I finally got around to reading this "The Language of God" and I have to say that it was one of the most unexpectedly memorable books I've read. I became interested in this book after seeing a couple different authors mention it in their own books and I found a copy at my local used bookstore. Francis Collins is a human physician/geneticist, led the human genome project, and one of the world's leading scientists in the search to treat genetic diseases. He is also a devout Christian.
This book's primary objective is to convince readers that faith and science are totally compatible. He addresses both skeptics and believers alike. He implores believers not to be afraid of science and makes a MOUNTAIN of excellent arguments why a believer's faith may be strengthened and matured, but not threatened by the overwhelming scientific consensus on various issues including but not limited to evolution and cosmology. He also addresses skeptics with his defense as to why belief in a God like the Judeo-Christian God he worships is the most logical worldview. I think he does a better job speaking to believers than he does to skeptics.
Unquestionably, this man is brilliant. I learned a lot reading this book. But his arguments in defense of Christian apologetics were devastatingly ordinary. I read this book primarily out of curiosity about what a world renowned scientist's theistic Christian faith would look like. Very little of what I read in this book was new to me, but I have never read a book with this combination of scientific and religious worldviews. He delivers scathing rebuttals to young earth creationism, "intelligent design," "God of the gaps" thinking, and biblical literalism - possibly better than any that I've ever read (and I've read some good ones). His rebuttals to atheism and agnosticism sadly only address very narrow definitions of very broad descriptive terms.
His Apologetic Arguments
He proposes a worldview he calls "BioLogos" which is essentially that God designed the universe and the laws in which it operates and set the big bang in motion without needing to intervene because his design was perfect from the beginning. He designed the universe to be hospitable to life and allowed planets such as our own to independently produce their own life, knowing in advance what would evolve. Unlike a deistic God, who would have created us and then left, Collins believes that God remains present in our world and throughout the universe. As for mankind, Collins suggests that at a certain point in our evolution, God endowed us with our souls or "humanity" and that, before that moment, we were just advance apes.
Toward the end of the book, he claims that this belief does not rely on "God of the gaps" thinking - that it will "not go out of style or be disproved by future scientific discoveries." Earlier in the chapter, he says,
"BioLogos doesn't try to wedge God into gaps in our understanding of the natural world; it proposes God as the answer to questions science was never intended for address, such as, 'How did the universe get here?' 'What is the meaning of life?' 'What happens to us after we die?' Unlike Intelligent Design, BioLogos is not intended as a scientific theory. Its truth can only be tested by the spiritual logic of the heart, the mind, and the soul."
Besides the fact that "spiritual logic" has never been shown to produce consistently reliable results, his worldview STILL relies on "God of the gaps" thinking. "How did the universe get here?" That's a totally scientific question. There are right and wrong answers and empiricism is necessary. "What is the meaning of life?" Philosophical question that should rely heavily on scientific data. "What happens to us after we die?" Also a scientific question about which answers should not be embraced without empirical backing.
In the last chapter, he refers to a parable about a man who went deep-sea fishing with a net with holes 3 inches wide and concluded that there were no fish smaller than 3 inches. "If we are using the scientific net to catch our particular version of truth, we should not be surprised that it does not catch the evidence of spirit." That is a lazy argument and this is why: If there is indeed supernatural activity happening around us in this world and it has ANY impact on our natural lives, it would leave natural evidence. Think like waves left by a ship. You don't have to see the ship to be able to deduce by its waves that it just passed.
He spends a considerable time discussing an objective and universal "moral law" but merely expects the reader to agree with his assumption that it is self-evident and real. He frequently cites worn out C.S. Lewis arguments. He insists that God is a monotheistic God, desires a personal relationship with us and is benevolent, but gives no defense for why he believes those things besides emotional anecdotes from his life.
Conclusion
In this, I found a surprising mix of extremely well-defended arguments with profoundly poorly-defended arguments. I think he spent more than 50% of the book making sense. The appendix of this book addressed concerns of bioethics and deepened my understanding of cloning and stem cell research. But the parts where he wasn't making sense had me pulling my hair out and scribbling comments in the margins. To me, reading this book was an overwhelming testimony to the fact that exceedingly intelligent people (and arguably Francis Collins could be in the genius territory) are still susceptible to really dumb ideas. I have no doubt that Collins is smarter than I and he is undoubtedly also a kindhearted individual, but his credibility did not make his apologetics more believable. If anything, it made it shocking that so much critical thinking could be shut off in only certain areas of his intellectual life. Nevertheless, I respect the shit out of this guy. I'm really glad he wrote this book and I'm really glad I read it. I absolutely recommend it. Whether you are a devout Christian, a fully-horned atheist such as myself, or somewhere else, it's a book that keeps you on your toes and you're likely to learn a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment