Exploring the Evidence for Belief: A Scientist's Perspective on the Language of God

Benjamin Grady: Francis gives a helpful summary of scientific evidence about the origins of our universe and life. He also provides helpful arguments about evidence for the existence of God.

I did find two things a little troubling theologically. In the final chapter of the book Francis shared his testimony of how he came to faith in Christ. At the end of this testimony he casts proselytism in a negative light. He doesn't seem to do business with the exclusive claims of Christ and the judgment that Jesus himself says awaits those who die without the forgiveness only he can provide. Along those same theological lines, Francis doesn't seem to have a robust theological anthropology of the sinful nature of mankind, instead seeming at multiple places to indicate that we have a good nature.

These theological issues are understandable considering that Francis is a scientist, not a theologian. That said, they should be noted.

United States on Dec 05, 2023

Alejandra Orna: The media could not be loaded.  Definitivamente un libro que todos deben de leer. Lo que relata el autor es fascinante. Aunque no creas en Dios, es importante que conozcas lo que Francis S. Collin’s descubrió.

Mexico on Oct 22, 2023

A Servant of the Lord: It has come to be widely believed that Science has ‘disproved’ God and that, consequently, it is ‘unscientific’ to believe in the Divine Creator. This belief is, in part, the outcome of propaganda by atheists, but it has no basis in fact. Actually, there is no way in which Science can either prove or disprove God. And beyond this, and further undermining the claims of anti-God propagandists, many recent findings of Science, far from disproving God, provide evidence for God, as this brilliant book explains. This book also provides convincing replies to questions often raised by atheists, such as “Isn’t the idea of God just wish fulfilment”, “What about all the harm done in the name of religion?”, “Why would a loving God allow suffering in the world?” and “How can a rational person believe in miracles?”, making it a must-read for those interested in reflecting on a subject of the most ultimate importance for human beings.

An Entirely Rational Choice
Francis Collins is one of the USA’s leading geneticists and long-time leader of the Human Genome Project (Wikipedia informs us that this international research venture “remains the world’s...

India on Nov 21, 2017

Dele Oke: Francis Collins is the distinguished physician and geneticist who was the director of the Human Genome project. The Human Genome research was a 'complex multidisciplinary scientific enterprise directed at mapping and sequencing all of the human DNA, and determining aspects of its function'.

Collins writes eloquently about the implications of the findings for the human race. The human genome 'consists of all the DNA of our species, the hereditary code for life' - 3 billion letters long and written in four letter code.

Collins boldly addresses the issue of conflict between scientific observations and religious claims. As a dedicated Christian, who faced his own personal challenges to his Christian faith with the rape of his own daughter, he emerges as a strong advocate for the creation of the universe by a personal God.

Colin echoes the common understanding that 'the awareness of right and wrong, along with the development of language, awareness of self, and the ability to imagine the future' makes the human race stand out as unique among all of God's creation - created in His image.

Collins takes us through a quick review of the prevailing worldviews -...

United Kingdom on Oct 25, 2013

Bruce: This is a wonderful book. I wish the concepts in this book could be taught in public school. Is there a way to make them more acceptable to the scientific community? In his book The Selfish Gene biologist and scientist Richard Dawkins argues convincingly that he is not being anthropomorphic when he describes genes as acting in a "selfish" way, he is simply trying to help us understand how genes work if we imagined how we would act if we were genes. He says the actions of genes can be predicted if we imagined tham to be selfish.

In a similar way, let us use words which are commonly associated with human emotion - but which also have the qualities of inanimate objects. Let us use the following definitions to help understand the actions of the universe and the inanimate objects that surround us:

An act of caring or an act of love: an act or condition that is necessary for life, or sustains life, or enhances life.

An act of generosity - an act of love.

Lord: In old England, a Lord was someone who established laws. We will use the word "Lord" and "God" to mean those invisible forces or those unseen spirits that make the laws of physics and the force of...

United States on Apr 20, 2013

Urban Cowboy: Regarding his book, "The Language of God" by Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, and considered one of the world's leading scientists. The main thrust of the book is that you can reconcile a faith in God and still believe in Darwinian evolution.

I really liked this book because it gave me exactly what I was looking for. Collins was once an atheist but after a long journey now believes in theistic evolution or old earth creationism. The book is well written although I felt that both the science bits and the Bible bits are too superficial for such important topics. He also often exaggerated scientific claims and used the words, "overwhelming evidence" way too often without backing up these claims. He quotes C.S. Lewis a lot.

The "Unexpected Impression" is that he has greatly strengthened my view that the Bible is true and biological evolution is hopelessly flawed and entirely false. I often wondered how so many Christians who claim to believe in God and the Bible could also believe in Darwinism. Well, I think this book settles it: unfortunately, they're all just as confused as Collins is.

His main argument is the similarities found in the...

United States on Apr 17, 2010

Magne Kongshaug: I much appreciate Collins' movable story about his transmutation from an atheist to a believer in Christ. The complementary of science and christian faith presupposes a correct interpretation of both disciplines.Collins correctly ascertains that we have a free will,but seemingly misses that a materialistic darwinian view may hardly suffice to accont for free will. Collins thus dismisses Laplace's determinism by misusing the uncertainty principle, on the very same page as he admits that the initial state was totally known to God.A mere molecular machine (darwinian species) may not have a free will,as correctly implid by Laplace. This holds both by classical and quantum mechanical considerations. Infact, The Moral Law, finely defended by Collins, presuposes a free will; and, ac Collins would agree: a God-given soul.
Darwin, in private, denied Christ and much disliked God as described in The Old Testament. Darwin studied directly only microevolution. The rest of darwinism is a hypothesis far too easily digested by Collins, and by no means well defended originally by Darwin. Genetics is compatible with God having created genebased, changeable archetypes sequentially when required...

United Kingdom on Jun 02, 2009

Neutral: Francis Collins argues that the realms of spirituality and knowledge of God are different from that of science. He sees no conflict between the coexistence in the same person of belief in a transcendent God who takes a personal interest in human beings and the exploration of nature with the tools and language of science.

Originally an agnostic/atheist, as is often the case with children in households where religion and church are thought of as one and are primarily social institutions, Collins didn't want to know about the great questions of life until he read C S Lewis's Mere Christianity. From this he concluded that altruism was an expression of the Moral Law, a reasoning he found far more convincing than the ant-centred altruism of E O Wilson and the sociobiologists.

There many problems for any religious believer, of which the problem of evil is perhaps the most apparent. None of these are scientific problems. They are philosophical ones and Collins sets out in detail the war of the worldviews of science and religion. On the one hand there are those who see God as wish fulfilment, excusing incredible evil and asking for the suspension of reason, a view held by...

United Kingdom on Mar 02, 2009