The Vatican's position is that life happens. Where does this come from? The Bible seems to indicate life begins sometime. Does anyone know the history of this?
There are obviously many ways of interpreting this question. One is to simply point out that from the earliest days of human history it would have appeared self-evident to people that life exists. If life did not exist, they would not have had selves. One can, of course, argue that life itself is an illusion, but that argument appears to have arisen later. The consensus view now (even among non-religious people) is still that our perception of the existence of life conveys information about real phenomena and is not entirely illusory.
The next possible interpretation of the question is that it refers to the efficient causation of life (ie. how did life come about). Here there isn't so much of a consensus view. Physically, we don't have a clear accepted mechanism for much beyond the formation of simple organic molecules, which then must have somehow come together to make phospholipids, RNA, and proteins. While we do not have a definitive scientific answer for this, that
does not mean the natural phenomena of the universe are incapable of leading to living things.
Typically, Catholics will (but are not required to) believe that God acted through the natural processes to create life. Some Christians (Evangelicals tend to do so more often) will opt for a more literal reading of the creation story in Genesis and argue that God specifically created life through a miracle or miracles.
The details of this question are somewhat open to debate, both within modern science and Christian circles.
