The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief is a 2006 work of nonfiction by Francis S. Collins, the noted physician, geneticist, and leader of the Human Genome Project. As a scientist and a religious man, Collins argues that science and faith are compatible and can coexist harmoniously.

The early chapters narrate Collins’s intellectual and spiritual journey. Although brought up areligious, he felt awe when encountering music or contemplating the wonders of the natural world—experiences that led him away from his agnosticism to a belief in God and, finally, a commitment to Christianity. To account for this journey, he cites human beings’ seemingly innate morality, the existence selfless acts, and the fact that the search for God is universal to all human cultures. The rest of the book discusses in detail how scientific findings, such as the Big Bang, the origins of life on earth, and the human genome, might shed light on the issue of God’s existence. He concludes that science and religion are valid sources of truth and that our view of life’s origins must respect both. Collins hopes that his message of the compatibility between faith and science will influence public debate, in which science and religion are too often angrily pitted against each other.

Summary

In Part 1, Collins tells the story of how “a scientist who studies genetics came to be a believer” (7). Collins grew up in a nonreligious household, and he drifted into agnosticism. However, in graduate school he began to investigate theological questions; conversations with seriously ill patients as a young doctor led him to question his agnosticism and eventually to embrace Christianity. Collins answers common objections to a belief in God: the problem of evil and suffering, the harm perpetrated in the name of religion, and the idea that a belief in miracles cannot be reconciled with science.

The greatest such “miracle” is the subject of Part 2: the origins of the universe. Collins outlines the theory of the Big Bang—a scientific fact that should “inspire mutual appreciation” (66) between scientists and believers—and the formation of the solar system and planet Earth. Then he discusses what geology, fossil records, and evolutionary science tell us about life on earth. Collins declares that the fact of evolution does not obviate the existence of a God who superintended the process.

In Part 3, Collins looks closely at the intersection between scientific topics and questions of faith. Much of the discomfort that organized religions have felt toward scientific theories has been due to an unnecessarily literal reading of the Bible. Collins shows that the first chapters of Genesis are meant as an allegorical statement of moral truth, not scientific fact. Scientists, in turn, have sometimes been needlessly antagonistic toward religion, putting people of faith on their guard against secularization. Both sides, Collins argues, need to find common ground.

In the four successive chapters, Collins outlines the various options that believers may adopt in response to the scientific theories. Collins finds creationism and Intelligent Design seriously wanting on scientific and on religious grounds. Instead, Collins champions a theory that respects science and faith in God equally: What Collins calls theistic evolution, or BioLogos. This theory affirms the truth of evolution while at the same time affirming the existence of God as the creator of the universe and the force that gives life its ultimate meaning and purpose. Collins makes an appeal to scientists and religious believers to cooperate in their search for truth, in the realization that their fields and missions are mutually enriching.