All living things share DNA. It is transmitted by descent. That’s it.
One mind closed, others perhaps open.
DNA is a component of our bodies, a part of each cell in our body, working with other processes within those cells to maintain them. What is “shared” is information; DNA provides the “code” which is replicated by the surrounding cellular components, resulting in the development and ongoing upkeep of particular organ systems. Each and every molecule in our bodies was at one time a part of something other than ourselves, and DNA participates in the formation of that body.
While the quote above describes the world today, some of us are interested in what happened at the beginning. It appears it all started with a “big bang”, and at some point the universe was not black and cold, but rather a dense, hot, orangey goo. Things were different before the current state of cosmic affairs was finally created.
We can base our understanding of the world on existence rather than atoms and molecules, which although necessary for what was to happen later, didn’t exist for a while at the start. Considering the Ground of our existence, our being here and now, as Existence itself, we can understand it as being relational and personal, albeit at a higher level since it brings us into being. As we are knower-knowing-known, the Source of this being is Triune in nature and perfect as Divine Love, the beginning and end of our journey to be found in that Communion.
The reality of you and I as persons lies in our spirit, that which is the totality and unity of the very experiences we are having individually at this moment, where eternity meets time, alive and surrounded by what we are not and to which we relate. We perceive, think, feel and act as one self, participating within the larger spiritual psychological and physicial universe.
The person is an expression of one humanity, fallen in Adam and brought to salvation in Christ. The spiritual template, which is the reality of who and what we are, had a beginning in one man. We find ourselves here as a result of the decision we made when we were created.
The spirit, our true self was not not pieced together, and neither was our human body, which was immortal. At our beginnings, our genome would have not contained any recessive genes, as well as having the potential for diversity through genetic and epigenetic factors.
But, we did sin and as a consequence of losing the healing graces that come with a loving relationship with our Creator, things stared going downhill. Rather than evolving, we have been devolving, accumulating the disorders which actually result from random genomic mutation. And, natural selection would see to it that we suffer the same fate as that which has resulted in the decline of species in the Galapagos.
Evolution? As much as we see how pre-existing genetic features continue to result in diversity, this happens within pre-existing forms. Each individual living being, in itself, is a manifestation of its kind, created at the beginning and for the most part looking very different.
