Non-Believers Are Paying Attention to This Geneticist

In an earlier entry, I commented on Francis Collins, the geneticist who cracked the genome and has recently written a book on his Christian belief.

Subsequent articles about Collins and his new book have been interesting reading. We learn a lot about how people deal with issues of faith by reading their reactions to books about faith written by reputable persons like Collins. For example, Time magazine has a review of the book by David Van Biema, "Reconciling God and Science." Though I'm intrigued with what Collins has to say and I plan to read his book, I doubt I'll agree with his convinction that the evidence for evolution is "thoroughly convincing" and that Christians should therefore see evolution as the process by which God created the world. Maybe I'll respond to that in a future blog entry after I read the book. Still, I thought this comment from the Time article was interesting:

The Language of God is enlightening but not always convincing. . . . The book seems liveliest when Collins turns his guns from atheists on the left to creationists and intelligent designers on the right, urging the abandonment of what he feels are overliteral misreadings of Scripture.

Well, of course Van Biema is going to find the book "liveliest" at the point he happens to agree with. Is this any surprise to anyone? We always tend to find someone "intelligent" or "compelling" or "persuasive" when they happen to be saying something we agree with!

Also, see this Washington Post article by Scott Russell Sander:

Collins goes beyond the evidence when he speculates that "God's intention in ccreating the universe" may have been "to lead to creatures with whom He might have fellowship, namely human beings." Many readers will doubt that all 10 or 15 billion years of cosmic history merely prepared the way for us, a pack of inquisitive primates pondering the starry expanses from our speck of planetary dust. Still, it's bracing to be reminded, in our disenchanted day, that an eminent scientist can read the genetic code as sacred speech.

Though Sander says that "many readers will doubt" that the purpose of existence is to find fellowship with God, that's exactly why I'm so thrilled that Collins book is out there and getting read. The Apostle Paul told the intellectuals on Mars Hill the same thing (Acts 17:16-34). He said that God created the world "so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us."

If you get to read the book before me, tell me what you think.