You may not be aware that there is an ongoing discussion on the Spectrum Blog dealing with a recent book authored by Francis Colling, the renowned scientist in charge of the Human Genome Project. He claims to be a convert to Christianity, but I wonder how can a convert to the Christian faith sill hold to his beliefs in evolution, which ignores what the Bible teaches about creation, the original sin, and the plan of redemption. I want to share with you one of the comments I submitted to Spectrum in response to the many comments from participants. I am including a couple of links at the botton of this page in case you want to read those blogs.

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I have read all the comments of those who have tried to help me figure out what to do with Collins’ arguments favoring a marriage between evolution and Christianity. I agree with Cliff that evolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive. I cannot reconcile two diametrically opposed worldviews. The Bible paints a picture of a fallen humanity in need of divine help.

Collins tells me that such help is unavailable. God created the universe, provided the fine tuning for its existence, and then let it develop and evolve at random. This sounds like an absent, deadbeat father, who limits his activity to procreation. This is not the picture of God I get from the Bible and from Jesus Christ.

Collins sounds like an honest scientist and an honest seeker of God, but he seems to have a terrible blind spot, which prevents him from realizing that the picture of the God he worships is a pitiful caricature of the God revealed by Jesus Christ. If humans are the result of a long protracted evolutionary random process, with death existing for millions of years before the appearance of Homo Sapiens, then sin and salvation is a mere figment of my own imagination, and I have no need of a Savior.

If Collins is right, I see no reason to hope for a resurrection and a future eternal life with God and those I love; I will never see again my dear parents or my lovely daughter who died in a car accident twelve years ago. Collins’ science will never allow me to fulfill my dreams of a life free from suffering, disappointment and loss. This life is all I will get for all my effort at living a decent and honest life. The many sacrifices I have made for the sake of humanity will loose all their meaning the day I am gone.

Beth tells me that there is no scientific alternative to evolution at the present time. Perhaps she is right, but I believe in science. I believe that science is possible thanks to the Creator of life. I cannot show where Collins went wrong in his blatant rejection of the Common Design alternative to Darwin’s Common Descent theory because I am not a scientist. Nevertheless, I do believe and hope that someone who understands the intricacies of the DNA and the Human Genome Project will eventually discover where Collins went wrong.

Cameron tells me that finding fault with Collin’s logic is not productive. I have a hard time accepting this. If God is the author of science, then the facts of science, interpreted correctly should agree with the main message of the Bible, which point to a Creator, to a fall from grace, and to salvation through Jesus Christ. The Bible may contain scientific minor errors, but it cannot be wrong regarding the science of salvation.

Cliff tells me that Collins is blinded by his past experience and cannot see but a connection between his faith in God and his belief in evolution. This means that he is misinterpreting the scientific facts. If this is true, then someone who understands the Human Genome and DNA should be able to provide me with the correct interpretation of those scientific facts.

Elaine tells me that reading Genesis literally does not help. I am not trying to do that. What I am saying is that the Bible, from Genesis through Revelation teaches me one main lesson: Homo Sapiens was the result of a direct creation by God, he rebelled against heaven, and God sent his Son to save humanity from eternal death. If the Bible is wrong on this central issue, then there is no hope for humanity.

I agree with Tim who believes that evolution may be going strong today, but the day will come when a revolution will take place. I think that Christian scientists have a duty to hasten the coming of such a day when evolution will be replaced with revolution. Notice that for this to happen all we need to do is to add an “r” to “evolution.”

Gerard wonders whether science has ruled out the resurrection. I believe that if humanity is the outcome of a long protracted evolution with death and suffering taking place for thousands of years before the appearance of Homo Sapiens, then sin and salvation looses its meaning, and resurrection makes no sense. Elaine suggests that resurrection has nothing to do with science. True, but we should not allow science to destroy our faith in God’s promised resurrection. Resurrection is the undoing of the original sin. If original sin is a myth, then the resurrection is a myth as well!

Alexander claims that both Nic and Cliff are cursing the scientific date. I cannot accept this. I am not cursing the data, but rather asking someone to interpret the data correctly for me. Gerard tells me that Collins is honest. No doubt. There are many honest people who have been deceived by the Great Deceiver. I agree with Gerhard that the resurrection is not mere poetry, but rather a sure promise by the one who keeps his promises. He promised to come the first time, and he did, knowing that he would suffer. Why would he fail to keep his promise to come back to reap the fruits of his labor?

Elaine says that there is not need to validate the resurrection. True, but there is a need to validate the fact that the resurrection is the logical corollary for the plan of salvation, which was a response to sin and rebellion. Evolution ignores both.

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Read more:

1. http://www.spectrummagazine.org/reviews/book_reviews/2008/01/02/favorite_books_2007#comment-1088

2. http://spectrummagazine.org/reviews/book_reviews/2007/11/16/language_god

My Letter to Dr. Sean Pitman

Cliff: I agree with you that what Francis Collins did was to try to adapt Christianity to the prevalent views of our time; nevertheless, by doing so, he distorted Christianity beyond recognition. He sounds like a very honest man, and I believe that the Lord used him in his genome research project for the benefit of humanity, but by retaining his belief in evolution, he twisted the clear teachings of Scripture that emphasize that sin, predation, and death are the direct results of sin and rebellion.

Tom: You suggested that Satan has been active in distorting the clarity of the Bio-mass. Could you elaborate and clarify this? Did this distortion include the fossil record?

Jeff: I hope Tom’s comments were helpful regarding Dr. Jack Provonsha’s hypothesis dealing with the existence of suffering, predation, and death prior the creation of Adam and Eve. I had the privilege of sitting at his feet for a couple of decades in his Sabbath School class. He was very popular, and he was forced to hold two sessions every Sabbath because if you were a few minutes late for his main 9:30 session, you had to seat on the floor.

I remember that when he returned from a science field trip, he told us that after deep soul searching, he decided that in the event the fossil record were to prove beyond any doubt that suffering, predation, and death did predate the creation of Adam and Eve by millions of years, then he would conclude that said geologic record of animals should be attributed to the activity of Satan after he rebelled against the God of heaven. Under such a scenario, the death of animal would still be the result of sin—not Adams sin, but rather the sin of Lucifer.

Beth: I am glad that we agree that Collins seems to jump to an unwarranted conclusion by suggesting that by falsifying the Intelligent Design hypothesis evolution is proved to be the logical explanation for origins. If science were to show how life could have started by spontaneous generation, this would not prove that evolution is the only explanation for life. Collins argues that certain aspects of the development of the flagellum machine could be explained by natural selection and the random gene mutation. In the event science could explain how the entire machine could have originated without the intervention of an intelligence design, this would not prove that this is necessarily the way the flagellum originated. Intelligent design would still remain as an alternative option.

If you were to find on a beach the word “Hello!” scribbled on the sand, and you could explain how the wind, the sea waves, or the activity of birds could be responsible for said curious sand formation, this would not prove that the random activity of nature did produce this. The alternative hypothesis that this was evidence of intelligent design would still remain as an option!

I believe that ID, correctly inderstood, provides a scientific alternative to evolution. There is no need to identify this entity with a divine agency. It could be merely aliens. Scientists have been searching for evidence for the existence of intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, and nobody is arguing that SETI should be relegated to the religious seminaries. If scientists engaged in this scientific program were to detect signals coming from space within specific narrow parameters, it would be evidence that the signals were produced by intelligent entities. Likewise, the origin of life bears evidence that it could have been produced by the activity of a highly intelligent entity which you could identify as either an alien or a divine being. By including the ID hypothesis as an explanation for the origin of life, we are not crossing the line separating science from theology.

I have to disagree with your suggestion that the theory of evolution is not concerned with the origin of life. All you need is to take a look at the biology textbooks currently used in schools, including some of our SDA academies. I also disagree with the suggestion that positing the existence of a fine tuner forces us to explain the origin of a fine tuner. Let me use an example from the police work. When experts are assigned to a crime scene, their task is to determine the cause of death: Was it accident, suicide, or murder?

Suppose the crime expert determines that it was murder, this does not mean that his conclusion would be invalidated because we ignore the origin of the murderer. Finding the identity and origin of the murderer is a completely separate task, and even if the police fail to solve this enigma, the fact will remain that they have a murder case. This means that if the origin of life on our planet is attributed to the intelligent activity of an extraterrestrial agent, this fact will not be negated by arguing that we have no explanation for the origin of said agent. In other words: If we attribute the origin of the universe to a fine tuner, we have no need to solve the problem of the origin of said entity.

You claim that those believing in the hypothesis that the universe evidences fine tuning are in the minority. Let me remind you that the most vociferous defenders of the theory of evolution do unashamedly admit this. Have you read the books authored by Dawkins? As far as I have seen, those arguing on both sides of the ID controversy do admit fine tuning. The difference is that in one case the fine tuning is assigned to a fine tuner and the other to the random activity of natural forces.

Beth & Elaine: I admit that there is no need to read the Genesis record in a strictly literal manner. It is true that the order of creation events found in chapter one of Genesis does not necessarily agree with what is recorded in the following chapter. The Bible was not the result of dictation, but rather inspiration, where the writer was forced to use his experience and expertise to explain God’s ideas in human imperfect language. Some SDA theologians even suggest that the author of Genesis was forced to express God’s time in human terms. I would not go this far. Nevertheless, we cannot take the liberty of distorting the core message of the Bible which asserts that suffering, predation, and death are the result of sin and rebellion, and that the solution to the sin problem is forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

It is true that we will never prove God’s existence. It is also true that science will never prove that we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees and mice. All we can do is examine the scientific evidence and draw our conclusions, but the common sequence of genetic information we share with mice can also be explained by the common design alternative hypothesis.

You state that the moral code can be explained on the basis of survival. Do you mean the survival of the group or the survival of the individual? Why would non-humans be interested in the survival of the group, quite often at the expense of the life of the individual? For example, if there is no intelligent design, why would male penguins risk their own survival for months in frigid weather for the sake of incubating the next generation of penguins while their mates are fishing in the ocean?  

Glen: I believe that the Intelligent Design hypothesis is alive and well, and this is why,  after a century and a half of evolutionary indoctrination in our public schools paid at taxpayers’ expense, a clear majority of Americans still believe that we are the result of intelligent design instead of natural selection and the random mutation of genes. I have asked several SDA scientists who understand the intricacies of the human genome to review Collins book in order to figure out where he went wrong in rejecting ID. I hope one of them will respond.

BioLogos rests upon several premises:

The universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion years ago.

Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.

Here is where Collins argues for evidence of the "Anthropic Principle".  Though limited and though Collins might argue otherwise, this principle is a form of Intelligent Design theory.

While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time.

This argument is very interesting in context.  On the one hand Collins argues that the precise ordering of the laws of nature give clear evidence of requiring a Designer for the universe itself while on the other hand the precise ordering of the building blocks needed to produce a living thing, while equally unexplanable, are probably still the result of some as yet unknown non-deliberate force of nature?   

Collins seems to me to be talking out of both sides of his mount here.  You can't have it both ways. If the basis for your belief in God is, on the one hand, based on phenomena that go clearly beyond what known non-deliberate forces of nature can achieve, then it would seem reasonable, from that perspective, that any other phenomenon that does the same thing would constitute good evidence of deliberate intelligent activity as well.

Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required.

If this is true, and if one can find evidence to support this truth that is indeed overwhelming, this "truth" would make the idea that God is "good" quite laughable indeed.  

Surely Collins realizes that the Darwinian mechanism of random mutation and natural selection is a brutal and insanely cruel process. Yes, it is a real force of nature and it does actual work to preserve what already exists in a beneficially functional state.  However, to suggest that it was God's original plan to have this horrific mechanism being his primary "creative" force is to paint God in the most evil light possible.  This view requires that God intentionally used a method that would cause great suffering and pain to exist on this planet for sentient beings over the course of many hundreds of millions of years.   

Would anyone really stand in moral awe of such a God or actually love such a brutal "creator"? How could the Biblical authors actually portray this sort of evil, suffering, death, and survival of the fittest as abnormal in God's universe?  Why would they write about the New Heaven and the New Earth as a place were lions "eat grass like an ox"? and where nothing will "harm or kill" ever again?  Or, how can such a God be described as feeling pain whenever a sparrow falls wounded to the ground?  

It seems, from the perspective of the Biblical authors anyway, that our current reality on this planet, where such evolutionary forces are indeed in play, is a aberration in God's universe. These authors argue that this aberation is of recent origin and that it will be completely dealt with "soon" and will no longer exist throughout the rest of eternity.  

Beyond these moral problems, there is a great deal of scientific evidence that suggests that the proposed evolutionary mechanism of random mutation and natural selection is not the creative force Collins claims it is.  Sure, it can give rise to some novel functional systems. There are a great many undeniable examples of this.  However, if one looks closely at these examples, it becomes very clear that all of them are very low-level functions, requiring no more than a few hundred fairly specified protein building blocks (amino acid residues) at minimum. In fact, with each additional minimum structural threshold requirement, the evolutionary mechanism shows a stalling out effect that is exponential in nature.

 

 As it turns out, no novel system of function has ever been shown to evolve when it has a minimum structural threshold requirement beyond 1,000 fairly specified amino acid residues or codons of DNA.  Yet, every single living thing has many systems that are far more complex than this.  How did these systems come to be?  Well, by Collins logical employ of a "God" to explain the precise ordering of the laws of nature needed for life to exist in the universe, the same logic could be used to suggest that God is also needed to form the precise ordering of high-level systems beyond 1000aa - systems that could not evolve via random mutation and natural selection this side of trillions upon trillions of years without the input of pre-existing high-level intelligence and deliberate creative power.   

 

For further information on this concept, see the following link.

Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.

Kinda makes you wonder what would make God come to Earth to die for an advanced ape who's only moral heritage is, "Survival of the Fittest".

But Humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history.

So, the argument is that God stepped in at some point and put the moral law into the hearts of humans? - after they had evolved from amoral apes?  All along the rule of survival had been based on selfishness, and then, one day, suddenly, God tweaks something so that humans have a conscience that urges them to be totally selfless, giving, caring, and empathetic? - to actually abhor the result of the very "creative" evolutionary process that produced them? 

"If one accepts these six premises," Collins says, "then an entirely plausible, intellectually satisfying, and logically consistent synthesis emerges: God, who is not limited in space or time, created the universe and established natural laws that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts. Most remarkable, God intentionally 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. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to disobey the Moral Law.

This perspective makes it possible for the scientist-believer to be intellectually fulfilled and spiritually alive, both worshiping God and using the tools of science to uncover some of the awesome mysteries of His creation. 

From my perspective, anyway, I could not love or worship the God Collins envisions.  If I actually saw the evidence for the existence of Collins' God, I'd hate him.  I might be impressed by his power, but I would by no means be impressed by his methods.  The method of creation proposed by Collins are cruel tortuous methods by any definition of the terms and I for one would not like to live forever in such a universe with such a God.  Given my own druthers, I much prefer the God described in the Bible as one who is far more pained by this place and its state than I am and looks eagerly to "making everything new" - like it was originally intended to be. A place where death and sorrow are no more.   

I also think that this "preference" of mine is back up by the overwhelming weight of evidence that I've come across so far.  I think very brilliant minds, like Collins', have simply been confused by certain interpretations of the data that are not what they might appear at first approximation.  And yes, I do think that Collins is only looking at the data supporting the evolutionary mechanism superficially.  A closer examination of this same data would show limits for the evolutionary mechanism that are just as clearly defined and "fined tuned" as the laws of nature Collins points to as clear evidence of God's existence.

Hope this helps Nic.
 
Sean