It’s funny what things you remember from past times, single thoughts that remind you of pivotal moments in your life. I recall one such time in the mid-1990s when my family and I went to see Disney’s ‘Lion King’ in a movie theater. In the very first song, to a background of African singers, the low voice of Carmen Twillie sang the chorus of “Circle of Life”, one of Elton John’s greatest artistic achievements. The lyrics said, “In the circle of life, it’s the wheel of fortune; it’s the leap of faith; It’s the band of hope ‘til we find our place on the path unwinding in the circle, the circle of life.” Perhaps he was thinking about embracing his homosexuality after a failed traditional marriage in the 1980s, but most listeners thought, in context, that the song was talking about passing life to the next generation before you die. But for me, I remember thinking there really is a circle of life that most people will never hear about or understand. The circle I was referencing was one I had learned about in graduate school, the Krebs Acid Cycle.
The Krebs Acid Cycle was eponymously named for Hans Krebs, a German scientist who elucidated its mechanism to win the Noble Prize in Physiology in 1953. This cycle was, and is, actually known to biochemists as the citric acid cycle or TCA cycle (i.e., tricarboxylic acid cycle). It’s a metabolic process found in all cells of humans and other oxygen-breathing organisms. I got to meet Krebs as a student at a seminar three years before he died and initially, I thought it was an honor. That was before he ridiculed Christianity for its conservative stance on sexuality, even though he had a Jewish heritage of the same persuasion. As he delivered his address to the crowd of about fifty people, I marveled that he couldn’t see the theological implication of his discovery or at least, was unwilling to voice it. What he did say was that all humans and animals have this circular chemical sequence in the mitochondria of their living cells and that without it, life would be impossible.
I looked at others around me to see if they were thinking what I was thinking, that this series of chemical reactions was cyclic and if even one of them wasn’t present, the cell would die. But nobody seemed to be bothered by this fact, even though it destroyed the theory of evolution. You see, the TCA cycle is composed of eight enzymes and four cofactors that work in sequence to degrade a molecule of acetate (derived from food that we eat) into carbon dioxide. In the process, energy is produced and a portion of it is consumed to initiate the next turn of the cycle. The remainder of the energy is used to fuel the life processes of the living cell. Now, the theory of evolution would account for the first turn of the cycle by postulating an initial environmental spark, since it claims that’s how life began anyway. And students indoctrinated with the concept that anything is possible over a very long period of time might believe that explanation. But the energy source for the first turn of the cycle isn’t the thing that destroys the theory of evolution. What makes it totally unbelievable over any period of time, even infinity, is that all twelve components of the cycle must be present before any sustainable metabolic energy is produced.
Studies of these enzymes and cofactors revealed their incredible structural complexity, known to scientists when Krebs received his Nobel Prize. They aren’t simple ionic compounds like salt or even organic ones like sugar. They are long-chain polymers of amino acids manufactured from cellular DNA to exacting specifications by the cell’s ribosomal machinery which runs on, you guessed it, the energy produced by the cycle of which they are a necessary part. Avoiding the dilemma, ‘Which came first– the energy or the energy producers?’, the damning implication to the theory of evolution is that every one of these complex molecules must have existed at the same time before they could produce enough energy to sustain human life. Ignoring the astronomical odds against this possibility, how could the cell be alive for millions of years while each component evolved, waiting for the beginning of the energy-producing process that sustains its life?
The theory of evolution claims that very long series of incremental chemical reactions occurred over a very long time to produce the first living cell from inanimate ingredients and from that progenitor cell, all lifeforms eventually evolved. Given the prior necessity of a working TCA cycle in that first cell, the foundational claim of the theory of evolution is pure fantasy. It is much easier to believe in an unseen creator who designed and built the first cell, started its TCA cycle, and built living oxygen-breathers from it.
So, contrary to what the song says, the metabolic circle of life isn’t a wheel of fortune, a leap of faith, or a band of hope. It’s a complexity that defies man’s ability to explain it by evolution.
It was a pivotal moment for me in that seminar when I confirmed there was a creator god and I was equally amazed that nobody else in attendance appeared to see it. Many smart people work in science but intellect won’t help if they can’t break the bonds of their indoctrination. The Bible says that Creation is a witness of a creator god but when men have built their credentials by accepting lies as truth, they won’t even read the Bible. It’s ironic when evolutionists demand scientific proof that there is a God and claim Christians are brainwashed for believing in one, because the TCA cycle is scientific proof and their inability to acknowledge it suggests they are the ones who have lost objectivity. Either that, or they are afraid of censure by their peers for believing in the existence of an invisible god. For me, if God could build a cell and put life into it, he could certainly chose to be invisible.
