Origin of life and faith in Darwin of the gaps

An item in Scientific American once again admits that ‘..scientists don’t have a clue how life began’. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=pssst-dont-tell-the-creationists-bu-2011-02-28

However honest this admission might be, the author (John Horgan) finishes with a statement of his faith in Darwin of the gaps and an attack on Biblical Christian faith as dishonest (he doesn’t specify Christianity but we know that’s what he means. The Hindus and Buddhists don’t care and the Muslims aren’t listening).

‘Creationists are no doubt thrilled that origin-of-life research has reached such an impasse (see for example the screed "Darwinism Refuted," which cites my 1991 article), but they shouldn't be. Their explanations suffer from the same flaw: What created the divine Creator? And at least scientists are making an honest effort to solve life's mystery instead of blaming it all on God.’

This is dumb. Comparing the failure of science to demonstrate any plausible mechanism for origin of life with Christians failure to answer the childish retort ‘Who made God’ demonstrates poor thinking. The assertion of Christians is that God is the uncreated first cause who exists outside of time. Why is that by definition impossible? Materialists also have to have an uncreated first cause (e.g. what was there before the big bang, why is there something rather than nothing, how and why do physical laws exists etc) but prefer to refuse to admit this. Perhaps pride and a determination to be independent of our maker is at work here.

‘Science is working on it!’ as an answer to the abject failure of origin of life research demonstrates a faith position. Science has been working on origin of life scenarios for a very long time, but every discovery only unearths even more complexity and reduces the probability of undirected origin of life even further. Materialists have faith that science will one day demonstrate a plausible undirected origin of life scenario, but it is faith despite the evidence, faith in the teeth of all the evidence so far- all of which shows life exhibits too much specified, functional complexity to have arisen without a designer. By contrast, the Christian faith is backed by the evidence of multiple fulfilled prophecies and miracles and above all the resurrection of Jesus which we have just celebrated.

Note also Horgan's implication that Christian faith is dishonest by contrast with the ‘honest effort to solve life’s mystery’ by evolutionists-who begin by ruling out the Christian revelation and continue by insisting that there must be a naturalistic solution although all the evidence so far is that there is none.

The honest thing would be to admit that everything we actually observe about life is that is does not, cannot and did not emerge from non life without an intelligent cause.