The Language of God by Francis Collins.
I found this book very helpful. It encourages Christians who believe in theistic evolution to speak up and out, for the Christian Scientist’s position is the one being heard by the non-Christian world, and this is doing damage to the witness of Christ.
I am not “a scientist” , but Collins is. He is certainly a believer in the Bible, converted out of atheism. I found his arguments balanced, accessible and convincing for now.
However I caution, we need to remember Romans 14 in this discussion, not to despise or judge others who think differently.
Here are some points I gleaned from the book-
- Theistic evolution is compatible with Genesis 1-2. Theistic evolution is the belief that God created the world slowly, over a long period, through evolutionary processes.
- A “theory” is a framework with substantive backing. Eg. The theory of gravitation, the theory of relativity, or the germ theory. They can be overturned, and have in the past (eg. Copernicus’ discovery of the orbits of the planets around the sun), but it is quite rare. Evolution is a theory like this- it is not just an idea dreamed up by Darwin on a sailing boat. It has lots of independent support.
- Regarding the Big Bang, Edwin Hubble studied the rate at which neighbouring galaxies are receding from our own. Others have developed further his studies, and worked backwards to ‘conclude’ (for now), that the earth began 14 billion years ago. There is additional evidence (quite compelling) that Hubble is probably right. Eg. Microwave measurements; the ratios of certain elements in the universe.
Interestingly, scientists cannot explain what happened at the beginning. That is called a “singularity” and the laws of physics break down there. But this is not a problem for the Christian. God brought this set of events into reality. Collins gives some examples of some physicists sounding downright theological too when they try to explain what happened. The big bang cries out for divine explanation.
- Geological studies of radioactive chemical elements and fossils, all independent studies, give results that are strikingly concordant, pointing to an age of the earth that is 4.55 billion years old (with an estimated error of about 1 percent). Some 400 million years ago the prebiotic environment gave rise to life. No one knows at present, how life began.
- In the area of molecular biology, Collins is at his best. This is his area of expertise. The human genome and its structure supports the idea that we have evolved from a common ancestor to other species. Eg.p 129 “ Darwin’s theory predicts that mutations that do not affect function (namely, those located in “junk DNA”) will accumulate steadily over time. Mutations in the coding regions of genes, however, are expected to be observed less frequently, since most of these will be deleterious, and only a rare such event will provide a selective advantage and be retained during the evolutionary process. That is exactly what is observed. This latter phenomenon even applies to the fine details of the coding regions of genes… If, as some might argue, these genomes were created by individual acts of creation, why would this particular feature appear?”.
Or another example, in comparing the chimpanzee and the human chromosome set, “ The human has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, but the chimpanzee has twenty four. The difference in the chromosome number appears to be a consequence of two ancestral chromosomes having fused together to generate human chromosome 2. That the human must be a fusion is further suggested by studying gorilla and orang-utan- they each have twenty-four pairs of chromosomes, looking like the chimp.
Recently, with the determination of the complete sequence of the human genome, it has become possible to look at the precise location where this proposed chromosomal fusion must have happened. The sequence at that location- along the long arm of chromosome 2- is truly remarkable. Without getting into technical details, let me just say that special sequences occur at the tips of all primate chromosomes. Those sequences generally do not occur elsewhere. But they are found right where evolution would have predicted, in the middle of our fused second chromosome. The fusion that occurred as we evolved from apes has left its DNA imprint here. It is very difficult to understand this observation without postulating a common ancestor”
- There are some notable conservative Protestant theologians who have accepted evolution as “a theory of the method of divine providence” (B.B. Warfield). Darwin’s own personal beliefs remain ambiguous. At one time he called himself a theist, and another an agnostic. Darwin himself, far from being ostracised by the religious community, was buried in Westminster Abbey.
- When considering the scientific worldview and Christianity, we need to be careful we don’t make the Bible say more than it is alleging to say. Collins cites Saint Augustine, probably one of the greatest of all Christian intellects, who said we need to beware of turning biblical texts into precise scientific treatises. “In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for trust justly undermines this position, we too fall with it”. A great quote!.