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A Book Review
by Chuck DeGroat
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence
for
Belief
By Francis Collins
Free Press
ISBN-13: 978-0743286398
With endorsements from Newt
Gingrich, Naomi Judd, and Robert Schuller, I could hardly believe that
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief could be
the book to heal the long-standing rift between science and faith. Perhaps I
was not exercising my powers of positive thinking, but it irked me, from the
outset, to read Collins’ assertion that this book would demonstrate the
entirely complementary nature of the principles of faith and the principles
of science. I’m tired of the old school modernism that seeks to jive our
sacred text with the scientific method. That said, Collins has a story to
tell like anyone else, and that’s worth listening to.
As the respected director leading the Human Genome
Project and an evangelical Christian, Collins appears to have the pedigree
to speak into both worlds. He writes for a broad audience in a style that
demonstrates his command of science while drawing in the reader with his own
autobiographical journey to faith. His personal narrative is one of the most
appealing aspects of the book, akin to C. S. Lewis, the theologian he quotes
most often throughout the book. His explanations of the Big Bang theory,
DNA, and other complex scientific concepts require little scientific
background to understand. It is clear why his writing has had popular
appeal, even finding its way into the Crystal Cathedral.
However, the book fails to deliver in its disregard for
the biblical text. Working from a modernistic paradigm, Collins seems to see
the world as a puzzle which, when figured out, will reveal the explanation
of all things. In this paradigm, Scripture is exorcised from its social,
historical, and literary setting and summarized in the so-called “rational”
principles of theology and philosophy. The author’s version of the facts of
faith are then compared with the author’s version of the facts of science in
the vacuum of scientific analysis. The conclusion is obvious for the
rational person—the reader is expected to embrace faith because it is
reasonable.
Collins is well-intentioned in his effort. I love his
appreciation of the natural world. I love that he has recognized that “the
beauty of the spheres” is, indeed, God’s Beauty. But he writes as a
scientist, unengaged, for the most part, with the central text of the
faith—The Bible. In other words, he misses the beauty of the Story. In his
anxiousness to render science as rational and complementary to faith, his
ends up telling an alternative story—the story of a modernistic faith which
bows to a rational God. And he tells this story in a way that, while
philosophically amenable to Theism, fails to engage the romance, risk, and
adventure of the biblical narrative.
Unlike science, Scripture plays by a different set of
rules. These rules are not irrational but re-define rationality. The stories
of Scripture represent what Brueggemann calls the “wild, unfettered, and
free” actions of a Sovereign God who has authored a gripping and dramatic
plot. Crazy things happen in this story—women and children are driven from
their homes, whole cities are plundered, a prostitute’s actions provide the
way, a good king engages in adultery and murder, a virgin conceives a child,
a Messiah is born in a shit-infested cave, and a murderer becomes the
greatest evangelist of the early church. This narrative resists being boiled
down to brute facts. It appears to us as the Narrative, and changes our
narratives not because it is scientifically plausible, but because it is
“foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1). The people of this story are not compelled
by its reasonableness in the way that we typically think of it. Indeed, much
of Scripture is entirely unreasonable, inviting the biblical responses of
complaint, lament, and eventually praise. But even then, the praise is not a
shallow, happy-clappy chorus, but the unmitigated joy of a heart that has
seen the darkness of the valley and has emerged into the Light of Salvation.
It’s that Story that is ultimately compelling to a watching world.
In the end, while one may be persuaded after reading
this book to embrace the author’s version of rational faith, he or she will
need to contend with the deeply disturbing counter-rationalities of the
biblical Story. Perhaps, this is why biblical faith is not akin to Gnostic
enlightenment, but is more like jumping off a cliff without a rope.
Surrender and dependence, I have found, is much harder than assenting to a
few rational principles. For one who reads and embraces this book, I pray
that it leads to a deeper look into the risky pilgrim faith to which we are
called as Christians. Ultimately, our Story’s logic is centered upon a
lonely tree in Jerusalem, where the unthinkable really did happen.
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