The Creator of the universe desires an intimate relationship with each of us.

It is one of the more outrageous claims of the Christian faith. And no passage of Scripture expresses the intimacy between Creator and creature more than Psalm 139:13.

A fresh perspective on this passage of Scripture comes from recent work by researchers from Cambridge University in the UK. This study reveals the central role the placenta plays in properly allocating nutritional resources between mother and child, illustrating the intimate care God provided for us through the elegant design of embryological development.¹

This research also has important pro-life implications, providing a response to the claim that the fetus is nothing more than a harmful mass of tissue.

Nutritional Demands of the Fetus and the Mother

For a pregnancy to be successful, nutrients must be carefully distributed between the fetus and the mother. Yet sharing nutrients runs contrary to the biological tendencies of the mother and the unborn baby. The fetus has a genetic drive for growth and craves all the nutrients it can get. So does the mother. But for the fetus to grow and develop, the mother must provide it with the nutrients it needs, setting up a potential tug of war between the mother and the developing baby in her womb.

Ironically, if the fetus hoards nutrients excessively, the hoarding can backfire. If the mother doesn’t have access to sufficient nutrients during the pregnancy, it can negatively impact lactation and the mother’s long-term health, which, in turn, compromises her ability to care for the child after birth.

As it turns out, the placenta plays a critical role in managing this trade-off. Instead of being passive tissue that absorbs available nutrients from the mother, the placenta dynamically distributes nutrients between mother and fetus, optimally ensuring the health of both mother and developing baby. To do this, the placenta receives metabolic signals from both the mother and fetus and responds to this input by regulating the nutrient amounts made available to the fetus.

One of the key genes involved in nutrient regulation is called p110α. This gene codes for a protein that integrates the metabolic signals from mother and fetus. The Cambridge University researchers wanted to understand the role that the maternal and fetal versions of this gene play in parsing the nutrient supply between mother and developing baby.

What Happens When p110α Is Defective in Mother and Child?

What happens when p110α is defective in mother and child? To answer this question, the research team used mice as a model system, preparing genetic mutants, so that either the mother or fetus had a defective version of the p110α gene. If the mother had a healthy p110α gene, but the fetus a defective version, the placenta developed abnormally. But in spite of its defective appearance, the placenta compensated so that it would still take up the nutrients the fetus needed to develop. However, if the mother had a defective version of the p110α gene, the placenta (which formed abnormally even though the fetus had a healthy version of the p110α gene) transported fewer nutrients to the fetus.

In adult tissue, the p110α gene plays a role in regulating growth in relationship to nutrient supply and mediates the metabolic effects of insulin and insulin-like growth factors. That means that a defective version of this gene models conditions in which the mother’s health is compromised due to disease, poor nutrition, stress, or other factors.

On the basis of this study, it appears that when the mother is healthy, the placenta readily transports nutrients to the fetus and dynamically adjusts, even if it forms abnormally. On the other hand, if the mother’s health is compromised, the placenta restricts nutrient flow to the fetus to ensure the mother’s long-term health, with the prospects that the fetus can still grow and develop.

This insight has important biomedical implications. In the developing world, one in five pregnancy complications involve the placenta. In the developed world, this number is one in eight. The researchers hope that this insight will help them understand the etiologies behind problem pregnancies and also help them identify biomarkers that will alert physicians to problems earlier in the pregnancy.

This work also has important apologetics implications, as well.

Indeed, We Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

This work highlights the elegance of embryological development. It seems an exquisite rationale—a biological logic, if you will—undergirds every aspect of development. The optimal way the placenta partitions resources between mother and fetus, carefully managing trade-offs, evinces the handiwork of the Creator, and reveals the Creator’s intimate care for the fetus.

The devastating effects caused by mutations to the p110α gene raises questions about the capacity of evolutionary mechanisms to explain the origin of the reproductive system in placental mammals. Because the placenta is not a passive conduit for nutrients between mother and fetus, the challenges of explaining its genesis via unguided evolutionary process become insurmountable. If the placenta lacks the capability to effectively allocate resources between the mother and fetus—or even if this process operates in a suboptimal manner—the fetus may not survive, or the mother may not be healthy enough to nurse and rear the child once it’s born. In other words, it becomes difficult to imagine how the placenta’s role in embryological development could evolve from an imperfect system to an optimal system under the influence of natural selection because of the critical, dynamic role the placenta plays in embryological development. If this role isn’t properly executed, the child isn’t likely to make it to reproductive age.

Is the Fetus Like a Tumor?

This work also has implications for the pro-life debate. I have often heard pro-choice advocates argue that abortion is not murder, because the fetus is like a tumor. But the work by the scientists from Cambridge University makes this view impossible. Because the placenta dynamically allocates resources between the mother and the fetus in a way that preserves the mother’s health, the fetus cannot be viewed as a tumor robbing the mother of nutrients. Instead, it looks as if the placenta’s function has been designed in such a way to ensure optimal health for both the mother and the fetus. This study also shows that if the mother’s health is in jeopardy, the placenta actually compromises the health of the fetus so that the mother’s health is not unduly harmed by the pregnancy.

Resources
“Curvaceous Anatomy of the Female Spine Reveals Ingenious Obstetric Design” by Virgil Robertson (article)
“What Are the Odds of You Being You?” by Matthew McClure (article)
“Morning Sickness May Protect Embryos from Toxins” with Fazale Rana (podcast)

Endnotes

1. Amanda Sferruzzi-Perri et al., “Maternal and Fetal Genomes Interplay through Phosphoinositol 3-Kinase (PI3K)-p110α Signaling to Modify Placental Resource Allocation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 113 (October 2016): 11255–60, doi:10.1073/pnas.1602012113.

Subjects: Design, Intelligent Design, Optimization

According to the popular narrative, Copernicus’s assertion that the Earth orbited the Sun started a relentless process of scientific discovery serving to remove any thought that humanity occupied a special place in the universe. Earth was not the center of the solar system, the Sun was not the center of the galaxy, and the Milky Way was not the center of the universe. Many take this idea even further to claim that Earth, including the life inhabiting it, is completely mediocre in every way. The discovery of any kind of life—especially intelligent life—beyond the confines of Earth would forever falsify the notion that humanity has any claim of specialness.

Associated with this line of reasoning, many believe that the discovery of extraterrestrial life (ET) would clearly demonstrate that many of the world’s religions, particularly Christianity, cannot be true. After all, the Bible mentions nothing about life beyond Earth! So, the discovery of ET would disprove Christianity, right? It’s possible, but not likely.

How Would ET Affect Christianity?

The type of ET found influences the answer. Few, if any, theologians would have any concerns about finding microbial life on a distant exoplanet. From a theological perspective, the Bible makes no explicit claims about how God originated life on Earth. However, Genesis 1:2 may imply that God created life early in Earth’s history and then protected it during an era when conditions on the planet were rather hostile for any living thing. A discovery of microbial ET would raise questions regarding the origin of life and whether it requires anything beyond the normal operation of the physical laws governing our universe. It may be that God created a universe where life arises by naturalistic processes, but one can make a strong case based on our best scientific understanding that the origin of life and the development of Earth’s life-friendly conditions both require divine intervention.

Microbial ET represents the more likely find, but the more theologically interesting discovery would be intelligent ET (like humanity that is “made in God’s image”). The Bible is largely silent on the issue of intelligent ET (at least the physical kind), so the dominant position in historic Christian thought is that humanity represents the only intelligent physical life in the universe. Just as people have speculated on the existence of intelligent ET for centuries, theologians have also contemplated how such a finding would interact with historic Christian thought. Here are some of the proposals offered, in no particular order. All of these options, except for the last one, assume that God created intelligent life on other worlds and these creatures chose to rebel against God like humanity did.

6 Theological Theories concerning Alien Life

1. Jesus’s incarnation, death and resurrection here on Earth was a singularly important happening that results in redemption for all intelligent ET. Perhaps humanity will spread throughout the universe, taking the gospel to all these creatures. Or maybe God reveals himself on each of these planets in a way that declares what Jesus accomplished on Earth. This option does present at least one difficulty. The Bible describes Jesus as the second Adam, meaning that both are related physically and in nature. Any intelligent ETs in this scenario have no physical relation (and maybe not even in nature) to Jesus.

2. Jesus becomes incarnate on each planet where creatures rebel, taking on the nature of the beings, created by God, on that planet. While God created humanity in his image, perhaps his creations on other planets have a nature that reflects God’s image in different ways. Given the description of the hypostatic union offered by Thomas Aquinas, the addition of other natures besides Jesus’s human one seems plausible.

3. The nature of the rebellion of other intelligent ETs results in God having another means of redemption for them. Given that God has only revealed the redemption plan for humanity, any proposals for what these other redemption paths look like are pure speculation.

4. No redemption is possible. This option seems the most offensive to human sensibilities, specifically because of the difficulty of reconciling it with God’s goodness, omniscience, and power. Some would object that an all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful God cannot create beings subject to eternal hell. In fact, many raise the same objection in the context of humanity. However, a few points warrant mention. First, our finite minds cannot comprehend all that God knows. Second, true free will has consequences. While God is good in his nature, he is also just. Although this option seems offensive, it does have precedent in the Bible. Angels had a choice to either serve God or Lucifer. No offer of redemption exists for those angels who followed Lucifer.

5. God created intelligent life with free will, but these creatures chose not to follow in humanity’s rebellion. Lacking any violation of God’s command, these creatures have no need of redemption. They already enjoy proper relationship with God. C. S. Lewis explores this idea in his Space Trilogy.

6. One final, and very real, possibility: God only created one intelligent creature in the entire universe. If so, then the redemption story of life on Earth is the story of the universe and this discussion becomes moot.

Science and Theology’s Common Ground

A common objection scientists level against Christianity, and religion in general, is its lack of testability. Stated another way, they charge that Christianity is so flexible and vague that nothing could ever falsify it. Ironically, many people (Christians and non-Christians alike) think that finding intelligent ET would falsify Christianity. The discussion above identifies a number of ways that historic Christian theology would incorporate the discovery of intelligent ET. But doesn’t the wide number of options just validate the charge of inordinate flexibility and vagueness?

Actually, scientists consider that property a virtue. Consider a topic investigated extensively by the scientific community over the last hundred years: What is the proper interpretation of quantum mechanics? One might think this a settled question considering that quantum mechanics is one of the two most successful scientific models ever developed (the other is general relativity). A quick perusal of the literature reveals that many different interpretations exist for the underlying nature of quantum mechanics. The breadth of options on this topic represents the remarkable efforts of many scientists to address a difficult question. Developing a range of interpretations helps scientists know the experiments that will distinguish which one best represents reality. Similarly, a range of models for ET’s redemption help theologians discern underlying details of God’s redemptive story.

Einstein’s development of his theory of relativity did not prove Newton wrong. Newtonian dynamics still describes properly the motion of the vast majority of objects through space. Einstein’s relativity just gives a more complete picture. Assuming we find intelligent ET (and that’s a BIG IF), the discovery would not invalidate the historic Christian understanding of redemption. Like Einstein’s relativity, it would give us a more complete picture. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection still provides the only means of redemption for fallen humans, but maybe God’s redemption narrative encompasses more than just humanity.

The search for intelligent ET raises great scientific and theological questions. And the discoveries made in that search will help us understand the universe better as well as how we relate to the God who created it all.

Subjects: Exoplanets, UFOs & Extraterrestrials, Extrasolar Planets, Historical Theology, Life on Other Planets, SETI