Biologist calls for scientists to pursue evidence of God with scientific rigor
It's always exhilirating to read of people coming to Christ. It is even more exhilirating to hear of people coming to Christ from the scientific community, especially those who were raised athiests. Thanks, Mom, for the link!
The following article was written for the AP. You can find the link here.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — He opened the session by improvising on hymns at the piano and concluded with a singalong on the guitar. In between, he delivered a compelling account of his unlikely conversion from atheism to evangelical Christianity.
The lanky, amiable personality wasn’t some traveling revivalist but one of the world’s leading biologists.
Francis S. Collins, who led the international Human Genome Project that mapped the 3.1 billion chemical base pairs in humanity’s DNA, has emerged as a surprise advocate for faith and for its compatibility with science.
He addressed the clash last weekend during a conference at Williams College sponsored by the C.S. Lewis Foundation. He pursues the theme again this week at a Calvin College convention of the American Scientific Affiliation, which affirms “the divine inspiration, trustworthiness and authority of the Bible” on faith and morals.
Collins’ most complete arguments appear in a new book, “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” (Free Press), which addresses two radically divergent audiences:
• He asks scientific skeptics to investigate God with the same open-minded zeal they apply to the natural world, assuring them there’s no incompatibility between belief and scientific rigor.
• He tells fellow evangelicals that opposition to evolution — whether the biblical literalism of creationists or “intelligent design” arguments — undermines the credibility of faith.
“It is time to call a truce in the escalating war between science and spirit,” in which the dominant voices have belonged to narrow, anti-God materialists and believers who spurn orthodox science, he says.
Raised by nonreligious parents, Collins turned into “an obnoxious atheist.” But as a medical student, he wondered why patients who were suffering and dying retained faith in God.
He realized that as a scientist, “you’re not supposed to decide something is true until you’ve looked at the data. And yet I had become an atheist without ever looking at the evidence whether God exists or not.”
He began looking, and early in the process read Lewis’ concise classic “Mere Christianity.”
“In the very first chapter,” he said, “all my arguments about the irrationality of faith lay in ruins.”
“For a scientist, it’s uncomfortable to admit there are questions that your scientific method isn’t going to be able to address.”
posted by Charlie Wallace at
4:19 PM
3 Comments:
That is encouraging.
"He tells fellow evangelicals that opposition to evolution — whether the biblical literalism of creationists or “intelligent design” arguments — undermines the credibility of faith."
Isn't this an argument in favor of evolution?
McFeely,
I feel that it is safe to say that Collins does not believe in Dawinian evolution. However, it is impossible to know exactly what he means by that statement. However, the next quote in the article may shed some light:
“It is time to call a truce in the escalating war between science and spirit,” in which the dominant voices have belonged to narrow, anti-God materialists and believers who spurn orthodox science, he says."
I think what he is advocating is that people from both sides need to stop trying to 'out-prove' each other that their view is right. One cannot prove nor dsprove God. Therefore, whatever you believe, that belief is a matter of faith. That faith should be buttressed with evidence for or against God. He, of course, advocates scientifically looking at the evidence for God. However, 'proving' it one way or another won't happen and that approach takes away the essential component of believing, i.e. faith.
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