> > while it may all be futile, we have to keep on living our lives. What else is there to do?
>
>
> This made me think of something I've often wondered: From where comes the force of life, the will to live? What makes cells tick? What makes DNA strings unwind and copy themselves? What makes any living being want to live, no matter what? [snip]
>
> Can it all be explained in chemical terms, or is there something happening on a molecular or atomic level that can't be explained? I've often fantasized that *this* is the power of God -- what keeps all life living.
> Travholt.

That's a question that really puzzles me, too. Where does the will to live, the profound instinct for self-preservation, come from? What is it? In higher organisms, we could explain it as being due to a primal fear of pain and death (when described in negative terms). Or, it is a set of learned desires, mechanisms, defenses and prohibitions which all act to avoid bodily discomforts that could be potentially harmful. The Will to live ensures that a creature survives long enough to find companionship, reproduce, and continue the species (a picture described in somewhat more positive terms). How, then, do we explain the existence of organisms like viruses and bits of self-catalyzing RNA, which have no minds to guide their behaviour -- and many times, they even seem to have no purpose -- other than to blindly make trillions of copies of themselves?

My thoughts on it -- which are preliminary -- is that God has imbued the entirety of the living world with a basic biochemical mechanism of self-care and self-maintenance. You could even say that by using this feature, he has put the signature of own hand into Creation: so that everything can evolve and adapt to the challenge of surviving the trials of ages, and continue to attest to his glory. We often find that the instinct for self-preservation is an urge found at the most basic core of being. The desire to live typically goes beyond all thought and reasoning... which is why I think it was fundamentally encoded into our genes by God himself. The evolutionary mechanism of self-continuation is not as much "selfishness" as a means for us to survive and do useful work for Christ.

Now, how does all that hold together as an explanation? Comments are welcome.


"For by him all things were created: both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible... He is before all things; and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:16-17.