Msgr. Pope of the Low Probability of Our Existence

"I was alerted to a fascinating article by Ali Binazir, who sets forth mathematically the probably that each of us exists. It turns out that when taking into account the astonishing number of possibilities of parents meeting, grandparents meeting before them, and so on going back generations, and then adding the vast number of sperm and ova in possible combinations over decades of the marital act in all those generations, the odds of me existing just as I do are about 1 in 10^2,685,000. That's a number so huge it hurts to think about it. 

"To say that we are contingent beings is a vast understatement. To say that someone or something is contingent is to say that the existence of same is not inevitable but rather can only come about based on a number of previous things being true in a chain of being or causality. I would not exist if my parents had not existed and then met. Further, they would not have existed if their parents had not existed and met, and so on. Thus, my existence depends on a vast number of 'meetings' going just right; if they hadn't I would never have been born."

In a recent commentary, Monsignor Charles Pope (pastor of Holy Comforter-Saint Cyprian Parish, Washington, DC) reflected on the very low probability that any of us could exist and on God's overseeing each detail, knowing each of us long before we were born..

To access Msgr. Pope's complete post, please visit:

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