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Dr. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists. He works at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God and scripture.

Dr. Collins believes that faith in God and faith in science can coexist within a person and be harmonious. In The Language of God he makes his case for God and for science. He has heard every argument against faith from scientists, and he can refute them. He has also heard the needless rejection of scientific truths by some people of faith, and he can counter that, too. He explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes readers for a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry, and biology can all fit together with belief in God and the Bible. The Language of God is essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of faith: Why are we here? How did we get here? What does life mean?

Customer Reviews:

• I am on my 2nd reading
  I enjoyed it that much, and need to appreciate his expertise even more.
  
  I really appreciated the sensitivity to theology from the scientist. I have read attestations to belief in deity by other scientists who should have consulted a theologian to frame their case. ...more info
• Speech Impediment?
  Geneticist and Defender of the Faith Francis Collins on Jesus: "He claimed to be God... He also claimed to be able to forgive sins...He was humble..." A humble man who asserted his divinity and his power to absolve Man of sin---sometimes Believers say the darnedest things! Collins argues that DNA mutation is "the price we pay" for evolution, the "language of god" that results in continual improvement, by Natural Selection, of the species. But most mutations are detrimental, not beneficial, offer no survival advantage, and are not perpetuated; in fact, many result in deformity, disease, and/or death of the mutant. Collins' loving god must be (at the very least) multilingual--unless he suffers from an intractable (ungodly) speech impediment, surely he could have spoken us in a more mellifluous tongue. ...more info
• Not Quite what I expected but still very Good
  When I purchased this book I took it somewhat at face value and imagined that it would be a strong treatise on the Human Genome from the man whose efforts primarily coordinated the accomplishment of cataloguing the entire human genome. Further I was hoping for some clear evidence for belief, just as the cover states.
  
  My expectations weren't entirely met in that regard and I have to confess to a certain disappointment and sense that perhaps Dr. Collins or his publisher, decided to make that claim to sell books, rather than accurately represent what this book is.
  
  What this book is, in my opinion, is still a very valuable thing. This is an apologetics book that gives the autobiography of a very intelligent and successful scientist and explains very well, why science as a discipline and faith in the existence of God as revealed through Christianity, need not result in cognative dissonance.
  
  It is engagingly written. It addresses many of the main points needful in such a discussion today. It is a statement of faith from a man in a community often resistant to the idea of faith and from which it seems more statements of attack on faith come than support.
  
  The average reader will find the discussions on DNA and the genome educational and catch some of the awe and wonder of a scientist who is prepared to accept both the existence of God as well as deal properly with science and working with the evidence it provides.
  
  The advanced science reader already familiar with the basics of the field will not find a great deal of new material. The appendices address more in this realm than the main text itself.
  
  Francis Collins is a Theistic Evolutionist. This is not a new position. Collins personal story tells of how he moved from atheism through the writings of C.S. Lewis, who himself was effectively a theistic evolutionist, although for some different reasons perhaps than Dr. Collins. He gives a very good and reasonable defense for his position which helps, I believe to counteract the Young Earth Creationist movement's hijacking of the framing of the discussion and demonstrates that faith need not equate to intellectual suicide.
  
  That's a far cry however, from Evidence for his Belief.
  
  In that regard, Theistic Evolution is not about evidence so much as how one understands and interprets evidence. Important, but not what is claimed.
  
  It's still a worthwhile read and very thought provoking. I just wish it was presented more accurately as to what it is.
  
  4 Stars.
  
  Bart Breen...more info
• Good Spiritual Journey Read, But "Evidence" Lacking
  As a former Christian who became an atheist over several years of hard inquiry, I read this book to see if I had missed anything. In short, not theologically. His arguments do not adequately take the last few decades of serious New Testament biblical scholarship into account. In not doing so, they also fail to answer the key questions of why one particular system of belief and not another one. Moving from knowledge gap and intuition, to death on the cross is just too big of a leap for me. His spiritualism is heartfelt and real. However, it really does not provide much in the way of evidence for belief. It would not surprise me if his publisher wrote the title.
  
  It did remind me yet again, however, of what atheists are missing. His very honest, intelligent, and passionate discussion of his reasons for moving toward a more spiritual life was very humanistic and respectful in a way that, unfortunately, is missing these days from the increasingly vitriolic atheist camp. It is ironic that we who espouse humanism cannot be more humanistic. In terms of shear decency and who most readers would rather share the planet with, Collins puts the current crop of popular atheist authors to shame....more info
• Not Convinced Yet
  I have been moved tremendously by everything I have read about Dr. Collins work, the human genome project, and the incredible information science has uncovered. What is heartwarming is that he is a seeker of God, and gives God the credit as the creator of this universe. I believe humankind will continue to discover information that will show us there is a designer behind all we see around us.
  
  His analytical comments in the book criticizing Paley for his watch story as being childish in its reasoning, could just as well be applied to his own reasoning in putting it down.
  
  On pages 132 when he tries to address the fossil record and macro evolution, his explanations to me are a total gloss. He goes to the finch beak story and moves quickly away from it to an example more significant to him showing macro evolution. He references "sticklebacks", as "proof" that macro evolution occurs around us all the time. Whoa!! He goes on to speak of his contacting malaria somehow, after having been vaccinated against the disease, as somehow playing into his "scientific" support for macro evolution.
  
  I came away from the book marveling, appreciative of understanding, and respecting very highly the work of all involved in the human genome project. I also was in no way convinced evolution has occurred in the way he tries to take God out of the picture, and stick him back in at the same time.
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• Interesting synthesis of science and religion
  Dr. Frances Collins, a microbiologist in charge of the Human Genome Project, lays out his reasons for belief in God and why he believes faith and science are compatible. He discusses how he came to change from atheism to Christianity and the evidences he found of God's existence, such as "Moral Law" (the universal acceptance in all cultures of "right" and "wrong"). He also discusses the contributions of science in helping us to understand so much of the world around us. His explanation of the Big Bang and evolution are especially interesting, and cleared up some questions I had. He is critical of some currently popular concepts and movements such as Intelligent Design and Creationism, pointing out why they are baseless and counterproductive to their aims. He also tries to bridge the contentious gap between faith and science, arguing that each has its limits and how they complement each other.
  
  I read this book expecting it to be heavier on science than religion and was a bit disappointed to find it was the opposite. As someone who believes in God yet has always been fascinated by science, I appreciated most of all the discussions and evidences for the Big Bang theory and Darwin's Theory of Evolution (he also discusses the different uses of the word "theory"). His conversion story and explanations for his belief were nice, but I also appreciated his frank discussions of where many religious people go overboard. On the other side, his discussions of the contributions of science and it's limits was very enlightening. But Dr. Collins goes further to draw some conclusions which I'm not sure I can agree with or even if I fully understood. He argues for a concept called Theistic Evolution (which he proposes to rename BioLogos) which seeks to reconcile evolution with the story of creation.
  
  Overall, a very interesting book that will be most enlightening to those who can read it with an open mind. While I don't agree with all his conclusions it has certainly given me some things to think about....more info
• Half Biography, Half Science
  The Language of God seeks to do many things within its few pages, and it is mostly successful in the attempt. Collins describes his spiritual and scientific journeys (which for him are closely entwined), gives philosophical and scientific reasons for his theistic evolution (BioLogos as he calls it), and critiques naturalistic evolution and creationism. This may be too ambitious for a <300 page book, but it is still a good, light discussion on these issues. I struggled between a 3 and 4 star review, but went with 4 since it does not claim to be a more in depth book than it is.
  
  Collins has an easy-going, accessible, and entertaining writing style. For the most part, he wades through the rough waters of evolutionary debate with tact, respectfulness, and thoughtfulness. He occasionally makes broad, absolute statements about scientists of the different sides (a mistake many authors make). For example, "No serious biologist today doubts the theory of evolution to explain the complexity and diversity of life." I am annoyed by this type of all encompassing statement that cannot be backed up. Overall, Collins is fair in his treatment of the issues, though.
  
  One good aspect of the Language of God is that Collins understands his own limitations and the limitations of many of his readers. When it comes to theology and biblical interpretation, Collins does not try speak definitively since this is not his area of expertise. Furthermore, he knows that the fine, complex details of the science of evolutionary debate are beyond the average reader, and he takes this into account in his arguments.
  
  I certainly recommend this book, especially for those looking to read a variety of books from the different sides of the evolutionary debate. This is a good read from the theistic evolution viewpoint....more info
• Intellectual Bankruptcy
  "The Language of God" by Francis Collins is, by far, one of the sorriest attempts by an eminent scientist to reconcile his faith (Christianity) with a scientific worldview.
  First off, the subtitle, "A scientist presents evidence for belief," is grossly misleading. The so-called "evidence" that Collins presents is thinly hypothetical at best, and that is not "evidence" in the way most people understand it.
  The first chapter ("From Atheism To Belief") is the high point of the book. Collins talks about his life growing up, his becoming an atheist, and his conversion by reading C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." Right away, we should be suspicious: anyone who has read C.S. Lewis from an unbiased point of view should realize his arguments are downright pathetic. That leads to the first problem (and a major one it is seeing as Collins bases his entire system of faith upon this foundation) which is that Collins accepts the "Moral Law" argument given by Lewis. This immediately betrays Collins' ignorance in sociobiology, which is unforgivable for a scientist especially one of his eminence.
  Another problem, one of hypocrisy, appears in the second chapter. When addressing the evil done in the name of religion, he says we should keep in mind all the good things done in the name of religion. But then turns around and blames atheism for the doings of Stalin and Mao. (He conveniently forgot to mention both were megalomaniacs.) Now, while atheism is not a religion, but a position on a "supreme being", Collins does not mention any of the good done by secular organizations. Instead, he says "In fact, by denying the existence of any higher authority, atheism has the now realized potential to free humans completely from any responsibility not to oppress one another" (p. 42).
  Chapter three and four in the book has Collins explaining the origins of the universe and the origins of life on Earth. Basically, they are the same tired arguments we have all heard before: uncaused first cause, improbability, etc. Basically, if you are a thinking atheist, agnostic, skeptic, etc., these arguments will do nothing. Only a person with the inability to think, or read any other work on the subjects, will be convinced.
  Skipping ahead to chapter nine (five deals with Collins work on the human genome; six deals with Genesis, Galileo, and Darwin; seven deals with atheism and agnosticism and tells why they are irrational; eight deals with Creationism and tells why it is irrational), Collins approaches the subject of Intelligent Design. It is here that his arguments really fail. Collins criticizes Intelligent Design on the grounds that it is a "God of the gaps" theory. Intelligent Design proponents do not understand how certain complexities arose in nature, therefore attributing such "irreducible complexities" to the hand of God. Intelligent Design has been criticized on those grounds before. If we skip ahead to chapter ten (BioLogos), Collins writes "There are many subtle variants of theistic evolution, but a typical version rests upon the following premises...the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life...the precise mechanism of the origin of life remains unknown...humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation..." Just by reading this, we can see Collins is offering nothing but another "God of the gaps" theory. We do not understand how life arose of Earth, nor what caused the Big Bang, nor why the universe appears "finely tuned", nor why humans defy evolutionary explanation...yet. That is what science is all about: drawing conclusions based on empirical evidence and experiment.
  The final chapter (Truth Seekers) seems pointless.
  All in all, Collins has presented us with a book that would have served us better had it stayed a tree. His arguments are ad hoc and present no reason why we should believe in God. Also, the fact that Collins did not study certain branches of science shows that deep down, he is only holding on to what he wants to believe. If anyone wishes to read this book, borrow it. At least you can give it back, and not give money to this type of intellectual bankruptcy and faulty science.
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• Evidence for Science, Not for Belief
  I really liked this book. I do not buy any of Dr. Collins' arguments for God, but I really appreciated the depth of his understanding of evolution. This book is much better than Dawkins' The God Delusion for promoting science to people of faith. I have friends who do not believe in evolution because they feel it contradicts their understanding of Christianity. This is a book I would heartily recommend to them to help them better understand the fact of evolution without offending their religious convictions. Dr. Collins' "evidence" for the existence of God was clearly lacking and most of his arguments stem from C.S. Lewis (thus I am about to read Mere Christianity to better understand this perspective). He points to the moral law and the longing for God as evidence of God's existence. Evolution accounts for a moral law and can be observed in some form in nonhuman primates (for example, reciprocity). The longing for God does not mean that God is real; I long for my grandfather to still be alive, but this does not make him alive. Also, the longing for God being evident in every culture does not adequately address the fact of polytheism and other forms of faith that do not include the Christian conception of God, and also neglects Buddhism, which is transcendent but nontheistic. Dr. Collins' conception of God is much grander than the Bible's as it has been informed by science. But because there are still mysteries as to the beginning of the universe and the origin of life this means that the Christian conception of God is accurate seems to be lacking as an argument. Dr. Collins like people of faith in centuries past still believes that humans are part of the grand scheme and purpose of the universe and relates to facts of life as lessons from a loving God. For example, Dr. Collins relates how his daughter was raped. Collins' response to this was to believe that he was being taught by God that he could not protect his daughter. This to me seems like the early Christians believing that they are the center of the universe and everything that happens is to do with them. How Collins can believe in a loving and all-powerful God that allows his daughter to be raped is beyond me. I recognize that this belief helped him in this situation and I think it is good that he wants to forgive the perpetrator. However, this does not mean that God exists. Dr. Collins recognizes that the universe began 13.7 billion years ago and that life evolved, without God intervening, over millions of years. Dr. Collins then states that when humans came to be they were gifted with an immortal soul. It just seems unlikely and unparsimonious to assume this as a fact. I believe Dr. Collins has emotional reasons for believing in God, but this does not mean that God exists. To the extent that this belief creates better human beings, I am all for it. I think Jesus was an extraordinary moral teacher and people following his ethical example can only be a good thing. But it just seems more likely that God does not exist as conceived by religions. There is no Zeus, and likewise there is no Yahweh. It is important to remember the actual context of the Old Testament and God's behavior and come to realize that this God does not exist just as all of the other gods do not exist. And if he did exist, he wouldn't be worthy of worship in my opinion. Dr. Collins argues elegantly against the "God of the gaps" in evolutionary theory, but I feel he still appeals to this God in other areas such as the beginning of the universe. There is something we don't understand, so God must have done it. There is something to the argument, however to make the leap that the universe is so complex it must have been created by a god does not mean this is the Christian God. Why not Brahman or Aten? There are just too many leaps of faith to be considered evidence as the subtitle of the book suggests. That said, if one is to believe in God, surely this is the way to go about it, with a clear understanding of science and a realistic view of the natural world. Collins has a magnificent balance in his view that I admire, though I must confess that even though Collins considers it the most irrational position, I remain an atheist. Dr. Collins believes that Jesus rose from the dead and other similar myths. Certainly Dr. Collins recognizes myth when it comes from other cultures, but to ignore this in one's own culture to me seems irrational. Thank you for reading. ...more info
• Helpful for some Christians, but generally Unconvincing and Weak
  The Language of God features the perspective of Francis Collins, a world leader in genetics and head of the Human Genome Project, on the issue of reconciling science and faith. Collins begins by explaining his own history: how he came to be interested in science, and especially how he came to confess faith in Christ after experiencing a very secular upbringing. Collins offers insights of what initially lead him to faith: patients in his medical profession asking him big, spiritual questions, and C.S. Lewis' description of the Moral Law, the dilemma regarding interpreting Jesus in his historical personage, and the innate desire in human beings that finds fulfillment only in God. Collins goes about defending these views of Lewis, and championing their logic and profundity.
  
  The remainder of the book is Collins explaining how he personally is at peace with being both a scientist and a Christian. He goes at some length explaining what science has to say about God, describing some elements of design in the universe, and discussing the Big Bang. He also gives some evidence for macroevolution, all the while describing why the view of Young Earth Creationists regarding scientific interpretation of the world is deeply mistaken. Collins himself espouses the idea called "theistic evolution," a belief that God in his sovereign power guides evolution along, and that the natural laws are his tools. Though, Collins prefers to call this idea his coined term BioLogos. Collins even gives some of his own thoughts about how human beings could have evolved and at the same time be seen by Christians as being made in the image of God and gifted with soul. By the end of the book it is clearly seen that Collins believes that science is enhanced by a belief in God, and that science in no way threatens its Creator.
  
  While reading this book, I found myself very disappointed, especially during the first half in which it seems as if Collins is trying to convince the reader that it is very rational to believe in God, and that there is evidence that is very defensible. Personally, I am under the philosophical (rather Kierkegaardian, to be more specific) conviction that faith in God is something that is inexplicable, and that there is no amount of evidence that should be able to move a person to faith. In other words, if faith is founded on evidence, and if it can be destroyed if incontrovertible evidence existed in opposition to it, then it never was faith to begin with! Faith is the persistent and hopeful belief in the absurd. It is quite silly especially to go about proving the existence of God from nature, because the existence of God is only important for us if we prove the existence of a God who cares about us and wants to communicate with us, and nature can never, in any circumstance prove such a "romantic" thing! And proving that there may have been a "designer" is irrelevant to our lives; the god postulated is absolute nothingness unless it is described by a theology that comes about only by faith! So therefore, the only way one can say something important about God is if the person already has some sort of descriptive or at least intuitive faith, so it is pointless to say anything about God from mere observations of the world.
  
  I not only disagree with the intentions of Collins in the first half of the book; I also disagree with many of his arguments. The subtitle for the book "a scientist presents evidence for belief" is not fulfilled in the slightest. First of all, in his discussion of Agape being a stamp of the divine on humanity, he very flippantly dismisses all evolutionary theory on this matter. Sure, it may be a more difficult element to explain by evolution, but it is not impossible! Here Collins falls into the "god of the gaps" mode of thinking, though he argues against this mode later on. Indeed, natural selection can accomplish much diversity in form and function via direct and indirect means. It is not unfeasible to propose that caring for others and developing an ethics is a byproduct of the high cognitive and problem-solving abilities of humans evolving over time.
  
  There are other problematic arguments that Collins makes. First, he is not a very good theologian, and has no education at all in metaphysics. He relies heavily on the works of C.S. Lewis, and C.S. Lewis never claimed to be more than a reflective, amateur theologian. The Moral Law is a heavily debated issue that the history of philosophy has struggled with since the ancients, and Collins not only seems to attribute it to Lewis, but describes it so simply with little rebuttal. Also, Collins affirms Lewis' argument from desire, which claims that we were meant for another world if we have a desire which something in this world cannot satisfy. The criticisms of this argument are huge, as the argument is not even considered a proof! Just because we desire something does not mean that something exists, and it is easy to see that such a desire (a byproduct of evolution perhaps) can easily lead to construction of God.
  
  In addition, to put down the psychoanalytic idea that belief in God is just wish fulfillment, Collins asks, why would we want a God who curbs our freedom? Collins answer does not make sense metaphysically, as there is no freedom for mankind unless there are limits: Freedom would be meaningless and contentless without its contrary: limitation. Therefore, we would want there to be a God for meaning, so that we can be free. The psychoanalysts are not refuted.
  
  By the end of the book, however, I did come to an appreciation of Collins' work. I think that while his book was not necessarily for me, it definitely could benefit a wide audience, most especially people of faith who fear science. The simple theology he uses, his congenial tone, and the clear conviction in his writing that what he believes is the most sensible and fruitful view of God and science is enough to get a more general audience to open up their minds a bit and become more informed concerning this age-old debate. Collins writes clearly with many personal anecdotes and reflections to keep the reader interested. He was also the man to do it: as both a Christian and leading scientist, he commands attention and respect from the general audience by default. He did a great job pointing out the types of questions science is supposed to ask, and the types of questions theology is supposed to ask, but then again, there are many books out there that say the same thing. I would not necessarily recommend this book to a scientist who has a repugnance for belief in God, as I think Collins does a meager job at building a straw man, but I would recommend it to someone who is struggling with how his or her faith can cope with scientific discovery.
  
  So what do I think of this whole faith vs. science controversy? If it, by chance, has not shown through above, I believe that my faith has little bearing on the observations of scientific inquiry and vice-versa. I am very pleased with the idea that God created the world by whatever means he did, and that the natural laws, discoverable by science, are his movements. I do not believe that God had to ever use "supernatural" intervention, necessarily: even the resurrection of Christ from the dead could have been a "natural" law in a sense, but one that science has not been able to describe and predict! Genesis I interpret as a myth, but a quite important one that teaches us how we relate to God and He to us. I am content to know that my faith needs no evidence, and that science can never disprove God anyway. As for the raging controversy in the mainstream, however, I just encourage more respect, more books and more conversations that clear up the issues and use demystified language. Eventually, however, people will come around. They surely did about the Earth being round!
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• Some Comments on Thiestic Evolution
  The glaring gap in Dr. Collins's intellectual development from atheist to theist is his lack of knowledge of metaphysics. He falls for Stephen Jay Gould's idea that science and religion are two different "magisteriums" (Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life). To understand evolution a scientist needs to know that there are three methods of inquiry: science, metaphysics, and theology. The existence of God and the concept of the human soul are formal results in metaphysics arising, respectively, from the two existential propositions that human being are different from one another and yet equal to one another. For this branch of knowledge I recommend The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics by Norris Clarke, S. J. Metaphysics helps us to understand evolution in two ways: 1) Evolution only applies to the bodies of human beings, not their souls. 2) Intelligent design (ID) is bad science, not because of its critique of natural selection, but because ID is metaphysics, not science. ...more info
• Contribution to the body of knowledge for reconciling science and God
  Francis Collins, an acclaimed and respected scientist and leader of the Human Genome Project, offers commentary on reconciling science, evolution, deism, and the Judeo-Christian beliefs.
  
  In the first section of the book, Collins begins by invoking C.S. Lewis (which he does throughout the book) and his "Mere Christianity" argument for The Moral Law. This concept is key for Collins and provides the foundation for his beliefs since, as a biologist, he is fully committed to the theory of the evolution. He argues the Moral Law cannot be explained by science and evolution since "It cannot be accounted for by the drive of individual selfish genes to perpetuate themselves". Later in the book he confesses "The Moral Law still stands out for me as the strongest signpost to God".
  
  Here Collins indeed submits valid logic for Moral Law as proof for God, for refutation of Freud's assertion that God is "wishful thinking, inventing an answer because we want it to be true" and for the question of "why would a loving God allow suffering", but does not fully develop it. Basically he has just rehashed Lewis without shoring up any of Lewis' holes or adding fresh insight.
  
  It is tempting to stop here and question his argument, but that discourse is not really what "The Language of God" is about. Instead, rather, Collins hits his stride in the middle of the book with his well-researched assertion that the Big Bang theory and evolution are not necessarily mutually exclusive with deism and even the Judeo-Christian God. Collins' subject matter expertise in biology and genetics provide the means for an effective and convincing argument.
  
  It is during this discussion he introduces "God of the gaps" thinking which is the resorting to the explanation of specific divine action by God when scientific or human understanding fails. Way, way too many fundamentalists and evangelicals fall into this trap, and as Collins says, it does a disservice to Christianity. I have been searching for the phraseology to describe this for a long time.
  
  In the last section of the book, Collins takes on all extremes - Richard Dawkins and the atheists, the evangelical creationists, and the Intelligent Design camp. He provided a fair summary of these views and a compelling case against their biases.
  
  For me, what stands out in this part is the notion that as much as traditional fundamentalist-evangelical Christians want the Bible to be true, literal and inerrant (as one would think the Inspired Word of God should be), the scientific evidence inherently defeats that ... short of severe rationalization and cognitive dissonance, and quite frankly, blind stupidity. Unfortunately, the non-literal interpretation of any of the Bible puts believers on a slippery slope to eviscerating the tenets of the belief. Collins says "mature observers are used to living on slippery slopes and deciding on where to place a sensible stopping point" for liberal theology. He says "many sacred texts do indeed carry clear marks of eye-witness history" while "stories of Job and Jonah, of Adam and Eve, frankly do not carry that same historical ring." Maybe that could be a valid statement, but what is the test to determine whether an interpretation is literal or not? Collins does not offer one. Apparently he has not thought any further other than to to postulate that we *should* know.
  
  In his final formal chapter, Collins revisits his conversion from atheism and shares some deeply spiritual moments which do not really fit the tone of the previous ten chapters. He also makes passing comments that summarily dismiss proven and documented evidence that many New Testament passages have been discredited due to poor translation or biased editing of the copyists.
  
  "The Language of God" is a significant contribution to the body of knowledge that reconciles religion and science. Collins skillfully argues "the scientific and spiritual worldviews both have much to offer. Both provide differing but complementary ways of answering the world's greatest questions, and both can co-exist happily within the mind of an intellectually inquisitive person living in the 21st century". Unfortunately, the book is marred by under-developed logic on theology and textual criticism and some quite unexpected sappy sentimentalism. If the author had stayed on subject, I would have given a four or five star-rating, but as is, just a three.
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• Interesting science, questionable theology
  I read this book on the recommendation of a friend of mine who recently "converted" to theistic evolution from a young-earth position, in part because of this book. After reading it, I think that the sucess of this book will lie not in converting unbelievers to a creationistic position, but in convincing believers who do not believe in evolution to move to the theistic evolution position (if you consider that a success). To be honest, I would not be converted to belief in God by this book if I did not believe in him already. Most of Collins arguments for God come directly (often via quotes) from C. S. Lewis. This is not a bad thing, as I agree with most of what C. S. Lewis said, but it is not exactly new. The non-Lewis apologetic is Collins summation of the Anthropic Principle, the argument for God's existence through the fine tuning of the universe. Once again, this is not bad, and I agree with it, though once again it is something that can easily be found elsewhere.
  
  The unique part of this book is the discussion of Dr. Collins work with the human genome project (he was the head of the project) and his theistic evolution position. Of particular interest is his section on evidence for human evolution in his study of the human genome. I won't discuss his specific arguments/observations in this review because they require a bit of background information (which he provides) and because I imagine he makes the case much more convincingly that I would, especially since I am still not entirely convinced. At the very least it raises significant issues that non-evolutionistic Christians will have trouble answering, and it is well worth reading for any Christian concerned with the issue of how exactly we came to be here. I am not saying that you must take Collins position, and I myself have significant issues with believing that humans evolved (as I think it would require a significant reworking of our understanding of the Fall and the problem of evil, and it seems to require some sort of dualistic position on human nature), but even if you do not agree with his conclusions I think an intellectually honest Christian must at least encounter the evidence for or against evolution at the level of the genome and go where the evidence leads us.
  
  His idea that man evolved to a certain point and then God infused a soul into him and made him "human" seems to be somewhat in conflict with the Biblical emphasis on the importance of the totality of the human person, body and "soul." His position seems to create too great a chasm between the physical body and the soul, and I think that it leaves us with no real choice but a rather heavy dualism along the lines of Plato, with the soul and "spiritual" realm being "better" than the physical world. The Chuch has been struggling with the dichotomies that began with Plato's same chasm between physical and non-physical (see esp. Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth) for the last 2,000 years, and it seems like this position is poised to send us right back to the start of it again.
  
  When I say that he has questionable theology, I do not soley mean about the evolution of man, though that is part of it. He seems to take a rather universalistic position on the validity of all faiths. He frequently talks about the Great Faiths of the world, and says that he has found Christianity to be the best, but he seems to be implying that others are true for other people. It may be that I have misinterpreted him on this, and I hope I have, but that is the idea I got from reading it. He also advocates destructive research on cloned embryos, reasoning that they were not made in the traditional way and that they were not created to be birthed, so it is not a problem to destroy them. There were some other minor issues (like converting to Christianity because of a frozen waterfall split into three parts [repsenting the Trinity]), but for the most part his theology was not bad, just not very developed.
  
  In all, this is a very important and thought provoking book. As an apologetic tool, there are better books out there, but as a book that addresses the human genome in relation to the creation/evolution debate, as well a critique of both the Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design movements from a Chrisian perspective, this is a very good resource.
  
  Overall grade: A-
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• OMG! Not evolution again!?
  I enjoyed The Language of God, by Francis Collins, the head of the US government's part of Genome project that unravelled the genetic blueprint of humanity. But I'm afraid I did not like the book for the reasons Collins seemed to be hoping for. He was encouraging those with mechanistic and scientific perspectives to consider his "Theistic Evolution" as a way to reconcile scientific fact and a belief in God. As philosophy / theology I think the book was pretty weak - it was a thoughtful and heartfelt personal journey to a belief in God, but little more than that.
  
  The subtitle promises evidence for belief but Collins offers anecdotes, personal feelings, and CS Lewis quotes. Fine, but for the reasons I go into below I want some gosh darn burning bushes, thank you, and think that without them his argument is very weak.
  
  Collins does do an excellent job as scientist. First, he very effectively demolishes "young earth creationism" where proponents maintain the earth is less than 10,000 years old, as a very naive view. Next he tackles "Intelligent Design" and actually made me less sympathetic to this approach than I'd been before, suggesting it's a "god of the gaps" hypothesis that is already wearing down in the face of increasing understanding of the Darwinian evolutionary processes it claims to challenge . To Collins the scientific evidence is overwhelming and clear - basic chemistry and physics plus Darwinian style evolution explain pretty much all the organisms on the planet. I'm comfortable with that view because I think it springs from a combination of common sense observations and reason.
  
  Much of the book is summarized in Collins' key notions of Theistic Evolution. I'm comfortable with the science stuff but I simply don't understand two things that seem to resonate so strongly with him, and I think with many thoughtful people of faith. The first is that morality is a sign of God rather than a product of evolutionary and social forces over time. The second is that God has a personal relationship with humans and cares about us. Here are my concerns about those two ideas:
  
  Problem idea number 1: Morality has not and could not have evolved in our species from the same sorts of natural forces that evolved arms and legs and brains and babies.
  
  The concepts of morality that are so often cited as evidence of God seem to me instead to be pretty good evidence of social evolution, especially when viewed over time since the ideas about personal freedoms and responsibility and what constitutes immoral acts have changed so much.
  
  The biological structures in humans are very, very complex and required millions of years of natural selection. Rather than pushing us to perfection they pushed us *away* from failure. Once we had the power to reason and think we started to approach our evolutionary survival battles using social relationships and rule systems which evolved into current codes of conduct aka "morality". Sometimes these battles required a loser and this leads to the selfish motivations so prevalent in humanity. But it's also reasonable to assume that wanting to "win" would lead us to look for "win win" situations rather than "lose lose" or even "I win you lose". Economists call this "optimizing" and I think a rational being is going to logically seek "optimal" relationships even if selfishness is the primary driver.
  
  These optimal relations = morality are characterized by many of the principles we claim to hold dear like life, liberty, happiness, do unto others, no adultery, etc. However, as with biological evolution I think one suggestion that morality has evolved rather than been "handed down" to us from above is how defectively and subjectively we observe morality in our daily lives. If it was an objective truth from the mind of God it seems we'd have fewer moral disputes and transgressions.
  
  We fail in many basic tests such as human kindness, but more importantly those of us in affluent societies don't do much to share our resources or (more importantly) train others to implement systems that would better their lives on their own. But even this morality is subjective. For example well-meaning people can't even agree on how to improve the standard of living in sub Saharan Africa. Some say it's immoral not to fight global warming and work for less corporate involvement in poor countries. I'd say we need more corporate stuff to raise the standards. For many the corporate systems are an immoral form of organization, yet I'd argue that corporations are a good and moral way to organize business activity.
  
  Most agree that we all have a moral imperative to take action on some things, but we would not agree in many cases about what things need the action. And this happens when people share a lot of ultimate objectives. When we bring in fundamentally different moral systems the objective morality argument seems to break down even further.
  
  Bring in the sociopathic types of "morality" such as militant violence in the name of religion and you have our fellow humans suggesting that killing is fine if it leads to certain forms of governments. It's not reasonable (maybe I should say it's not "enough") to simply discard those views as defective products of God's free will experiments. They are moral codes just like yours or mine, yet they are very, very different.
  
  Clearly morality is most adequately explained as a somewhat subjective thing. Even those few things that we overwhelmingly agree about seem to me to fall into categories that would be powerful selection forces over time. Preserving children and human rights, for example. Yet even those simple moral precepts seem to break down quickly. Taliban morality says it's wrong to educate a female child, Cheney thinks torture is OK in several circumstances. If morality is objective then where is the rule book? The Bible, Koran, Torah don't offer consistent guidance by any stretch of the imagination, so we are left with human interpretations of morality.
  
  Problem idea number 2: God has a personal relationship with all of us, cares about our well being, and wants us to know him.
  
  First, I don't think one can reasonably challenge the idea that there *may be a God* outside of the physical world we observe - a prime mover or passive observer God. I'm even OK if you say God is out there all over the place as a manifesation of physical laws that govern things but he is very *passive* about things and not really a "conscious" God, just an all powerful collection of forces. I also won't challenge that maybe God started off the show and then cut us loose and now has other business to attend to so he's not around much if at all. HOWEVER what I think is *not* supportable is the assertion that God "cares" about us in the personal sort of way we understand from human to human interactions. Not supportable is the idea that God wants us to know he's out there, and cares about us, but provides no clear and powerful scientific evidence for his existence. Where is God's upside in this approach if he really wants us to know him and believe in him?
  
  If God *cares* about us, and wants us to believe in him, and wants us to thrive, why is he such an invisible parent? I'm somewhat familiar with arguments that suggest God felt free will was important, and Jesus and other prophets have been sent as "proof" of God, presumably because they could relate to humans better than God could if he appeared himself. But these really all beg the key question. Why aren't there more burning bushes? Why in this world of God's creation and love, if God *cares* about us and *cares* whether we believe in him, would he not make the evidence so overwhelming as to be "obvious" to Richard Dawkins and millions of other doubters? Agnostics and atheists are not bad people, and are not blind to evidence, and most would welcome even a modest presentation by God that would settle the issue powerfully in God's favor. Some would suggest "hey, the evidence is everywhere - you just need to open your eyes to it!", but this is not reasonable, because the things we observe every day are overwhelmingly within the province of scientific explanation. If God wants us to know him he'll need to do a bit more than just show us the world we can already explain and see without reference to God. Again, what is the downside here? What is the *problem* that happens if God makes his presence known clearly by scientific means? Why is God so shy?
  
  Much has been written explaining scenarios that contain a caring God but in which God's presence is not made overwhelmingly clear with burning bushes and such. Very few seem to tackle what I think is a key question - why is God such an absent and even abusive parent? We would call it child abuse if a parent sat on the sidelines and let their children fend for themselves in a hostile world, never identifying themselves clearly and providing no more guidance to their children than to the kids down the street. I've heard that you can attribute all of the sufferering in the world to humans and their free will, which I'm told God values. Yet those same people say God values and desires us to know him in a personal way, and he does provide us with plenty of evidence of his existence. God is either OK providing us with evidence or he is not. Why, if God so cares about us and wants us to know him does he not simply make a great cosmic presentation which clearly articulates those things he thinks are important? Many would then use their free will to conclude the evidence favored God. A few would not, but on balance God's objectives of more global harmony and more morality would be better preserved and free will would be left intact. I think some would suggest "Hey, God wants you to come to know him without all that fanfare!". But that's actually nonsensical because it's basically saying that there is enough information put out there by God for *some people* to come to terms with God on a personal level, but there is not enough information for those who want clean scientific evidence for belief. What's the downside of a few burning bushes?
  
  To me the answer seems clear - if there is a God, his personal relationship to us is very passive.
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• Thank God & Amazon.com
  Thank God for Francis S. Collins and his creative scientific perspectives concerning the natural aspects of God & Nature.
  
  Thank Amazon.com for the fine service it performs bringing products and information like this to the public.
  
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• Revelation never ends
  Dr Cooper has convincingly shown that a personal faith in a creative God is supported by the non-Canonical testimony of scientific research. His objective discussion of the processes by which the stuff of life develops is both rational and inspiring. When he strays into espousing one of the current options for deciding on the role of God (which he does in an open and honest way) he is no longer on objective ground and his argument invites debasing of his earlier scientific revelation. None-the-less, he has added convincing evidence that the God who became flesh to reveal Himself to humanity is also the Chief Scientist of the universe.
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• An Honest Discussion by a Leading Scientist
  Francis Collins is perhaps the world's leading scientist. His writing defeats the myth that science and religion are not compatible. They actually are similar in methodology and in their concern for truth....more info
• language of God?
  Sigh. The author based his argument on those made by C.S. Lewis. I read Lewis and saw the holes in his arguments by the time I was 14. Surely such a superb mind as that of the author can see as well if he cares to look. The author skips from an argument based on common moral compunctions to not only belief in God but belief in a God that is so self-righteous as to punish us for not living up to supposedly universal standards. Yet by the argument that same God created us with such flaws as to fail often in this supposedly lofty goal. So we end up with a God that creates flawed beings to eternally punish them for manifesting the very flaws they were created with? Such a God would be a meaningless and rather psychotic Great Wart on existence. Surely the author can do better.
  
  As for those moral compunctions they are very well explained by a mixture of Evolutionary Psychology, cultural refinement and human intelligence seeking to generalize its internal naturally occurring ethical proclivities. The author gives examples of the far outliers such as Mother Theresa as if these are proof of what these ethical compunctions are. On the contrary outliers grow out of a common naturally occuring base when very specific and extreme abstractions of some areas of ethics are unusually consistently applied and filtered through a supporting belief structure. So the author's primary argument is toothless.
  
  At the point of what arguments against his position the author deigned to entertain and this sophmoric "solutions" I gave up on this book. I skimmed other sections but I saw no improvement. I was severely disappointed and embarrassed that a great mind would write such drivel.
  
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• shame
  It's a shame he is considered an expert in the subject just because he is a scientist....more info
• Science and God DO mix
  In this day and age where spokespeople for education are working overtime on the message that people who believe in God are ignorant and simpleminded, Dr. Collins' book is a wonderful presentation that makes the point that not only do God and science live in a compatible existence, but God is the creator of science. By taking God out of science does not diminish His existence in science.
  
  My only critique is that Dr. Collin's is a little slow in getting to his points, but he makes great points when he gets there....more info
• Makes sense
  It was comforting to read that a man who has committed his life to science can also comfortably defend the human desire for faith. At times Collins goes a bit too deep into the biology for my layman taste, but I enjoyed this book at a very high level. I suggest this book for those who are open to the fact that science and faith are compatible. But if you are a staunch atheist or a literal interpretation type Christian, you wont be happy with the conclusions that Dr. Collins draws. I hope this book helps bridge the gap between science and faith....more info
• Great service
  I bought this book (from Amazon.com) the year it was first published. I bought the paper-bond copies for my college-age grand children recently. I was glad to see the cover just as good as in the hard-cover one. The books were delivered much earlier than anticipated. Great service again! CYL ...more info
• Terrible. Bad literature research, bad science, bad theology.
  I was very disappointed in this book.
  
  I have studied the theories of origins for 10 years. My educational and career background is in both biology and theology. I very much enjoy exploring the various theories, opinions, and points of view---when they are credible.
  
  I could not believe my eyes when I read many blatantly false and flimsy statements in this book! What the heck?! This author is supposed to be a brilliant scientist!
  
  Concerning several of the theories he "critiques," he did not do his literature research well. Some of his arguments have strong, published rebuttals that anyone with half a brain would see the perfect logic and scientific merit in.
  
  In addition, his lack of scriptural knowledge is very obvious to anyone who is intimately familiar with the Bible.
  
  I was hoping for a thought-provoking, ground-breaking idea from this guy. What I got was a bunch of grossly misrepresented and misinterpreted science and scripture.
  
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• Only three stars
  Francis S. Collins's "The Language of God," is very interesting (worth three stars). Nevertheless, I cannot grade this book higher than three stars because Collins misunderstands the conflict between religion and science, in my view.
  
  My issue with Collins is that while he correctly points to the failure of the God of the gaps argument (page 93), he falls for the gaps argument when applied in reverse. For Collins, any naturalistic explanation (built up from prior conceptions of chance and necessity) is good enough unless it is disproved. He never owns this burden; it is always the untrained religious folks that must carry it. In this way, Darwin's account of evolution is never tested; rather the data is always reinterpreted to protect this a priori assumption without ever realizing that the naturalist foundation is only an assumption. Therefore, Collins misunderstands the opposition brought by some of those that oppose Darwin's theory. Collins has fooled himself into believing that if only these religious folks understood that present science is compatible with a belief in God then the conflict will resolve itself. He does not realize that some of our objections have to do with particular naturalistic assumptions that are never brought to Popper's test of refutation; he never realizes that there could be better theories, and he forgets that our criticisms have more to do with the science we see than with religion. Collins would find it more productive to be critical of religion, following Richard Dawkins's lead, and this will permit him to see the nature of this conflict a little better. Religion is not perfect either, in my view, and it too requires a critical eye to prosper.
  
  Collins (page 107) equivocates with the meaning of evolution, referring to "evolution, as a mechanism." There is only evolution as an observation noting the various changes that have occurred in the history of life, and then there is a theory of this evolution that is proposed as a mechanism if we are to follow Darwin. The two meanings are not the same! Collins never stops to appreciate that there may be a better theory than the one proposed by Darwin. And it is not that a better theory is that hard to discover, it is only that certain naturalists come off as too dogmatic to give alternatives a fair hearing (which is why many of the religious folks are so concerned).
  
  For example, Collins (133 to 133) looks to the sequencing and evaluation of the human genome as evidence supporting Darwin's theory, forgetting that evolution (as an observed fact) is not the same as the proposed mechanism. Darwin predicted evolution by slow and gradual steps, but the fewness of our human genes (thought to be 20,000 to 25,000) implies a high level of interactive complexity that was unanticipated by Darwin. If any thing, the discoveries (found in the wake of the human genome) give their support to Stephen J. Gould's "punctuated equilibrium," where large and abrupt changes are part of our evolution. Collins (page 124) writes on the "surprises" found from reading the human genome, but a surprise can only be a surprise if it is unanticipated (unless of course the data is always reinterpreted to fit a prior ideal).
  
  Collins (page 141) summarizes his observations: "The examples reported here from the study of genomes, plus others that could fill hundreds of books of this length, provide the kind of molecular support for the theory of evolution that has convinced virtually all working biologists that Darwin's framework of variation and natural selection is unquestionably correct." However, a close read of Collins's evidence only points strongly to an evolution by way of common descent. Common ancestors are not problematic, in my view. Yet Collins has convinced himself that this is the stumbling block which prevents his endorsement of Darwinism from finding its wider acceptance, he writes: "Believers would be well advised to look carefully at the overwhelming weight of scientific data supporting the view of relatedness of all living things, including ourselves." The problem is that Collins equivocates again, and does little to justify Darwin's version of evolution as a particular. Collins is unaware of this slip along with "virtually all working biologists" that have so blinded themselves like this. I find this very sad.
  
  Collins (Part One) does a good job describing his own emergence from atheism and eventually his becoming a believer in God; he describes his encounter with the writings of C.S. Lewis. I am sorry I can't be more positive. Perhaps what I am looking for is this, Collins (page 116) writes on the discovery of the cystic fibrosis gene: " I wrote a song to commemorate the gene discovery. Music has always helped me express and experience things in ways that simple words cannot. Though my guitar skills are only modest, I find great joy in those moments where people raise their voices together. That experience is made up more of spirit than of science. I found myself unable to hold back the tears as these legions of good people rose from their seats and sang along with the chorus."
  
  It is unlikely that life's passions can be so explained by Darwin's mechanism of evolution, and it has been our passions that drove our evolution.
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• The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
  The book came very quickly and was in very good condition. I would definitely buy from this seller again....more info