Domains for Sale -

2 responses so far ↓

• Dick Marti

  Mar 27, 2010 at 2:56 pm

  

  This is a sad little book. Geneticist Francis Collins goes out on a limb to gather these religious tracts, most of which have been printed elsewhere, and present them as justifications for belief. And the reasons for this “belief” are held to be higher or better than the reasons for reason in answering what troubles Collins so. As a scientist, he muddles science with religious talk; as a religionist, he muddles religion with talk of science. One reviewer of an earlier book of his noted that nowhere did Collins give reasons from within his own science (biology or genetics) as a justification for his own religious views; instead, he looked to astronomy and physics to provide answers.
  
  The “belief” spoken of in this book is, of course, Christianity. And while there is a piece from Gandhi, it hardly touches on Hindu theology. There are no contributions from Muslims or Jews. Spinoza is represented by no excerpts, even though his God is generally accepted as being the God of science—if science can be said to have one. And that brings up another point: nowhere is “God” defined. What Gof, or whose, are we reading about here? Is it assumed that each of these authors is referring to the same God?
  
  And this collection of essays, mostly time-worn pieces some from the distant past, is spoiled by one from Alvin Plantinga. One would have hoped that Collins would have been astute enough or discriminating enough in his views to see this piece as basically baloney. Plantinga is the self-appointed theologian of Intelligent Design, which has already bitten the dust, though its adherents, of course, doen’t see it that way. For a rather thorough review on Plantinga’s essay in this book see the article by P. Z. Myers on his blog at [...]
  
  Save your money. Buy something else.
  
  Rating: 2 / 5
• Demetrius

  Mar 27, 2010 at 5:40 pm

  

  Let me begin by saying that I appreciate very much Dr. Collins being willing to put his expertise as well as his reputation and worldview on the line. I only wish more top rate thinkers in various fields would have the boldness to come right out and state why they are Christians. The divide between the secular and the sacred is still very deep and the privatization of faith for many highly respected thinkers in our country needs to change. So for this, I thank Dr. Collins. In his prior book (The Language of God) I cannot say that I was a huge fan although I did appreciate what he was trying to do. I do not have any problems with God using natural processes to shape and develop life over time if that is what the evidence supports, so Dr. Collin’s position on biological evolution do not trouble me. What did trouble me was his fear of putting too much (if any) evidence out there from the arena of science for fear that it might become over-turned someday and then our faith gets another black eye. I do not understand why this is such a fearful thing. Every field of study in the world goes through the process of making claims based on evidences only to be challenged by new facts again. This does not keep anyone from positing propositions on the basis of the evidence that they do have at the time. When it comes to the complexity of the cellular world and the complexity of biological information, etc…I do not see why we cannot simply assert that undirected natural causes do not seem to be able to produce the levels of complexity that have been discovered and to use those fields of science as evidences for an Intelligent Source. This does not negate the possibility that this Intelligence (ie. God) chose to use evolutionary processes if that is what the evidence shows, but let’s put our position on the line according to the most reasonable scientific evidence we have and let us not continue to fear what future evidence might hold. This does nothing but make us irrelevant when it comes to making the claim that “All trust is God’s truth.” If we believe that, and I believe Dr. Collins probably does, then let us put some cards on the table then.

  As for his new book Belief, it’s a bit of a double edged sword for me. On one side, I love the breadth of opinion the wide ranging worldviews that are brought in to the discussion. I for one do not like to simply read people who hold my own position. Some of the most profound ideas and thoughts I have had about God and faith have come from people outside my own tradition. For example, I am not a Roman Catholic, but one of my top 5 favorite authors of all time is Archbishop Fulton Sheen (particularly his works called Peace of Soul and Lift Up Your Heart.) This being said, I also think that the latitude of traditions that are brought into the discussion are much too expansive. I realize that “faith” is a generalized term and does not mean a specific “faith”, but knowing Collin’s background and his intent for the justification of Christian faith in particular, a few of the contributors seemed to not advance his case as strongly as possibly some other contributors could have. Possibly even bringing in another top rate scientist would have been a great idea (ie. John Lennox, etc…) But having someone like Elie Wiesel (whom I highly respect) certainly did not advance the worldview ball very far in my opinion. If anything, it seemed like I was going over a couple speed bumps and had to slow down before I could get going again. Without belaboring this brief review, I enjoyed the book very much and only felt a few places could have been done differently. But I fall back on what I said before, I admire and respect a man like Dr. Collins for putting it all on the line and letting his name and reputation advance his worldview. Well done professor…
  Rating: 4 / 5