Tag: Incarnation

#20 Incarnation: Sign that God Created DNA

by clarevmerry, posted in Incarnation

The Incarnation is the sign that God created at least one gene on at least one specific occasion.  This sign that took place at the overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit shows how God could create life through the creation of the genetic code of life, the creation of genes.

God created life that could evolve.

God created DNA that could mutate.

Evolution consists of on-going processes that take place in a fallen world. But creation belongs to God.  It is about purpose; it springs from Mind; life is inherently complex.

Evolution consists of natural processes.  It is about the modification of pre-existing life forms; adaptation to new conditions; and diversification of species.

Let us put evolution in its rightful place, and not in the place of God.

#19 The Specialness of Mary

by clarevmerry, posted in Incarnation

There are various very important conclusions to draw from this.

The first great conclusion is that God can and did create at least one gene at one point in time.

Secondly, the significance of the Virgin Mary:  She actually supplied the DNA of the human body of God Incarnate.

If Mary alone provided the genome of the Christ, the Messiah, God Incarnate, she must have been chosen very carefully.  She would impart to the Son of God her body type, physiological health, personality and intelligence.  This is an insight into the specialness of Mary. 

The Gospels testify to the closeness of Jesus to Mary, Mary to her son.  If they were the male and female version of the same genome, with identical DNA, this in part, would explain their closeness.  They would have the same physical type and personality traits in everything except in masculinity and femininity.

#18 The Y Chromosome and a Male Messiah

by clarevmerry, posted in Incarnation

It is my belief that Mary’s DNA became Jesus’ DNA.  Something like a clone produced by genetic engineers.  However, if this alone were the case, the Messiah would have been female.

A male human or any mammal has a Y chromosome.  The mother cannot supply this chromosome since she only has X chromosomes; only the father can pass on the Y chromosome.

Thus, a second miracle must have taken place.

The Y chromosome is much shorter than the X chromosome, but it carries one crucial gene for maleness.  This gene is called TDF standing for testis-determining factor.  The same gene has also been named SYR standing for sex-determining Y region.

This TDF or SYR gene is switched on very early in fetal development.  It produces a protein transcription factor that causes the gonads to develop into testes.  The testes produce testosterone that inhibits the development of female structures and causes male structures to develop instead in the fetus, the child and later in the adult.

Both males and females have testosterone, but males produce five times more testosterone than females; it is the higher level of this hormone in males that has masculinising effects.

The sex chromosomes in most males are XY.  However, in rare cases a male can have an XXY genotype.  It has also been known that a male had a genotype that was XX, but the TDF gene had been transferred to an X chromosome through mutation.  Despite having female chromosomes, this one gene made the individual male.  The condition is called XX male syndrome.  These individuals are infertile.  There are also people with an XY genotype, but who lack the TDF gene, and they are female.

Therefore, for Mary to give birth to a male Messiah, one of two possibilities must have occurred:

Either God created a whole Y chromosome and added it to the genome of the egg cell provided by Mary giving an XXY genotype, or God created only the TDF gene and inserted it into one of the X chromosomes.

Thus, the minimum requirement for the incarnation of a male Messiah is firstly that Mary supplied a diploid egg cell rather than the normal haploid egg cell.  Secondly, that God created one gene – the TDF gene directly and inserted it into the genome.

The other option is that God created a full set of autosomal chromosomes carrying every human gene and a whole Y chromosome.  I have opted to believe in the minimum requirement.

#1 Genetics And The Incarnation

by clarevmerry, posted in Incarnation

Did life come into being through evolution?

My answer is categorically no, it did not. Evolution does not create DNA, it only modifies what is already there.

So what evidence is there that God created DNA and by this means created life?

Understanding genomes and how mutation modifies them give the main clues to answering this question. But in addition to this, for the Christian, there is proof in the fact of a male Messiah. This article gives the details of genetics that throw light on what is clearly evident: God can and did create at least one gene, a genetic code made of DNA.

This article, written in 2018, was the text I used for a talk given in a church parish on this subject.

The Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ was a unique event in history and nothing was the same again.

Creation of At Least One Gene

by clarevmerry, posted in Incarnation

Haven’t we all met someone who has said, ‘I can’t believe in Christianity or go to church because I believe in science’?

And what do we say?  We fumble about for some kind of answer – that we also believe in science – but then we appear to abandon our faith to some obscure private domain of irrationality.  Do we really sell the Good News to anybody with regards to science and faith?

I want to use these few words to present to you a new view of creation and a new understanding of evolution.  Genetics is the key to this new idea and Incarnation is the sign.

Science today tells us that everything has simply evolved.  No need of a Creator God.  No need of purpose, no meaning and no message.

Over the past 150 years the church has, by and large attenuated this stark conclusion by claiming that evolution was God’s method of creation.  Each Sunday we proclaim God as maker of heaven and earth, but it is unclear to most people what this means.

I had been studying science, genetics and biological evolution, and reflecting upon creation for 14 years when the Lord showed me the implications of the Incarnation: 

At the overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit, God performed a miracle that allowed Jesus to be fully human and yet be born from a virgin.  Mary provided an egg that started to develop without fertilization from a human father.  This means that Mary provided all of Jesus’ DNA and all of his genes.  But there was one gene that no female can provide.  It is a gene on the Y chromosome called TDF.  If God had not directly created this one gene, TDF, as a minimum requirement, the Messiah would have been female, not male.

This shows – at least to us Christians – that God is able to create genetic codes – genes made of DNA.  I am not a six literal days Creationist, but I know this great truth: God created life. 

I propose that God created life by creating the genetic code at the microscopic, nanoscale level of cells.  This new way of seeing creation opens the way to a new understanding of evolution.  The science of genetics is now revealing – and this was not known before – that modification of traits through the processes of evolution is almost always based on mutations that switch off genes.  Mutation is error in the replication of DNA.  However, and this is the very big however – switched-off genes can sometimes bring about useful traits in the physical bodies of plants and animals.  When these new traits are useful, they are selected by natural selection.  The natural processes of evolution allow plants and animals to adapt, be modified and diversify into many different species. 

God does not create through error.  Mutation which is error simply modifies what God has created in perfection.

A new understanding of evolution shows that its source is in creation, and a new view of creation shows that life was created to adapt and evolve.  The genetics of the Incarnation shows that the genetic code within cells is the message, the message that carries life and the message that proclaims God as Creator. 

October 2018

Read more in the article ‘Genetics and the Incarnation’ on the Incarnation page of this website.