October 21, 2007 10:00 AM
Can Faith and Science be Reconciled?
Dr. Francis Collins grew up in a family that did not practice religion. He was an atheist until he attended medical school and began to hear gravely ill patients describe their faith in God. One day a patient asked, “Doctor, what do you believe?”
Her question disturbed Collins. Suddenly he realized that he, as a scientist, had failed to examine the evidence for God’s existence. Although he assumed there would be no such evidence, Collins began to study the works of C. S. Lewis and observe nature more closely. This effort brought him close to the edge of what he considers proof of God’s existence. He made a leap of faith 27 years ago, becoming a follower of Jesus.
Collins, who led the Human Genome Project, does not see conflict between his religious faith and his practice of science. He sees evidence of God in the order of nature and in seeming disorder, such as DNA “mistakes” necessary to evolutionary development. The evolutionary process shows “God’s plan for creating human beings over a long period of time.”
Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III turns to the topic of prayer, asking Collins, “What difference can prayer make?” Through prayer, Collins tries to understand God’s plan for him, but he does not believe that his prayers manipulate God into doing something that he wants. “I have experienced through prayer opportunities to come to peace about issues where I was feeling very stirred up,” Collins says. “That is not because God has changed the situation, but because he has changed me.” This scientist expresses the view that Christ’s resurrection demonstrates God’s intervention in the natural world.
Collins believes the Big Bang theory that the universe came into being out of nothing—ex nihilo—4.55 billion years ago. The Big Bang points to God’s existence, he asserts. “Why does that cry out for God?” Collins asks rhetorically. “Well, we have not observed nature to create itself... The explanation cannot be a natural one, or you haven’t solved the problem. So the only answer I can see is that there has to be a creator who is outside of nature, and that sounds like God.”