Francis Collins, the Language of God, and Stephen Colbert

Hi Thorn:

I don't think the manner of the development of subhuman creatures much matter theologically speaking. The bone of contention comes with human beings themselves. For me the bottom line is that the writers of the NT and Jesus himself saw Adam as an historical figure uniquely created by God. So I am sticking with that when it comes to human beings. If theistic evolution is the process God used with everything else, that's o.k. by me, though I will add there are some serious problems with evolutionary theory, and it honestly is not a theory that explains the origin of all things. You have to add the big bang theory or something like to deal with origins.

Blessings

Ben W.

Great interplay; thought it interesting that Collins told Colbert 'you're like a fruitfly, you need an upgrade'. The fruitfly of course is the sad little subject that we use in trying to make macro evolution work in the lab, they breed quickly so you dont have to wait too long to see if the genetic experiments are working or not. After all the many sacrificial flys have given thier lives on the lab table of science, we have found one conclusive fact; we always end up with either a dead or livng fly, we never get something other than a fly, which is what the whole endeavor is about. Thanks for the show Ben, I do like Colbert! God bless from Corpus.

Dr. Witherington, have you read Dr. Collin's book? It is a very interesting read. (I'm sure you have all of the time in the world.) :)

There are theistic evolutionists who believe that at some point there was a very real Adam. There are lots of differing thoughts, actually. Up until about a month ago, I didn't even realize this. I thought that EVERYONE TRUSTWORTHY believed that the world was 6,000 years old, so....I am enjoying learning more on this topic.

I believe Collins fails in his aspect (both in his book and in the video) of critiquing young-earth creationism and in his book making claims about Islam that just are not true:

“But the claims of Young Earth Creationism simply cannot be accommodated by tinkering around the edges of scientific knowledge. If these claims were actually true it would lead to a complete and irreversible collapse of the sciences of physics, chemistry, cosmology, geology, and biology. . . . the YEC perspective is the equivalent of insisting that two plus two is really not equal to four” (Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief [New York, NY: Free Press, 2006], 173,174).

First of all, Collins saying that Genesis isn’t meant to be taken literally is not entirely true. For instance, James Barr, Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, Oxford University, England, said this of the text:

“... probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:
1. creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
2. the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
3. Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.”

(in a letter to David C.C. Watson, 23 April 1984)

So while the debate is “alive and well” today in the halls of Christian academia, the original authors meant something entirely different. A good debate (filmed at Liverpool Cathedral) where this comes up is between theistic-evolutionist Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne and John Mackay entitled: “The Big Question Debate: Is Evolution Compatible with the Christian Faith.”

I wonder what Collins would say to Werner von Braun (the 'guy" that got us to the moon), Ben Carson (probably the worlds leading pediatrician and whom the movie "Gifted Hands" is based on), or Raymond V. Damadian (inventor of the MRI)? You are unscientific? I think Collins falls into the camp that cannot distinguish origin science and working science, as Geisler points out: “A science which deals with origin events does not fall within the category of empirical science, which deals with observed regularities in the present. Rather, it is more like forensic science” (Norman Geisler and Kerby Anderson, Origin Science [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987], 14).

Another portion of Collins work makes it clear that he makes grand claims (like the one above) even though his knowledge on the topic is limited (like the one above):

“It is not difficult to identify examples where the church has promoted actions that fly in the face of principles its own faith should have sustained. The Beatitudes spoken by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount were ignored as the Christian church carried out violent Crusades in the Middle Ages and pursued a series of inquisitions afterward. While the prophet Muhammad never himself used violence in responding to persecutors, Islamic jihads, dating to the earliest of his followers and including present-day violent attacks such as that of September 11, 2001, have created the false impression that the Islamic faith is intrinsically violent. Even followers of supposedly nonviolent faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism occasionally engage in violent confrontation, as is currently occurring in Sri Lanka” (Ibid., 41).

While I deal with this a bit more in-depth here:

• http://religiopoliticaltalk.blogspot.com/2009/11/francis-collins-language-of-god-and.html

I will simply point out that Muhammad himself partook in an order to kill 900 men, women, and children. That means that he personally slit throats of fellow human beings. Jesus on the other hand healed the ear of the Roman soldier, setting Himself apart from those before or after Him:

“The nine founders among the eleven living religions in the world had characters which attracted many devoted followers during their own lifetime, and still larger numbers during the centuries of subsequent history. They were humble in certain respects, yet they were also confident of a great re-ligious mission. Two of the nine, Mahavira and Buddha, were men so strongminded and self-reliant that, according to the records, they displayed no need of any divine help, though they both taught the inexorable cosmic law of Karma. They are not reported as having possessed any consciousness of a supreme personal deity. Yet they have been strangely deified by their followers. Indeed, they themselves have been wor¬shipped, even with multitudinous idols. All of the nine founders of religion, with the exception of Jesus Christ, are reported in their respective sacred scriptures as having passed through a preliminary period of uncertainty, or of searching for religious light. Confucius, late in life, confessed his own sense of shortcomings and his desire for further improvement in knowledge and character. All the founders of the non-Christian religions evinced inconsistencies in their personal character; some of them altered their prac¬tical policies under change of circumstances. Jesus Christ alone is reported as having had a consistent God-consciousness, a consistent character himself, and a con¬sistent program for his religion. The most remarkable and valuable aspect of the personality of Jesus Christ is the com¬prehensiveness and universal availability of his character, as well as its own loftiness, consistency, and sinlessness.” (Robert Hume, The World’s Living Religions [New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959], 285-286.)

May I also point out that

Thank you for the video, I will post it with a h/t.