Darwin did not propose an explanation for the origin of life.
Darwinism requires first the existence of life for evolution to then take over and apply accidental genetic variation to produce variant traits, chosen by natural selection to create further development and diversity.
Not having an explanation for the origin of life, the theory of evolution must then build upon the starting point of already existing, functional life…in the reactive mode.
One aspect that lies at the heart of the creation/evolution debate is the question whether creative innovation is an all-encompassing evolutionary process working in the life-form from the core center outwards through genetic variation and natural selection, or instead do life-forms start with a body-plan of complex and integrated information produced by fiat creation by an intelligent designer God, with the subsequent adaptive variations occurring only at the outer peripheral margins for survivability in differing ecologies?
I think the factual evidence supports the latter viewpoint…not just because as a Christian this supports the theistic worldview…but because the facts themselves cry-out for intelligent design.
The theory of evolution today is under threat, not by religious faith, but by its own inadequacy as an explanatory paradigm to cover all of the new evidence being unearthed by modern scientific discovery over the last three to four decades.
For people who have looked at both sides of the evidence in the debate between intelligent design and common descent, many recognize that after over 160 years of intense research, common descent is still merely a thinly veneered, philosophical glue…rather than hard supportive evidence… that holds the framework of Darwinian macroevolution together.
I sense that the evidence and the arguments are steadily building in favor of intelligent design and falling away from Darwinian macroevolution.
Why should the general populace be compelled to accept a mere theoretical construction superimposed upon the facts of nature, simply to support the atheistic philosophy of naturalism…when the exact same facts of nature can be better explained through the activities of intelligent agency…God?
The exuberance and enthusiasm of the Enlightenment Period “doctrine of progress” fueled by the rapid advancements in science and technology during the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, produced the heady confidence and humanistic pride that we could reduce and explain the marvels of the living world down to natural causations alone.
But this humanistic enthusiasm has not produced the empirical scientific facts to back up this enthusiasm for materialistic explanations in biology, before or after 1859.
The Cross in the Christian Life 