The probability of life from complete nothing may be quite small, but the probability of life from the last stage of organized unlife (probably crystals) is actually much higher than that.

Any complex system looks impossible when it has evolved through enough transactions to bring about higher orderts of complexity. But it is an error to assume as a result that the simple rules governing those transactions are therefore (a) impossibly complex or (b) call for extreme and mysterious explanations.

Furthermore the notion that without a Universe there would be no life implies that life is formed within the universe. There is another possibility which should not be discarded: that the universe itself is formed within life. This requires the assumption of non-material fundamental nature of life (after Bergson, for example). It does not require a single hormongous personality, or even a single entity. I would hazard, in fact, that imputing personality to life (in this context) is a fatally confusing error.

A