Anyone who knows me knows I am an unapologetic devotee of C.S. Lewis, the theologian of the common man and one of the most important Christians ever. I am not alone; so are a lot of other people. A few years ago, Lewis' "Mere Christianity" was voted the single most influential book of the 20th century, a book, I have since learned, that has been directly instrumental in the conversion of secularists from former special counsel to President Nixon, Charles Colson, to no less than Dr. Francis Collins, president of the National Center for Human Genome Research who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor in 2007, "for his efforts to decode human DNA and improve human health." This was the year after he wrote "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief in God," a manifesto of faith that remained on the New York Time Bestsellers List for months.
Collins' faith began as a 26-year-old fledging scientist and avowed agnostic, who accepted the challenge of a friend to read "Mere Christianity." In the autobiographical first chapter of his book, Collins writes, "As I turned the pages struggling to absorb the breadth and depth of the intellectual arguments laid down by this legendary Oxford scholar, I realized that all of my own constructs against the plausibility of faith were those of a schoolboy."
Contributed Photo |
The Language of God by Francis S. Collins (Free Press, 304pgs, $15p)
|
Some 30 years later, Collins has emerged as a one of the world's leading scientists, an award-winning geneticist, a tough apologist for the Christian faith, and founder of the BioLogos Foundation (BioLogos.org), dedicated to the task of reconciling faith and science. In "Language" he advances his arguments in three parts: first, by describing the chasm between science and faith; then, by facing the great cosmological questions: the origin of the universe, life on earth, and deciphering God's plan; and the final and largest section of the book, Collins attempts to reconcile science with faith in God. In the latter section, Collins says that we have four options: 1) agnosticism or atheism, where science trumps faith; 2) creationism, where faith trumps science; 3) intelligent design, where science needs divine help; and 4) a wiser and more reasonable solution, an approach to the great quandary: Can science and faith work in harmony? Yes, claims Collins. This last option he calls "BioLogos," which on the surface looks much like theistic evolution but which Collins maintains is different, saying, "BioLogos doesn't try to wedge God into the gaps in our understanding of the natural world; it proposes God as the answer to questions science was never intended to address, such as 'How did the universe get here.' 'What is the meaning of life?' 'What happens to us after we die?' Unlike Intelligent Design, BioLogos is not intended as a scientific theory. Its truth can only be tested by the spiritual logic of the heart, the mind, and the soul." God, he would say, cannot be placed under a microscope or into a test tube.
"The Language of God" has placed Collins in the philosophical No Man's Land where he is catching flak from atheists like Sam Harris, who calls Collins' views the "language of ignorance," to biblical literalists, but a more receptive audience among those with less of an agenda to defend.
Reviewed by Jim Miller, Vineyard Church Nacogdoches.
