Where Did We Come From

QUESTION: Where did we come from?

ANSWER:

Where did we come from? Asking about our origins is something most people do as soon as they can talk. "Mommy, where do babies come from?" is a question that parents dread. The way parents answer this question has an impact on how children see themselves and other people. As adults, the question of "where did we come from" still has a major impact on how we view the rest of the world. Certainly, we know how we were born, and how we grew out of childhood. What we hunger for is an understanding of how we, as human beings, actually began.

Ask a large number of people, "Where did we come from?" and you will get a large number of answers. Once we sort through these answers, we see that they basically fall into two sides. Some believe that human beings are the end result of lucky circumstances - that life began as an accident and became more complex through sheer chance. Others believe that we were deliberately made as we are by an all-powerful creator. A few believe in some combination of the other two. They respond to "where did we come from?" with a combination of random chance and deliberate intervention. Still, for all intents, the two opinions are that we exist due to "chance" or we exist due to "purpose."

Which is the truth? Those who believe in evolution believe that all life began as an accident. The assumption is that conditions were just right to make random molecules join together, begin replicating themselves, and eventually blossom into a perfectly balanced ecosystem. Evolutionists are reluctant to admit it, but this opinion presents quite a few problems. For example, how does evolution explain morality? If "survival of the fittest" created the world we live in today, why should we counteract that with compassion, mercy, or charity? If the entire purpose of an organism is to reproduce, then isn't life truly pointless? In evolution's "oops" universe, once we die it makes no difference to us if we've reproduced, accomplished great things, or not. We won't know, and our DNA can no longer replicate anyway, so it really makes no difference to us. Evolution would not only make major aspects of who we are as human beings irrelevant, it would make them impossible. Any view that assumes blind luck is responsible for humanity is helpless to fill these voids.

There is an answer to the riddle of "where did we come from?" that fills in all the gaps and fits with everything we know about ourselves. We were made for a purpose by a Creator. Ironically, most who believe that this is "nonsense" essentially believe in pond scum coming to life. The evidence of nature says that life on Earth is perfectly balanced and perfectly designed. Random chance could not have produced an orderly world as complex and diverse as ours. The Bible says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalm 19:1). Anyone who shares a relationship with God understands that we do indeed have a purpose, a direction, and a beginning. There is a reason that the Bible begins with this answer to our fundamental question: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1)."

Why does our answer to this question matter so much? As we have seen, it means everything to how we view ourselves, our world, and each other. If we believe that everything is a matter of chance, that once we die that there is nothing but oblivion, then it is harder to value what we have. What if, in the back of our minds, we think of emotions like love, hate, joy, fear, or happiness as mere electrical impulses of the brain? What if we think that life is essentially meaningless, and that oblivion is all we can be sure of? How can we really value another life if we think that life is an accident? How can we really care about another person's feelings if we see those feelings as part of mindless natural selection?

With so many people seeing the world this way, is it any wonder that we value life less and less? Even those who believe in evolution must admit what their worldview means for us as people, and also admit that such a view "feels" wrong. They can see the danger, and the despair, in such a philosophy. Our Creator gave us a soul, a spirit, and a free will. At the core of our beings, we understand that we must have some purpose and that there is more to life than duplicating molecules of DNA. In Jeremiah 1:5, God tells us that "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…" This same God takes an active role in the lives of those who choose to seek Him out.

Knowing the true answer to the question "where did we come from" not only shapes our view of the world, but it makes a positive view possible. Believing in and walking with God feels so right because it is our purpose. That relationship fills every gap in our lives, every hole in our hearts and every void in our knowledge for one simple reason: it is why we were created. Part of the joy of a saving relationship with the Lord is not having to wonder, "where did we come from?"