The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief is a 2006 work of nonfiction by Francis S. Collins, the noted physician, geneticist, and leader of the Human Genome Project. As a scientist and a religious man, Collins argues that science and faith are compatible and can coexist harmoniously.

The early chapters narrate Collins’s intellectual and spiritual journey. Although brought up areligious, he felt awe when encountering music or contemplating the wonders of the natural world—experiences that led him away from his agnosticism to a belief in God and, finally, a commitment to Christianity. To account for this journey, he cites human beings’ seemingly innate morality, the existence selfless acts, and the fact that the search for God is universal to all human cultures. The rest of the book discusses in detail how scientific findings, such as the Big Bang, the origins of life on earth, and the human genome, might shed light on the issue of God’s existence. He concludes that science and religion are valid sources of truth and that our view of life’s origins must respect both. Collins hopes that his message of the compatibility between faith and science will influence public debate, in which science and religion are too often angrily pitted against each other.