The scientific advancements made in the area of reproduction can leave us in greater awe of God’s amazing and good design. For believers, that is our response—we are wowed by our Creator’s creative but highly ordered design.
From the tiniest of cells to the largest kinds of the created world, the purposeful order of our world beautifully displays God’s intelligent design. The miracle of life begins at microscopic levels, but medically speaking, what do conception and fertilization mean, and why should people know the difference?
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The Difference
Traditionally, it was said that life began at conception. Through scientific advancements, conception has now been redefined as the processes that occur from fertilization through embryo implantation in the womb.
Since the term “conception” has been more broadly applied to these processes, it is no longer the best term to describe the moment when life begins. The most accurate and biblically sound term to describe this moment is “fertilization”—the moment when the father’s DNA combines with the mother’s DNA within the egg.
Why Does it Matter?
We understand reproduction in greater detail than ever before. With that increased knowledge, questions naturally arise. Questions like “When does personhood begin?” and “When do the unborn feel pain?” The questions themselves aren’t wrong or bad, but the fallout has been bad because we live in a fallen world.
We now know that the first cell holds all the information that the baby needs to grow; Christians recognize that this is life—a human being made in the image of God. For some, they like to reduce this miracle of life down to nothing more than a clump of cells. But those “clumps of cells” are outdated arguments proven false by this increased understanding of the journey of life before birth. It is a lazy phrase designed to deceive and ease the conscience of the conflicted.
The more Christians understand the terminology and the science, the more clearly they can understand the issues for themselves and intelligently speak to them when given the opportunity. Some people understand and admit that abortion is killing a child and will further admit that they just don’t care. But there are also people who just need help to understand the actual science and think through the ethics better, people who can be reasoned with and who will respond to logic and appeals to ethics and morality.
The more prepared we can be to give a defense to the world on all that the Bible speaks to, the more effectively God can use us to be a witness for his truth and good news.
Want to learn more and better prepare yourself to speak about the miracle of life? Visit our Fearfully & Wonderfully Made exhibit during your trip to the Creation Museum.