Francis Collins grew up an
avowed atheist. He enrolled in Yale University as a young man and there his
studies in science further confirmed his disbelief in God. He concluded that religion
and faith was a carryover from an earlier, irrational time, and now that
science had begun to figure out how things really work, and so we didn’t need
the crutch of God anymore.
Midway through his
scientific career, Collins changed courses and became a doctor. He was not
prepared for how the medical profession would challenge his airtight worldview.
What changed his thinking was how his patients handled death. Many had terrible
diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of
railing at God, they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort
and reassurance. This was interesting and unsettling to Dr. Collins.
Dr. Collins said, “As I
began to ask a few questions of those people, I realized something very
fundamental: I had made a decision to reject any faith view of the world
without ever really knowing what it was that I had rejected. And that worried
me. As a scientist, you're not supposed to make decisions without the data. It
was pretty clear I hadn't done any data collecting here about what these faiths
stood for.”
Collins started talking to
local Methodist minister who answered his questions about God. Then he started
reading C.S. Lewis’ classic work, Mere
Christianity. Collins long held atheism began to crack. “I didn't want this
conclusion,” speaking of God’s existence. “I was very happy with the idea that
God didn't exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could
not turn away. I had to keep turning those pages. I had to keep trying to
understand this. I had to see where it led. But I still didn't want to make
that decision to believe.”
Collins ended up giving
his life to Christ at the age of twenty-seven. In 1993 he was given one of the
most prestigious jobs in all of science. He became the director of The Human
Genome Project whose mission was to map out and decode the genetic code found
in DNA.
In 2006 he released his
groundbreaking book, The Language of God in
which he presented staggering evidence in favor of a Divine designer. Consider
just one piece of information:
“At the moment of
conception, a fertilized human egg is about the size of a pinhead. Yet it contains
information equivalent to about six billion chemical letters. This is enough
information to fill 1000 books, 500 pages thick with print so small you would
need a microscope to read it! Moreover, a live reading of that genetic code present
in just one human cell, at the rate of three letters per second, would take
thirty-one years reading nonstop day and night. And if all the chemical letters
in the human body were printed in books, it is estimated they would fill the
Grand Canyon fifty times!”
Author and speaker Ravi
Zacharias, tells this amazing experience in his book, The Grand Weaver:
Some
time ago I had the privilege to speak at a conference at Johns Hopkins
University on the theme “What Does It Mean to Be Human?” Before my address,
Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project and the co-mapper of
human DNA, presented his talk. He spoke of the intelligibility and marvel of
the book of life, filled with more than three billion bits of information. In a
strange way, he became both the subject and the object of his study, both the
designer and the design of his research. Extraordinary thoughts swarmed within
me as I listened, virtually tuning in and out of the talk in order to reflect
on the wonder of it all.
In
his last slide, he showed two pictures side by side. On the left appeared a
magnificent photo of the stained-glass rose window from Yorkminster Cathedral
in Yorkshire, England, its symmetry radiating from the center, its colors and
geometric patterns spectacular—clearly a work of art purposefully designed by a
gifted artist. Its sheer beauty stirred the mind.
On
the right side of the screen appeared a slide showing a cross section of a
strand of human DNA. The picture did more than take away one’s breath; it was
awesome in the profoundest sense of the term—not just beautiful, but
overwhelming. And it almost mirrored the pattern of the rose window in
Yorkminster.
The
audience gasped at the sight, for it saw itself. The design, the color, the
splendor left everyone speechless, even though it is this very design that
makes us capable of speech. Because of this design we can think in profound
ways, but we felt paralyzed by the thought and could go no further. Because of
that design we remained trapped in time but were momentarily lifted to the
eternal. Because of that design we were capable of love and suddenly could see
the loveliness of who we are.
We
can map out the human genome and in it see the evidence of a great
Cartographer. We can plan and now see a great Planner. We can sing and now see
poetry in matter. We speculate and see the intricacies of purpose. We live,
seeing the blueprint of life. And we die, but we can look through the keyhole
of life. At Johns Hopkins that day we saw the handiwork of the One who made us
for himself.”[1]
Whether an atheist by
choice or by callousness, it takes a lot of energy to maintain atheism. It
takes energy to surpass evidence that is abundantly available. In Romans
1:18-20 Paul wrote about those who suppress the truth, “For what can be known
about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible
attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly
perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been
made. So they are without excuse.”
We have overwhelming
evidence for God, but that evidence can only lead us so far. Often times people
stop at the edge of reason and the beginning of faith and insist on another
piece of evidence before they take that step. However, we must come to point
where we say, “God there is no way I can know everything, but I believe there
is enough evidence to place my trust in what you have said about Your Son being
the way to eternal life.”
Collins wrote, “I do not
believe that the God who created all the universe, and who communes with His
people through prayer and spiritual insight, would expect us to deny the
obvious truths of the natural world that science has revealed to us, in order
to prove our love for Him . . . The God of the Bible is also the God of the
genome. He can be worshiped in the cathedral or the laboratory.”[2]
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