What is Life?
Did you know the Oxford Dictionary of Biology doesn't have an entry for life?
Despite innumerable attempts, science has never found the answer to life. There is clearly something about life which science cannot see. But this highly elusive essence of life, has finally been found. It is the image of the Holy Trinity. Now, we can now do much more than give a mere dictionary definition of life, we can construct a comprehensive theory of life.
Theory of Life
At a Glance
THEORY OF LIFE
Correcting the big misconception: Organisms are not life
Contrary to the widespread view, organisms are not life, rather organisms contain life.
Life is not a consequence of the organism, that is, something which appears when organisms are formed. On the contrary, it is the other way round - life is what causes organisms to exist in the first place, and all their properties.
Life is located within cells
All organisms without exception are made from cells. Life is located within every cell. Life therefore has a symbiotic relationship with the cell: life exists within the cell, whereas cells cannot exist without life.
Organisms are alive because they are composed of cells which contain life. In multicellular organisms, there isn't just one life, there are trillions of instances of life - one in each cell. This is why a multicellular organism can remain alive, even though many of its cells are continuously dying and being re-generated.
Life makes the building-blocks of cells: proteins
Life couldn't have a more essential task to perform in the cell. Life makes the molecules which compose cells, namely, proteins.
Proteins are versatile molecules, they do almost everything within the cell, from physical structure to catalysing almost every chemical reaction. But one thing proteins cannot do is make themselves, life makes proteins. Life is a "protein generator".
Physics and chemistry cannot make cellular proteins
Physics and chemistry cannot make the proteins which compose cells.
Proteins are composed of smaller molecules called amino acids which are connected together in very long sequences. The problem is, the amino acid sequences which make proteins are not known to the laws of physics and chemistry. Put simply, proteins have molecular structures which go beyond the laws of physics. A vast chasm separates physics and chemistry on the one hand, and biology on the other.
Life bridges the chasm between physics-chemistry and biology
The purpose of life is to bridge the chasm which separates biology from physics and chemistry.
Life is therefore not physics or chemistry and nor is it biology, life is something else. But what else is there besides physics, chemistry and biology? There doesn't seem to be anything else, except there is.
Life is extra physics
Since life bridges the gap between physics, chemistry and biology, life is something other than physics, chemistry and biology.
But what else is there besides physics, chemistry and biology? There doesn't seem to be anything else. Except there is. In 1943, the great physicist Erwin Schrodinger - one of the founders of quantum physics - made the astounding claim that life is "other physics". Schrodinger's insight was nothing less than a stroke of genius.
Erwin Schrodinger predicted that life is "other physics" during a series of three lectures in 1943 at Trinity College, Dublin - the secret of life was literally written on the walls around Schrodinger.
Cells are not only governed by the conventional laws of physics, they are also governed by the genetic code.
Code is not the laws of physics, but intelligence. Since the genetic code is embedded in molecules, it is additional physics. The same goes for the genetic information needed to make proteins, and the communication of genetic information - these are not part of physics, they are in addition to physics. Put simply, the production or synthesis of proteins is extra physics.
The extra physics is
the image of the
Holy Trinity
The extra physics inside living cells has the same structure as the Holy Trinity - it is the image of the Holy Trinity.
The image of the Holy Trinity is a receptacle of extra physics. Life is a package or a bundle of additional physics, which the Holy Trinity inserted, or rather imprinted, in organic matter, for the purpose of making proteins, but ultimately cells and organisms. The Holy Trinity is a physicist! Among other things of course.
Why did the Holy Trinity choose itself as the template for life?
The Holy Trinity was completely free to decide the answer to the question, what is life? The Trinity could have incorporated life into the laws of physics. So, why not? Why did the Holy Trinity go to all the trouble of imprinting its own image in the natural world?
To know this, is to know the mind of God. This is not as inscrutable as it seems. In fact, the reason is rather obvious: the Holy Trinity is Life itself. Throughout the Bible, God is referred to as the living God. This is because God is the Holy Trinity, who is a living structure since the Father is the origin of the Son and the Father and the Son are the origin of the Holy Spirit, conversely, the Father would not exist without the Father and the Son. There is only one life - the Holy Trinity. Any other life can therefore only be a copy of the life of the Holy Trinity. Hence why physical life is the image of the Holy Trinity.
Life is quasi-natural
(It is natural and supernatural)
A miracle is the direct intervention in the natural world by God, resulting in the suspension or violation of the laws of physics.
There is no doubt that the image of the Holy Trinity is the result of direct intervention - the Holy Trinity inserted the image in organic matter. However, the image itself does not suspend or violate any of the laws of physics. Rather, the image adds to the laws of physics since it is extra physics. The image of the Holy Trinity is therefore not a miracle in the traditional sense, it has a supernatural origin, but it works naturally. The image of the Holy Trinity - and therefore life itself - is quasi-miraculous.
Some
CONSEQUENCES
DEATH
As soon as the image of the Holy Trinity disappears from a cell, life is no longer in the cell, the cell is dead.
Death is irreversible precisely because no natural processes can produce the image of the Holy Trinity. So, when the divine image has gone, it's gone. It is possible to extract all of the DNA from a cell. In this situation there is no life, because the divine image has been destroyed. However, the cell remains alive because the cell's proteins are still functional. But this situation is short-lived. After some time, all of the proteins in the cell will have degenerated and since there is no life to produce fresh proteins, the cell dies.
MACHINES
Will machines ever be alive? The answer is an emphatic no - because living things are not machines.
Machines are powerful objects. It is easy to be seduced by their power into making false extrapolations. The most common one is that a sufficiently complex machine will one day cross the threshold and enter into the realm of the living. This day will never happen since there is one thing machines cannot do and that is make themselves. No matter how powerful machines become, they still need to be constructed by someone or something else. In contrast, cells are not constructed by others, cells generate themselves. The source of generation lies inside the cell itself, it is life - the image of the Holy Trinity. Machines and living beings are therefore two different types of objects, the source of construction is different in each case, one is internal, the other is external. It is impossible to be both at the same time. Which is why the popular concept of a "living machine" is an oxymoron.
VIRUSES
Are viruses alive? Science cannot make up its mind. But what do you expect, since it didn't know the answer to life.
Viruses are one of several so-called, "non-cellular biological entities". Viruses are organic objects, they contain genetic material and they mutate. For these reasons, many scientists place viruses in the category of life. However, viruses do not have a metabolism, they are parasites which infect living cells with their own genetic material and by hi-jacking the cell's molecular machinery, cause the cell to reproduce the virus in vast quantities. The lack of a cell-like metabolism makes other scientists doubt the living status of the virus. There is a third group who sit on the fence and declare viruses to be not entirely alive, but rather on their way to being alive or "quasi-life". So, what's the answer? Viruses do not possess the image of the Holy Trinity, so they are therefore not alive. Viruses do not need life because they are constructed by cells. Viruses are organic machines.
SUSPENDED ANIMATION
Biology cannot exist without life, but life can exist without biology. This strange phenomenon is called cryptobiosis, or suspended animation.
It is a well-known fact that water is essential for life. That is, except in freezing conditions, then water transforms into a killer. Because the water inside a frozen cell turns into sharp ice crystals which pierce the cell wall, enabling the contents of the cell to flood out like a burst dam. Some organisms are able to avoid this situation by converting water into sugar which does not form ice crystals. They are then able to survive low temperatures as low as the brink of Absolute zero - the lowest temperature physically possible: -273.15 degrees Celsius. These organisms are so cold, all biological functions have long ceased, in fact their atoms are not even moving. And yet, life is still present. Because if they are carefully thawed, they return to normal as if nothing happened. How is this possible? The reason is because life is imprinted in the matter of their cells, that is, their molecular structures: DNA, RNA and proteins. If these remain undamaged going into suspended animation and during the thawing process, the organism survives. Where there is the image of the Holy Trinity, there is life.
EVOLUTION?
Life has nothing to do with evolution. No doubt this will seem unthinkable to many people today, not least biologists, yet it is true.
Evolution did not produce the image of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Trinity did. The Holy Trinity did not form the image over time because the Trinity simply didn't need any time. The Trinity has the power to imprint the image directly in organic matter - whole and entire. There was no "complexification" of life over time as some scientists suggest today. The origin of life was instantaneous - it truly was the big bang of biology. What's more, life itself does not evolve. This is because the Holy Trinity is immutable, therefore the image of the Holy Trinity cannot change. There is, therefore, no such thing as "simple life". The life inside neurons of a human being living today is no different to the life inside the cells of the very first living beings on Earth: the image of the Holy Trinity.
ALIENS
Our planet is teeming with life, yet the universe is eerily silent. This monumental dichotomy is one of the biggest paradoxes in science today.
Various explanations have been offered for the so-called Fermi paradox, but the answer is quite simple: the laws of physics and chemistry cannot produce living beings - we don't see extra-terrestrial life because life shouldn't even exist in the universe in the first place. The real enigma is not the absence of extra-terrestrial life, but the existence of life here on Earth. How can life exist if it cannot be produced by natural processes? The answer is the Holy Trinity supplied extra physics. We are the real aliens because we came not from physics, but eternity. Does life exist elsewhere? If it does it has nothing to do with the presence of water or Earth-like planets, and everything to do with the will of the Holy Trinity. If it does, one thing is for sure the life which sustains it will be the image of the Holy Trinity.
What next?
© 2025 TRINITY in BIOLOGY
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