Q: If evolution is true (a correct principle) does that mean that life originated "by chance"?

A: Let's rephrase the question. "Could life have originated without the hand of God?" I believe the answer is no. "Could God have employed a mechanism for creation which depended on the random behavior of molecules and other probabilistic biochemical and biological events with confidence that the outcome would be as he desired (envisioned) - was it predictable?" I believe the answer is yes. It would not have been necessary for God to intervene at each stage of the creative process in order to insure the eventual appearance of living organisms on the earth.

This question is closely related to the previous one. For many whose sense of how the creation was accomplished is based on a totally literal interpretation of all the scriptural accounts, it has been difficult to understand how evolution could allow for a role for deity. In comparison to a God who by virtue of his omnipotence brought all creatures into being in an essentially unchanging form at the same point in time, the scientific scenario of billions of years, gradual change, irregular patterns of appearances and extinction, and hereditary connections between apparently diverse organisms has appeared direction-less and precarious, a chance occurrence.

This is a problem which is, at least in part, semantic. For example, when a chemist describes the random behavior of molecules, his non-chemist listener may develop the sense of a haphazard, purposeless event, and by extension, perhaps, of a world in which deity is excluded. On the contrary, one comes to understand, after study, that in large samples random processes are predictable with very high precision, and that their outcome would be understood, foreseen, and might be utilized by deity. In discussions of evolutionary concepts, chance, like a number of other important terms, needs to be carefully defined.

It seems to me that as creators the Gods were under certain restraints. Even in a particularly artistic frame of mind they could not merely allow their imaginations to run wild, and having access to every and any materials, construct life forms arbitrarily. What then, were the constraints? Let's begin with the assumption that the "building blocks" available to the Creators were the chemical elements known to science (hydrogen, helium, lithium, . . . uranium), and that these elements were uncreated and unalterable. You have to take carbon atoms as you find them (they have intrinsic, discrete properties - specific bond lengths and bond angles). They will freely participate in chemistry, but only that which they are inherently capable; it is not possible to force them into reactions not in their domain.

The next proposition is that the finite number of discrete elements will, in combination, form a finite number of discrete functional groups which in the aggregate will lead to a finite number of classes of discrete molecules. An even smaller number of these molecules form the biochemical basis for the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, and we should therefore expect to see among living things a repetition of a relatively small number of a particular structural and functional themes, not an infinite variety in a continuum. This seems to be borne out by the results of current biochemical research. For example, the most recent literature of molecular biology contains frequent references to consensus sequences of information in genes, and to the specific structural motifs and functional domains of the proteins whose synthesis is programmed by those genes. In the course of the earth's history some natural experiments in evolutionary biochemistry have worked - and persist today, and some have not. Rules have been followed during the production of nucleic acids and proteins, and attempts to assemble motifs which violate what the elements are capable of have of necessity failed.

The idea is that if during the early stages on the primeval earth the Creators left matter to act for itself, its activity, though random, would still be predictable, and its outcome foreseeable, at least in general outline. Viewed in this way evolution is not a process which is accidental, not fortuitous but inevitable. Given a set of elements from which to construct molecules, cells, tissues and organisms, and given air, water and rock as environments in which they can live, evolution will fashion lungs and gills - wings, fins and feet. Living things reflect both the properties of the matter from which they are constructed and their environment, and the assembly of life, even a self-assembly, could not be totally capricious. I expect that if one were able to go elsewhere in the universe, and study the history of life on other planets whose conditions are similar to earth, one would find evidence for sets of organisms remarkably similar to those that have inhabited this planet. Evolution will have achieved there what it has achieved here.

It is clear that randomness operates in the chemistry of living cells today (after creation has been accomplished); molecules move and react in a non-directed fashion, subject to somewhat arbitrary forces in the environment. Nevertheless, the maintenance of life is not at risk. God does not have to follow the path of each molecule of glucose or check each enzyme catalyzed reaction or monitor the replication of chromosomes in order to insure that they will behave predictably. He can trust these objects to follow the laws governing life processes. At the same time, it is clear that the history of life on the earth has been characterized by false starts and abortive trials and imperfections. Each branch family on the evolutionary bush is what it is as a result of its unique history [this is a good LDS concept: the 4th estate is contingent on what happened in estates 1-3; (5)]. What then is the role of Deity in such a view of creation? What does God do if he is not the designer of perfect organisms who insures that perfection by inexorably leading each plant and animal toward a predestined end during the manufacturing process? We explore these questions in more detail in the next section.