Customer Reviews
There's no evidence here - By: Nicholas Pidgeon, 20 Jun 2008 
"A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief," is the subtitle of this book. My review will assess this claim.
Collins presents 2 types of evidence. He tells us there are features of our world that need a supernatural explanation. He believes the universal longing for God means God must exist.
1. There are features of our world that need a supernatural explanation.
Collins describes a puzzle. Science cannot explain human morality, he thinks, nor the origin of the universe, nor the many coincidences that make the universe suitable for life. He has a solution to this puzzle. He proposes the hypothesis that an invisible being outside of space & time is responsible. Now, he supplies not one speck of evidence to support his claim. His hypothesis contains no process, no detail, no explanation. The analysis goes little further than, "It's supernatural & it just happened." The hypothesis relies entirely on the idea that there are remarkable things which we can't explain so a supernatural being must be responsible.
Which, of course, raises a question, who or what could create a being so extraordinary it could create a universe, life & human morality? God's god?
This we-don't-know-so God-must-be-responsible reasoning can be easily dismissed. Here's writer who manages a particularly good job:
"Various cultures have traditionallly tried to ascribe to God various natural phenomena that the science of the day had been unable to sort out - whether a solar eclipse or the beauty of a flower. But those theories have a dismal history. Advances in science ultimately fill those gaps, to the dismay of those who attached their faith to them."
Quite. And the author? Collins himself. See page 193. The mystery is why he can't see that his own views on human morality, the Big Bang & the fine tuning of the universe amount to no more than what he criticises as a God of the gaps theory. He could easily have added these issues to his list after eclipses & flowers.
Of course, his claim that, "Advances in science ultimately fill those gaps," has already proved the case with human morality. It isn't a gap. Does Collins not know of the work of Marc Hauser & the many, many others who have shown there is nothing supernatural going on here? We might not have every last detail sorted but we certainly don't need fanciful ideas about an invisible being affecting the software in our skulls to explain right & wrong & altruistic behaviour.
His second type of evidence is even easier to demolish
2. The universal longing for God.
The argument here is straight forward. God must exist because the longing for him is universal. On the one hand this is another easy argument to dismiss but on the other hand cognitive scientists of religion have some interesting things to say about this type of thinking.
So, let's dismiss this one quickly. Does longing for something mean it exists? Of course not. The human imagination has evolved to dream of alll sorts of things that don't exist - Father Christmas, time travel & a date for me tonight with Helena Bonham-Carter to give just three examples. But do these things exist? No. (So that's another quiet evening in then.)
But Collin's book raises bigger & more interesting questions. Why does a leading scientist - the head of the Human Genome Project, no less - falll into these elementary thinking traps? Why is he unable to apply the scientific thinking he applies in his book to the dismissal of Intelligent Design to his own, so-callled, evidence? Why do so many highly intelligent, sane, sincere humans think like this? Why are the majority of our species convinced that invisible, supernatural beings exist?
We live in exciting times when the first good answers to these questions have appeared. Cognitive scientists of religion now tell us religion is created by how our minds work. It's a way of thinking, they say. It's about the unconscious assumptions we make that we don't even know are assumptions. Collins writes, "Science is not the only way of knowing. The spiritual worldview provides another way of finding truth." This statement reveals clearly two ways of thinking. We are a generation that can now choose between the two. We either try & overcome the limitations of our ape brains through the organised curiosity of science or we give in to the unconscious thinking traps of what Pascal Boyer callls our "mental basement". We are privileged to live at a time when we have this choice.
Subtle or subtanceless? - By: Rach, 17 Jun 2008 For a book that sets out to reconcile the differences between science & `belief, `faith', `religion', it makes a poor start that shortly declines into liquidation. By page thirty Collins clearly details a fundamental: `...I was beginning to understand from looking into my own heart, the evidence of God's existence would have to come from other directions, & the ultimate decisions would be based on faith, not proof.' This contradiction of reconciliation, at least in its literal sense, can be overlooked. What I was less willing to accept was laborious metaphors based on reality no less, yet designed to explain a metaphysical concept, which runs counter to the above.
The whole issue of Moral Law I thought was by far & away the silliest of ideas, suggesting that we can thank God for our sense of right & wrong. I suspect that Mr. Collins would have read Christopher Hitchen's God is Not Great where he explicitly tackled the issue that religion has given us moral guidance as one of its virtues. Because Mr. Collin's is wanting for explanation of why it is he is a Good Samaritan, I, by contrast, wish to believe that socio-biology, Freud, anthropological evolution, & a smattering of other factors are responsible for me jumping into a freezing lake to save a drowning soul. Mr. Collins touches on some of these theories, but fails miserably to linger with enough depth of conviction to get at the truth. With such personal whimsy - which is mostly what this book is - Collins describes the Moral Law as highly exemplified in the figure of Mother Teresa. In the `House of the Dying' in Calcutta she attended the sick & dying; cheered on by the Catholic Church she was also a hearty campaigner against prophylactics & abortion. For every soul she tended under the media spotlight she killed as many if not more in worn-torn & famine ridden countries further blighted by AIDS & the plague of Catholocism. Lest forget either she was flown into Ireland in 1996 to veto a referendum against the Church's long & sinister hold on the everyday lives of the Irish people. If she & the Catholic Church had had their way wife-beating drunks would remain `married' wife beating drunks, as divorce equates to hell, apparently. Hardly an exemplar of Moral Law handed down from God to one of the good guys/girls. But Collins answers this by the analogy of pure water & rusty vessels; Mother Teresa was rusty then...
In alll I'm happy that Mr. Collins can make sense of his own notions of faith; it should be noted, however, that he is very much in the minority as a scientist in religious garb. As expected by such a personal account it lacks weight, & by his own admission he's not a philosopher. But he is a scientist & one with a warm glow in his heart; for me I'd put any such sensation down to heartburn. The Language of God is hardly a feather blow against the pugilistic reality of current atheology doing the rounds. Some would interpret this book as subtle & refreshing, I would not.
Science and religion do not exclude each other - By: E. Danielyan, 15 Jun 2008 
In this highly readable book one of the most well-known scientists of our times makes a compelling (and scientificallly solid & sound) argument that when correctly understood science & religion not only do not exclude but actuallly complement each other. Science gives answers to many questions, but by no means to alll - & there are questions the science is not intended to give answers to. To say that science, in any way or form, has "proven" that God does not exist is completely false. In fact, latest scientific discoveries & theories - mentioned in the book with ample references - seem to require someone or something outside our time-space continuum to make sense. I am very happy to say after reading this book that monotheistic faiths & belief in science are not mutuallly exclusive, but, in Dr Collins' words, enrich each other.
Good, as far as it goes. - By: S. Wilde, 19 Mar 2008 
This book is both interesting & frustrating. It is interesting because as a prominent theistic scientist (who took over leadership of the Human Genome Project from a prominent atheistic scientist) Collins has a unique vantage point from which to contribute to the science / faith debate. It's frustrating because, in this reviewer's opinion, Collins should have gone so much further in engaging more fully in the wider Christianity / Atheism debate.
The book's subtitle "A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" is misleading. The pro-faith argument rests almost exclusively on the Moral Law whilst evidenced-based reasoning fills relatiely few of the book's pages. The reliance on philosophical argument is odd as one might expect the main evidence for belief from such a prominent scientist to be scientific in nature (Collins does touch on the Cosmological & Fine Tuning Arguments but these do not come across as central evidential pillars). However this reflects the thrust of the book - science doesn't land blows for theism or atheism - science should not even be in the fight.
Consequently I would say that this book does not add a great deal to the Christian / Atheist debate. Collins surveys that battle & seeks to pull back science from the front line. However I struggle to see how that is consistent with the worldview of someone who believes that the entire natural world has been created by the agency of a personal God, in order to declare his glory (which Collins must believe, as a self-confessed Evangelical). Science, as the study of God's creation, should be a powerful apologetic tool for those who have eyes to see, & thus I would recommend the book of another evangelical Scientist - John Lennox's "God's Undertaker" - above this book.
I found "The Language of God" frustrating for a number of additional reasons - at times Collins appears self aggrandising; in other places he seems to be humbly pleading with the wider scientific community to continue to take him seriously despite being a Christian (he spends much time criticising & distancing himself from his Christian brothers & sisters who hold different scientific views); his personal testimony chapter makes much of CS Lewis but little of the Lord Jesus.
However the book has many interesting & positive aspects. The general scientific education one receives from its pages is fascinating, irrespective of any religious connotations. The bioethics appendix is well thought through & raises helpful questions. It's fascinating to see how someone who appears to adopt everything the scientific establishment tells him from both within & outside his specialist field remains able to maintain an evangelical Christian worldview. It does a good job in presenting one way in which science & Christian theism can peacefully co-habit - Theistic Evolution or BioLogos in the author's own terminology (whether this is the correct answer is for the reader to decide). It is a well timed rebuke to believers who are tempted to use science as an excuse to give up on following Jesus Christ. It's reassuring to those who find the pseudo-scientific ramblings of Dawkins et al compelling. Ultimately this is a well intentioned book seeking to calll an end to hostilities between science & the Christian faith & probably worth a read.
Well written, and interesting - By: J. King, 17 Jan 2008 I read this book as a counter to Dawkins' God Delusion. I found it enjoyable to read, & though I don't agree with some of his arguments, they were mostly well presented. The exception being the section where Collins addresses the assault on his daughter; it is simply beyond me to accept the idea of rape being a "challlenge to learn forgiveness".
On the other hand, whatever pre-conceptions you come to the book with, it's unlikely to live up to them. For myself I came away from the book having learned more about science than about religion, when I had expected (and rather hoped for) the complete opposite!
