Why this Scientist Believes in God

[HowdyDoo]

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God

POSTED: 6:15 p.m. EDT, April 4, 2007

More on CNN TV: Questions of science, sex, salvation. What is a Christian? A two-part special on "Anderson Cooper 360°," Wednesday, Thursday, 10 p.m. ET.

By Dr. Francis Collins

Special to CNN

Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?" (Watch Francis Collins discuss how he came to believe in God )

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.

For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

[The Gremlin]

excellent post, in the truest sense of the word.

it shows that creationism can incorporate evolution, and that literal adherence to religious texts or dogma is unecessary for belief and faith.....i think.

[Osirian]

Oh dear

(Just kidding).

Cool article. Pity one has to become a doctor to realize that the two aren't incompatible though.

[aussiemermaid]

I remeber having an argument in High school with the boys who were athiest. They couldnt understand why i did biology as a subject but believed in God. They would fight to be "right", even saying that science therories about the big bang and what not have been "proven". I asked how did it happen, and they told me about the atom molecules forming and exploding, and my question was, "but how did that get there?", and every time they would come back with some scientific based answer of "to make CO2 you one atom of carbon and 2 of oxygen so thats how it formed" (im only using CO2 as an example), and i would ask, "but who put those atoms there to make it?" If you lok past that science stuff, and ask how did it get there, where it it come from, who put it there to happen?", then it makes you think. What started the process?

I see how evolution works, and my own answer to that is God created something, and from there he improved and make the next in line, more superior that what it was before....New and Imporved.

[Radian]

Hey AUSSIEMERMAID, I luuuuuuve that avatar....love that rabbit.... hahahah

GREAT article Howdydoo!!

[aussiemermaid]

Thanks Sunny

[Radian]

Im not hijacking thread, but, important cause I don't meet rabbit folks too often.. :}

Hey Aussiemermaid, He looks like mine, mine is grey though-- but same exact rabbit lol... is that yours? sure is cute.

[Radian]

Oh dear

(Just kidding).

Cool article. Pity one has to become a doctor to realize that the two aren't incompatible though.

I don't believe you have to be a Doctor, you have to open yourself up to it. Being totally spiritually aware- that doesn't take education, but learning to listen to your senses.

[aussiemermaid]

Im not hijacking thread, but, important cause I don't meet rabbit folks too often.. :}

Hey Aussiemermaid, He looks like mine, mine is grey though-- but same exact rabbit lol... is that yours? sure is cute.

Yeah shes mine!!! Shes exactly like a dog though!!! we let her out inside and i found her looking out the window on the lounge!! Shes a dwarf lope! hehe

[Nephilim_Slayer]

Interesting article

[Shadow_Hill]

I don't think a belief that God exists and a belief in science are mutually exclusive. But I get people telling me, when I say I believe in science, that I'm an atheist, and when I say I believe there is a creator they tell me I'm a Christian. Actually, I'm still having trouble explaining to peeps how I can believe there is a creator and not have faith. For the most part people get plonked into one category or another... but there are soooo many others.

[Raptor]

Science doesn't exclude the possibility of a creator, but organized religion? Nah.

I remeber having an argument in High school with the boys who were athiest. They couldnt understand why i did biology as a subject but believed in God. They would fight to be "right", even saying that science therories about the big bang and what not have been "proven". I asked how did it happen, and they told me about the atom molecules forming and exploding, and my question was, "but how did that get there?", and every time they would come back with some scientific based answer of "to make CO2 you one atom of carbon and 2 of oxygen so thats how it formed" (im only using CO2 as an example), and i would ask, "but who put those atoms there to make it?" If you lok past that science stuff, and ask how did it get there, where it it come from, who put it there to happen?", then it makes you think. What started the process?

I see how evolution works, and my own answer to that is God created something, and from there he improved and make the next in line, more superior that what it was before....New and Imporved.

The fact that we don't know where everything initially came from definetely doesn't suggest a god is responsible. All it implies is that we don't know yet. We don't understand the nature of the universe, we don't know that there even has to be a 'beginning', our thoughts are restricted by our every day observations.

So correct me if I'm wrong, your thoughts are; we don't know where energy/matter came from, so a god must be responsible. Okay, so where did that god come from?

Edited April 5, 2007 by Raptor X7

[GoddessWhispers]

One and the same thing, really, as I see it. Science looks for the answer to why and what makes everything to exist. And religion claims to know why, and call it god. So while religion thinks it's found the answer, Science, by it's very existence, implies there is an answer. And both sides keep looking to be proven right. Some to the day they die.

This is why I think at least the spirit of that famous and often decried, Pascals Wager, is present in this particular scientist's philosophy. What ever floats your boat. As they say. I think, given how many boats there are, it still makes for an interesting cruise on the lake.

[Shadow_Hill]

Not all of us reason there is a creator because we cannot explain where everything came from... to fill gaps, so to speak. Personally, it is what I do see around me which suggests design, and it is basically that simple. The reason that God and science fit together perfectly for me is that I do not look for absolute truths in anything... I do not expect any path to provide all answers. And to be honest I do not want to have them all... then there would be no more reason to look, and it's the looking part that I enjoy.

I have said before that I hope we don't suddenly know everything when we die... that would be my idea of hell.

[aussiemermaid]

Science doesn't exclude the possibility of a creator, but organized religion? Nah.

The fact that we don't know where everything initially came from definetely doesn't suggest a god is responsible. All it implies is that we don't know yet. We don't understand the nature of the universe, we don't know that there even has to be a 'beginning', our thoughts are restricted by our every day observations.

So correct me if I'm wrong, your thoughts are; we don't know where energy/matter came from, so a god must be responsible. Okay, so where did that god come from?

Not really! my whole point was, to those boys, that they couldnt prove that it was all science. Of coure i believe in a creator (namely God), but like you have just pointed out, i also can not prove or state where or how god got there and did what i believe he did!

This was my exact point. No one knows where it all started!

And can you help me understand what you mean by the "beginning" and not having one???-Thanks

[IamsSon]

Excellent post HowdyDoo!

I think the doctor's main point in discussing evolution and creation was actually that it is not where you stand on that debate that decides who you are, it's where you stand in regards to Jesus that is the point.