The Dawn Treader

Here is Dr. Collins in his own words.

He realized that as a scientist "you're not supposed to decide something is true until you've looked at the data. And yet I had become an atheist without ever looking at the evidence whether God exists or not."

He began looking, and early in the process read Lewis' concise classic "Mere Christianity."

"In the very first chapter," he said, "all my arguments about the irrationality of faith lay in ruins."

Yet he was besieged by doubts during two years of struggle and study. Finally, he went hiking in Oregon's Cascades Mountains and one morning, "I fell on my knees and asked Christ to be my Lord and Savior. And he has been there ever since, the past 28 years, as the rock on which I stand."

In today's world, being a famous scientist and publically identifying yourself as a Bible believing Christian is a bit unusual.  Being highly respected by both naturalists and Bible believing Christians is even rarer indeed.  We will see how Dr. Collins fares.

How does he personally resolve the tension between working in a field dominated by naturalists (only40 percent of scientists describe themselves as religious)?

He seems to hold scientific knowledge in a separate compartment.

"Science's tools will never prove or disprove God's existence. For me the fundamental answers about the meaning of life come not from science but from a consideration of the origins of our uniquely human sense of right and wrong, and from the historical record of Christ's life on Earth. "

He also endorses macro evolution.  That draws a collective sigh of relief from the scientific community.  He is a theistic evolutionist based on these comments in a Time magazine article.  Another thing in his favor (with the naturalists) is that he opposes  their arch enemy -- Intelligent Design.  This goes over well at The Panda's Thumb as you might imagine.  A Christian who opposes ID is a Christian who is committed to staying safely on the reservation.

The more important question is how he views knowledge.  Does Collins view scientific knowledge as fact and religious knowledge as belief?  Or does he view all knowledge as fact?  Or does he view all knowledge as belief?  Does he have a two-tiered view of truth -- where scientific truth is held in higher esteem than other truth?

I can't find the answer to that question in any of the articles I have linked to.  We may get a hint in these sentences.

He realized that as a scientist "you're not supposed to decide something is true until you've looked at the data. And yet I had become an atheist without ever looking at the evidence whether God exists or not."

It seems Collins would consider the moral argument for God's existence (as presented in the C.S. Lewis classic Mere Christianity) as "data."  Most don't use the word data to describe opinions and beliefs.

He also makes this comment.

For me the fundamental answers about the meaning of life come not from science but from a consideration of the origins of our uniquely human sense of right and wrong, and from the historical record of Christ's life on Earth.

The "historical record" of Christ's life on Earth is as close as he comes to describing a religiously held belief being sustained by an objectively held truth about reality ... in this case, reality about something that happened in the past.

So I am not really sure about how Collins views truth and knowledge.

Two final things of note in Collins story.

The first is what caused him to be curious that faith might be true.

"But as a medical student he wondered why patients who were suffering and dying retained faith in God."

While I don't think it is a strong "objective" argument for the existence of God, there is something to be said for someone who acts on their faith even in the midst of trial.   The testimony of someone filled with faith even through the furnace of life is powerful.  History has proven that true time and again.

The second comment Collins makes is something that deserves a hearty amen.

"For me scientific discovery is also an occasion of worship."

Absolutely true.

Collins is certainly an interesting figure to keep your eye on at the busy (and sometimes rough and tumble) intersection of science and religion.