The Language of God

I recently read an interesting book by Francis Collins, the man in charge of the successful effort to map the human genome, which was completed in 2000 . Collins is a Christian and a highly respected scientist and he is one of thoudsans of people in the scientific community who share both a faith in God and a belief in expanding the boundaries of human knowledge. Drawing on the reflections of a variety of sources as far back as St Augustine--who was NOT a Biblical fundamentalist when it came to Creation, even though he lived twelve centuries before the Enlightenment, to modern Christian apologists such as CS Lewis to the writings of Stephen Jay Gould and Stephen Hawking.

"The Language of God" is a book that makes a compelling case both for a person in the higher echelons of the hard sciences having faith in God, as well as respecting the theory of evolution that agnostics Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley proposed in the 1860's. To many evolution as a theory was an attack on religion; to more supple minds it was "the language of God". It also skewers the counter-arguments of the Young Earth Creationists and the Intelligent Design boosters and makes a strong case for getting both past the pointless and seemingly endless debate in America over science and faith. And he offers strong rebuttal to the smug atheism of "The God Delusion" author Richard Dawkins. This book might not make a believer out of you, but it will give you enough information about all sides of the argument and I think you can't help coming away from even a cursory reading believing that faith is God is not the "woo-woo" wishful thinking some pundits would like many to imagine.

Collins draws a lot of his faith from his personal experiences as a medical doctor. He does not come from a Christian background, so he doesn't write this just because he is trying to straddle some family obligations; he gained his faith in his twenties working with patients as a medical doctor, especially those dealing with death.

After much soul-searching, he decided to do unusual for him up to that point. He visited a church. A pastor he talked to about his gnawing doubts about his original view of the Cosmos recommended he read C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity. The results of his study of this book and the Bible opened new ways of thinking for Dr. Collins.

Collins certainly seems to know his stuff. He covers a a great deal of ground in physics and especially the Big Bang Theory. He also speaks to the heart of his readers in a way I found very engrossing. Please check out this interview from PBS "The Search For God" to get a real taste of where Collins is coming from.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/collins.html

Also recommended: "Finding Darwin's God" by University of Florida cell biologist Kenneth Miller.