I don't recall ever having been so enlightened by a book as I was as I read through The Language of God. I've been listening to and watching videos of the late Christopher Hitchins, a brilliant writer and columnist who just happens to also be an atheist. In a presentation to a group of high school students, he challenged them to become familiar with the writings of his good friend and Christian, Francis Collins. Coming from Christopher Collins, I HAD to look the guy up. This turned out to be a very good thing.
After having taught middle school Science for the past fourteen years, I have become pretty familiar with the basics of evolution and the survival of the fittest theory. Charles Darwin struggled with what he believed to be the truth regarding the age of Earth, the changes that occur as organisms struggle to survive, and the conflict that he knew that he would experience if he stuck to his guns about what he believed to be the truth. But he did stick to his guns, and indeed, he did experience a great deal of conflict with the church, but his findings have influenced billions since then, and in fact, through technological advances, we are finding more and more evidence of the accuracy of his theories.
Collins is a Christian who believes in evolution. He believes that there is much that we don't understand but claim that we do. He presents ideas like these, including the following quote about doubt and the believer:
Doubt is an unavoidable part of belief. In the words of Paul Tillich, "Doubt isn't the
opposite of faith; If the case in favor of belief in God were utterly airtight, then the
world would be full of confident practitioners of a single faith. But imagine such a
world, where the opportunity to make a free choice about belief was taken away by
the certainty of the evidence. How interesting would that be?
He also deals with the question of the harm done throughout history in the name of religion. He also deals with how it is that a loving God can allow suffering in the world. He also deals with the issue of miracles.
Then, in chapter three, Collins discusses the the origins of the universe. The Big Bang is a very big topic, and lots has been written about it, but Collins does a superb job of covering it in a dozen or so pages.
More to come...
