Origin of life: Who thinks what explains how life began?

Jack Szostak · Natural chemistry can generate first life

Szostak’s research programme treats the transition from prebiotic chemistry to self-replicating, evolving systems as a natural process that can be reconstructed experimentally.

eventually coalesced into novel forms of life

Jack Szostak · Life first arose on Earth

Szostak’s experiments explicitly reconstruct prebiotic pathways under early-Earth conditions. That supports an Earth-origin pathway as a live scientific model, but the cited source does not establish that terrestrial life definitely first arose on Earth.

under the conditions present on early Earth

Lee Cronin · Natural chemistry can generate first life

Cronin presents the origin transition as something that can in principle be generated from non-living components and tested in the laboratory.

creating living systems from scratch in the laboratory

Paul Davies · Life first arose on Earth

Davies has argued that Mars may have been the cradle of terrestrial life. That directly challenges an uncomplicated Earth-first account, but his wording is explicitly tentative and does not establish that life definitely did not begin on Earth.

it may actually be the cradle of life

Paul Davies · Life reached Earth from elsewhere

Davies has promoted the hypothesis that microbes could have travelled from Mars to Earth inside impact-ejected rocks. He presents this as a serious possibility rather than a demonstrated history of terrestrial life.

it may actually be the cradle of life

Chandra Wickramasinghe · Life first arose on Earth

Wickramasinghe’s cometary panspermia account explicitly describes the first life on Earth as having been delivered from outside the planet, contradicting the proposition that terrestrial life first arose on Earth.

delivered the first life to our planet

Chandra Wickramasinghe · Life reached Earth from elsewhere

His published panspermia account treats living material as cosmic in origin and argues that comets delivered the first life to Earth.

delivered the first life to our planet

Stephen C. Meyer · Natural chemistry can generate first life

Meyer argues that undirected chemical processes do not adequately explain the biological information required for the origin of the first living cell and offers intelligent design instead.

intelligent design as the best explanation

Stephen C. Meyer · Divine agency is part of the explanation

Meyer’s broader argument identifies theism and a creator as an explanatory framework for the origin of biological information, a position he continued to defend in 2026 discussions of design.

theism can explain the origin of biological information

BioLogos · Natural chemistry can generate first life

BioLogos does not commit to one origin mechanism. It explicitly says God could have created first life through regular processes or through a miracle, so natural abiogenesis is accepted as a live possibility rather than asserted as established.

through regular processes, or God could have done a miracle

BioLogos · Life first arose on Earth

BioLogos discusses scientific origin-of-life research and extraterrestrial-origin proposals, but the cited overview does not take a clear position on whether the first living systems ancestral to terrestrial life originated on Earth.

BioLogos · Life reached Earth from elsewhere

The BioLogos overview discusses extraterrestrial-origin proposals but does not endorse or reject the proposition that living systems were transferred to Earth from elsewhere.

BioLogos · Divine agency is part of the explanation

BioLogos explicitly places divine creation at the ultimate explanatory level while leaving the physical mechanism of life’s beginning open to scientific investigation.

God is the creator and sustainer of all life

International Theological Commission · Natural chemistry can generate first life

The commission presents natural causes as genuine within divine providence, yet the cited text does not state that non-living chemistry by itself generated the first living systems.

International Theological Commission · Life first arose on Earth

The text discusses the emergence of early organisms on Earth and acknowledges scientific uncertainty about the origin of the first microscopic life. It does not explicitly resolve an Earth-first versus extraterrestrial-origin question.

International Theological Commission · Divine agency is part of the explanation

The commission explicitly presents divine causality as compatible with the operation of natural causes, making God part of the ultimate explanation without requiring a rejection of natural mechanisms.

God is the cause not only of existence

Answers in Genesis · Natural chemistry can generate first life

Answers in Genesis rejects the proposition that life arose from non-living chemistry and instead frames life as the result of supernatural creation.

abiogenesis is a myth

Answers in Genesis · Life first arose on Earth

Its creationist account says God created living things on Earth rather than life arriving here from elsewhere.

God created all living things on earth

Answers in Genesis · Life reached Earth from elsewhere

Answers in Genesis directly rejects panspermia and says terrestrial living things were created on Earth.

The simple answer is NO!

Answers in Genesis · Divine agency is part of the explanation

Its origin-of-life material presents God’s supernatural creative action as the explanation for the existence of life.

God is the Creator of all life