The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief is a book by Francis Collins in which he advocates theistic evolution. Francis Collins is an American physician-geneticist, noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes, and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP). In the book, Collins describes briefly the process by which he became a Christian.^[1][2]

Collins raises arguments for the idea of God from biology, astrophysics, psychology and other disciplines. He cites many famous thinkers, most prevalently C. S. Lewis, and also including Saint Augustine, Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin, Theodosius Dobzhansky and others. In 2007 Christianity Today judged it one of the best books of the previous year.

BioLogos

The book proposes the name "BioLogos" as a new term for theistic evolution.

Bios is the Greek word for "life". Logos is Greek for "word," with a broader meaning in Heracleitean Philosophy and Stoicism--namely the rational principle ordering the universe. In Christian theology, "Word" refers to Christ in this role, as the creative agent for all that exists. This application is especially elucidated the first section of the gospel of John, forming part the textual basis for Christian belief in the Trinity. It is an alternative title to God the Son for the second person of the trinity.

"BioLogos" expresses the belief that God is the source of all life and that life expresses the will of God. It represents a fresh new term for theistic evolution, a potentially confusing term for the position held by biologists who are also believers. BioLogos represents the view that science and faith can co-exist in harmony.

BioLogos rests on the following premises:

1. The universe came into being out of nothingness, by the hand of God, approximately 14 billion years ago.
2. Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.
3. 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.
4. Once evolution got under way no special supernatural intervention was required.
5. Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.
6. 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.

Reviews

In a review Robert K. Eberle wrote that Collins' "defense of evolution that is one of the stronger points in his book," but it "runs counter to the creationists and Intelligent Design crowd."^[3]

Sam Harris wrote a review, criticising Collins's waterfall argument with a comparison to the myth of Romulus and Remus, and arguing his treatment of altruism's evolution ignored kin selection and exaptation and that rationalists should ask whether evidence suggests the existence of God rather than whether it is compatible with it. As well as criticising Collins's treatment of the big bang, Harris accused Collins of misquoting Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking on religion and of misrepresenting the Galileo affair.

References

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