The development of a fully synthetic DNA transplanted into a bacterial cell was hailed by the world's media as "the first creation of synthetic life" and was followed by the usual concern about scientists "playing God". Quoting the book of Genesis, the Financial Times trumpeted "Let there be life!" — as if we had just witnessed a re-run of the dawn of time.
Such unashamedly theological language certainly caught the eye of this theologian. It's by all accounts a brilliant achievement: Craig Venter and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) have, they claim, implanted a microbe with a synthetic genetic code. As a result, a new strain of the bacteria called Mycoplasm mycoides has begun reproducing in the petri dishes of the institute. According to Venter, the code includes "watermarks", such as a website and an email address, which prove the man-made origin of the genome. It also includes some words of the Irish novelist James Joyce: "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, and to recreate life out of life".
Let's be clear. It is not the "creation of new life". What we have here is really better described as a very complicated transplant. Put simply, Venter and his colleagues have taken one cell and emptied it of its naturally occurring DNA. Then, taking another bit of chopped up DNA, they have rearranged it in the correct sequence and placed it into the cell without the DNA. Though it is still a long way off, with this technology there is the potential to create a variety of cells that are not around today and which may have all kinds of useful adaptations.
Scientific American reported the words of biological engineer Drew Endy of Stanford University: "It's not genesis, it's not as if mice are coming from a pile of dirty rags in a corner. The correct word is poesis, human construction. We can now go from information and get a reproducing organism. It lays down the gauntlet for us to learn how to engineer genomes."
It's incredible — but genesis it ain't. Human beings are still just improvising on the tunes they find embedded in the natural world. It's as if you took one of Shakespeare's plays and chopped up every word — jumbled all the words up and then placed them all back in the correct sequence or a very similar sequence with a slightly different order. Would you then consider yourself on a par with Shakespeare?
As creatures made in the image of God, however, we have a standing invitation to share in God's creative activity – to "play God", if you will. This astounding advance is just the kind of thing Christian theology teaches us to expect from human beings. We create in imitation of God's creative work. Being the product of the kind of beings we are, we can certainly see the potential in it for great harm as well as extraordinary good. But Venter and his friends have sounded a remarkably clear echo of the divine work itself.
Dr Michael Jensen teaches theology at Sydney's Moore College.
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