“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is a well-known expression that highlights a crucial existential question: how does life begin?
I don’t want to focus on how life, historically speaking, presumably began millions of years ago; that’s the topic of another discussion. I want to open your eyes to how everything, at any given time, is infinitely dependent on the other things around it, making it impossible to assert which is prior and which is posterior, which is dependent and which is independent, which is cause and which is effect
Every multicellular organism, like human beings or animals like monkeys, goats, sheep, and even mosquitoes, start from a single cell called a zygote. In the common understanding of life, we think that this single-celled zygote develops itself into a multicellular organism like us, humans.
Does the single-celled zygote develop itself into a multicellular organism? Is this possible? Let’s take a closer look at how a zygote develops, because it does appear to our eyes as if it is developing on its own. Only then can we begin to answer the question, “Can all these biological and chemical reactions be performed by these elements themselves or not?
First, we see that a zygote needs an environment, such as an egg (birds, chickens, mosquitoes) or a uterus (mammals such as humans, monkeys, goats, sheep, etc.) This environment contains “all the navigation signals” that guide the zygote on what to do to develop. In other words, the zygote cannot develop on its own; it needs external factors (which have no knowledge to communicate, free will to choose, wisdom to choose the better or the best options by themselves) to instruct it what to do, which genes to activate; all things that it needs in order to develop.
In fact, the first stages of development are totally dependent on these external factors.
To be more precise, the genes within the newly existed zygote remain inactive for the initial 10-24 hours of development (a critical period). During this time, the zygote cannot produce its own proteins, which are essential for the development of a new organism. Instead, the zygote relies on pre-existing cellular machinery, including messenger RNAs (mRNAs) made (synthesized) by cells in the mother, which are positioned outside the zygote cell. These mRNAs contain the instructions for protein synthesis, but they must be made through the mother’s cells before fertilization. So the question is: is it the chicken or the egg? Which comes first?
A simple search says that eggs come first. Now I want you to think about how the egg can or cannot begin life without the help of “outside” factors as we observe it.
Let’s think about this so-called “scientific” explanation for a minute. The egg was an organism, and some natural forces randomly made it evolve into an egg and made itself dependent on materials (such as proteins, RNA, and food) that exist outside of the egg. To make matters worse, the egg was forced by some outside/natural factors (or some random evolutionary events, as evolution claims changes are random) to require a mother and additionally to need heat to develop. How can this make sense? Why would a living organism put itself into a more needy and vulnerable position? Evolution, as it is claimed, should favor the survival of the fit or randomly evolved but better-fit organism to survive. The statement that “the egg came first” makes no sense; to claim it is a contradiction if you think about it from an evolutionary perspective. You can probably come to the same conclusion if you try to explain that the chicken comes first. If anyone claims that the chicken comes first, they will have to accept the same unexplainable, irrational, and unrealistic assumptions force-fed by evolutionary theory.
Now, we will see in the following explanations of the stages that neither of them comes first. The egg is infinitely dependent on the chicken, and the chicken is infinitely dependent on the egg. Both of them need to be independently given existence (I am using the language of an evolutionist to explain the case as they claim) by an external agent that has the ability to continuously create the whole universe so perfectly adjusted, arranged wisely, and orderly.. Otherwise, we cannot explain how the egg and the chicken within an infinite interaction can exist by themselves. Observing all of these infinite interactions in the laboratory can show that it is impossible for life to be originated by unconscious, blind, and powerless matter, which itself needs to be given existence.
It’s clear that a zygote cannot start its life without the help of external factors. However, naturalist scientists don’t want you to question this step.
Let’s explain how the development is even more complicated to show more dependencies. As the egg develops and cells divide, the next step is the migration of cells to form organs, such as the nervous system, digestive system, and so on. Interestingly, the cells in the egg cannot inherently know which genes to express, where to go and take place in the development of the organ they need to form.
An example will make this easier to understand. Imagine that cell “A” needs to form a nerve cell. However, the precursor cell “A” cannot know how to make it. It needs other cells to tell it what to do. Other surrounding cells (which come from the same precursor cell “A”) will send signals to cell “A,” telling it which genes to activate and which way to migrate at what time.
(I haven’t even mentioned the nutrients necessary for development, how the mother knows which nutrients are necessary, and how a zygote knows what to use and when. These nutrients are all provided by external factors, which will be a separate topic to discuss.)
Wait a minute. The surrounding cells and other external factors don’t know anything about how the body should develop. Yet they guide cell “A” and tell it what to do! You see the infinite dependencies between them. Every cell functions as it is told by other cells or materials around it. So the question is, what comes first?
How can we claim that all cells come from a stem cell, while the stem cell needs already differentiated cells and external factors to exist as a “stem cell”? This puzzling question remains unanswered for intelligent human beings. In fact, it must remain unanswered because there is no way to answer this question unless one admits that the universe in its entirety needs to be brought into existence continuously by an Absolute Source of Existence.
So, the commonly used question by laymen is: which came first – the chicken or the egg? Which depends on which? Our series will continue and reflect that none of them can be the first- they all must be given existence in such a way that we have to examine and conclude that they depend on each other every moment.
With this short introduction, I want you to think independently without any preconditioned mind and then question the validity of “life starting from a single cell!”
The impossibility of life occurring on its own will eventually show us that “life,” like any other thing, can only be given by a One who creates everything, knows everything, and controls everything at every step as The Source of Existence continuously sustains the acts of creating with His Infinite Qualities at all times. Very different organisms show similar mechanisms of development, which can only be explained by the fact that they are created by this necessarily existent “omniscient”, “omnipotent” One. This necessarily existent One must be a Creator who has infinite, absolute qualities, He is called GOD.
We see in the Quran, Chapter “Believers” (23) verses 12-14: “We have created man from an extract of clay. Then We made him a sperm-drop in a firm resting place. Then We turned the sperm-drop into a clot, then We turned the clot into a fetus-lump, then We turned the fetus-lump into bones, then We clothed the bones with flesh; thereafter We developed it into another creature. So, glorious is God, the Best of the creators (you can imagine).”
In the above example, He states that He continuously creates the fetus from its existence to a baby in the mother’s womb.
Think about it – how impossible would it be for “random evolutionary or natural causes” to create an orderly development of a fetus (where everything depends on each other) ? Doesn’t it make more sense that the One who creates each stage of this orderly development where He creates everything seemingly dependent on each other while creating them in a continuous and orderly manner) is all-Knowing and Creates every moment at every step of the fetus’ development?
The Absolute Creator further challenges us in Chapter “al-Hajj” (22): 73 “ … All those whom you invoke besides God can never create (even) a fly, even though they all join hands together for that.…”.
None of those “evolutionary forces” or “random natural events” can ever create life, or create and sustain the dependencies covered above
I can confidently conclude that “I believe all these living, complex, interrelated, interdependent events can only be continuously and orderly created at every moment by the necessarily existent One who must be All-knowing and All-powerful”.
Infinite Interdependency Series 
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