation and of voluntary motion. Indeed the word translated "creature" in verses 20 and 21 is really "soul." On this fifth day then there was the introduction of a higher form of life, involving soul, so this was distinctly and properly creation.