Can life begin on its own without God?

Whether life can arise from non-living chemistry through purely natural processes—a question scientists call abiogenesis—remains one of the genuinely unresolved frontiers of science, not a settled matter in either direction.

This is a different question from evolution, which explains how life changes and diversifies once it already exists and has strong, well-tested support. Abiogenesis, the origin of life itself, has several serious scientific hypotheses—including ideas involving self-replicating RNA molecules or chemical reactions near deep-sea hydrothermal vents—but no experiment has yet demonstrated a complete, agreed-upon pathway from simple chemistry to living cells.

It would overclaim in either direction to say science has "no idea" how life began, since real, evidence-based research is ongoing, or to say science has "solved" the question, since it hasn't. Christians who accept this scientific uncertainty can still affirm God as the ultimate source of life, whether or not a natural chemical pathway is eventually discovered.