Review: “Language of God,” By J Marsolo
There are many books and articles on evolution but the best book I have read for clarity and conciseness is “Language of God,” by Francis S. Collins, Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Darwin argued that all life forms share a common ancestor so there is a descent through evolution. The descent or evolution is a natural random process. To many this leads to the conclusion that the creation account in Genesis in the Old Testament or Torah is false, and most importantly that God did not create man and man is not created in the image of God. There was no planning, we are a mistake. This is a basis for atheism.
Darwin did not explain how evolution resulted in the origin of man. Nor does Darwin explain the mechanics of how if we descended from a common ancestor how one species became another species. The most common evolution argument is that we descended from an ape. There is no clear logical explanation by Darwin or any of his supporters why some apes became man and the rest remained as apes or changed to another species except that it happened through a random process. According to Darwin it was a random act, not planned by anyone.
The popularity of Darwin’s view especially among atheists, leftists, and other with similar views is that it eliminates God as the creator. If we descended from some puddle twelve billion years ago in a random manner then we are nothing but a mistake, there is no God, no afterlife, and no objective morality.
If there is no God, then there is no Ten Commandments of the Torah which is the primary basis for objective morality. This is the view of the communists/leftist totalitarians, many of whom now call themselves “progressives,” who believe the state is the only basis for all laws and morality. If the state decides morality, then there is no constant objective morality because the state decides what is morality as it suits the government in power. Think of Bubba and Crooked Hillary Clinton, Obama, and China Joe Biden as the arbiters of morality.
The Catholic, and other religious, view is not opposed to the mechanics of evolution provided that if there was a change from ape to man, the change was at some point directed, planned, or designed by God who then infused man with a soul. This view is not acceptable to those who want to eliminate God. The religious objection is not to the mechanics of evolution but to the origin or starting point of evolution that does not include God as the One who planned the evolutionary process.
Francis Collins, a biologist, was head of the Human Genome Project that mapped out the DNA and an expert on DNA. He was an atheist who returned to the Christian faith. In his book he reconciles belief in God with the science of DNA. He believes the study of DNA supports the theory of evolution to the extent that it explains how life evolved.
For example, on page 67, Collins, writing about the “Big Bang’ says:
“The Big Bang cries out for a divine explanation. It forces the conclusion that nature had a defined beginning. I cannot see how nature could have created itself. Only a supernatural force that is outside of space and time could have done that.”
And on page 82:
“For the Judeo-Christian tradition, the opening words of Genesis (‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’) are entirely compatible with the Big Bang. In one notable example, Pope Pius XII of the Roman Catholic Church was a strong supporter of the Big Bang theory even before its scientific underpinnings were established.”
Collins believes that while evolution explains the mechanics of how life evolved it does not disprove that God “worked out his creative plan by means of evolution.” Collins disagrees with the argument that science demands atheism. He says:
“If God is outside on nature, then science can neither prove nor disprove His existence. Atheism itself must therefore be considered a form of blind faith, in that it adopts a belief system that cannot be defended on the basis of pure reason…” p.165.
Collins argues against intelligent design and creationism but argues for “theistic evolution,” which means that God, who is not limited to time or space, “created the universe and established natural laws that govern it…. God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts…God chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek fellowship with Him.”
Collins states this view is compatible with science and the monotheistic religions.
A very interesting graph on page 137 compares the chromosomes of humans and chimpanzees. They are similar in size and number except that in humans chromosome 2 is made up of head-to-head fusion while in a chimp chromosome two are separate, not fused, and marked 2A and 2B. Collins cites this as strong evidence to support evolution from a common ancestor.
The science described by Collins supports the idea that God created the universe and man in that at some point God infused “man” with a soul and free will. The attacks on Genesis assume the literal truth of creation in six modern calendar days. But Genesis was not written about three thousand years ago as a scientific DNA text to describe DNA and evolution. The Torah was written to state that God created the universe and all life, and to give the moral law to us. This is contrary to the atheists who use evolution to argue that there is no God which means no objective morality, and the state is their god.
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The idea that even if God created that primordial pond of ooze, that would make the atheists cringe at the thought of having to defend what they already can’t. An atheist really just has a problem with accepting divinity, in any form, and they will jump through impossible hoops to defend their idea, until they can’t. I was already sold on the theory of divine creation, and this just makes my faith more solid.
Thanks for the review.
“…they will jump through impossible hoops to defend their idea, until they can’t…”
I concur. Militant atheists criticize “faith” while relying on it to pursue their own dogma.
You’re welcome.
If one does not believe that God did creation by setting the DNA for life an the universe then you have to believe that life and the universe just happened and that DNA just happened, without any order and purpose. Our planet Earth just happened to be set up for life. Everything just happened. This defies common sense, logic, and reasoning.
That is true. It is also important that we go far beyond a simply dismissal of atheist and a belief that God exists. Even the demons believe that God exists and acknowledge His power. They do not love Him. They do not serve Him. They do not know Him.
The person who believes that God exists, but never acknowledges and repents of their sin, accepting the gift of redemption through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ will end up in the same hell as the atheist.
Collins is a smart guy. He is also wrong. Evolution simply does not hold up under scrutiny. DNA material does not increase its function. It can change within what it has, it can mutate, but it cannot just appear from nothing. Therefore, the idea of macro evolution is simply impossible. It won’t happen and we have no evidence it has ever happened, no matter how many millions of years you wait. Primordial ooze will never evolve into a human being.
Secondly, the whole ape to man concept misses the forest for the trees. There is a close DNA link between apes and men. However, that doesn’t even being to explain how the primordial ooze evolved into an ape that eventually evolved into a man. The reason they don’t try and explain that is because the concept is absurd. It is much easier to sell ape to man than puddle of ooze to man.
Third, if you believe in God as Collins claims to, then you must understand the nature of God. Rarely does God do miraculous work by subtle means. He works among us in those means, but when God makes a statement, he typically makes a statement. Jesus is a great example. There is no historical basis to claim he existed, but did not do what the Gospels record that he did. The historical record of his existence for a secular perspective, is much stronger than many other historical figures which everyone accepted as existing. Jesus performed such miracles that you must either accept or reject him. There is no room for the not divine, but a “good teacher” or “great man” idea. Some cling to it, but it is baseless and just as lacking in evidence as to declare he never existed at all.
All throughout the Bible, God acts in such ways that man has no choice but to acknowledge Him for who He is, as the all powerful God of the universe. Otherwise, it leaves room for man to claim he did it or it was just random chance. This is not an absolute, but it leaves little likelihood that God would decide to use a process, even one He created, that takes millions of years to get where he is going. To do this, you also have to throw out most of the Bible and decide it is just a dramatized morality tale. If that is the case, then you know nothing about the God you claim to believe exists because nothing in the Bible can then be relied on. Therefore, you don’t know God. If you don’t know God, then you are not one of His and you are simply a less honest version of the atheists who just openly denies God exists because he doesn’t want to be subject to a higher authority.
There are plenty of people much more qualified to answer the how and why questions from a science standpoint than I am. Several of them work at creation.com as well as others. The science quickly gets over my head, but not the logic and critical thinking.
As a side note, I would caution anyone against pulling in too tightly with Francis Collins. Review his work, positions and involvement with the creation of covid and you will see a guy that has no problem lying to your face. Don’t take my word for it. Do a search on him and see for yourself.
This man, Dr. John Lennox, makes the most complete argument for the existence of God that I have ever seen. This is only a clip, and the full debate is well worth watching. Imagine a mathematician making that argument. He is that good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otrqzITuSqE