April 10, 2025 • 42 mins
Dr. Francis Collins takes us on a profound intellectual and spiritual journey from atheism to faith while simultaneously reshaping modern medicine through his leadership of the Human Genome Project. Growing up on a small Virginia farm with no religious background, Collins embraced science as his passion and atheism as his worldview until a pivotal moment in medical school when an elderly patient asked him, "Doctor, what do you believe?"
This simple question launched a methodical, evidence-based examination of faith that would transform his life. Collins shares how C.S. Lewis' rational arguments for Christianity in "Mere Christianity" forced him to reconsider his atheist stance, particularly through the universal human experience of moral law – our innate sense of right and wrong that transcends evolutionary explanation.
What makes Collins' testimony particularly compelling is how his scientific expertise enhanced rather than hindered his faith journey. As the director who led the revolutionary Human Genome Project to map all human DNA, he describes scientific discovery as "getting a glimpse of God's mind" and laboratories as potential "cathedrals." Throughout his distinguished career, including twelve years directing the National Institutes of Health, Collins has demonstrated how scientific and spiritual worldviews can beautifully complement each other.
Perhaps most moving is his account of treating a critically ill young man in a Nigerian mission hospital with minimal resources. After a successful but risky procedure, the patient provided unexpected wisdom: "You came here for me." This profound moment revealed to Collins how God works through individual human encounters rather than grand schemes.
For anyone wrestling with questions about science and faith, Collins provides a thoughtful path forward that honors both intellectual integrity and spiritual hunger.
Share this episode using hashtag #Evangelical360 and join the conversation online!
____________________
▶ Watch Interviews on YouTube
▶ Sign Up for FREE Dispatches From the Global Village
▶ Free Downloadable eBook "Here's Hope"
▶ More Info: evangelical360.com
#evangelical360
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Stiller (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, brian Stiller,and I'm pleased to share with
you another conversation withleaders, changemakers and
influencers having an impact onChristian life around the world.
We'd love for you to be a partof the podcast by sharing this
(00:33):
episode using hashtagEvangelical360 and by joining
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
My guest today is Dr FrancisCollins, a geneticist and
physician who led thegroundbreaking human genome
project and is author of severalbooks, including the New York
Times bestseller, the Languageof God.
A Scientist Presents Evidencefor Belief.
(00:57):
I got to know Dr Collins duringthe pandemic On Sunday morning
talk shows.
He would be regularly invitedas guest because he served as
the director of the NationalInstitute of Health.
It was a challenge he handledwith care, dignity and gracious
expertise.
Today, I've asked him to sharesome of his personal story, to
(01:18):
let us in on this remarkablejourney of a world-famous
scientist discovering faith,journey of a world-famous
scientist discovering faith andremaining transparent about that
faith despite challenges andcomplexities across the cultural
landscape.
Listen in as Dr Collins tellsus his story.
Dr Francis Collins, a joy tohave you with us on Evangelical
(01:47):
360 today.
Francis Collins (01:49):
Brian, I'm really happy to be your guest,
looking forward to theconversation.
Brian Stiller (01:54):
Well, you have a remarkable career and I want to
get into the issues of how ascientist becomes a Christian,
but I think it would be veryhelpful for us to hear the story
of your childhood and how youcame to be head of the Human
Genome Project.
Where did life begin with you?
Was it in a religious home?
Francis Collins (02:16):
Not at all.
I grew up on a small farm inVirginia, in the Shenandoah
Valley, with parents who werekind of doing the 60s thing,
except it wasn't the 60s yet.
My dad was a college professor,my mother was a playwright.
They sort of wanted to live offthe land, but not very
successfully.
(02:36):
So my dad had to go back toteaching and, yeah, our little
farmhouse had no indoor plumbing.
But it was a great way to growup.
A lot of hard work involved,but also nature all around you.
And I didn't go to school untilthe sixth grade.
My mother and father were theteachers for me and for my three
brothers until it got to be alittle much.
(02:59):
I was the youngest, and so bythe time it got to me you can go
to public school in sixth grade.
It's all going to be fine, andI got the best of both worlds
because my mother was aparticularly gifted teacher in
terms of helping me develop thelove of learning that I carry
with me to today, just theexcitement about understanding
(03:20):
something you didn't know aboutbefore.
Maybe it was mathematics, ormaybe it was literature or
history or languages, but shewas so good at conveying that
excitement.
And then I went to public schooland there I encountered science
which I probably wouldn't havelearned much about from my
mother, but that became mypassion.
That this was a way you could,like a good detective story, use
(03:42):
the tools of science todiscover stuff and get answers
to questions that maybe nobodyknew the answer before, and I
figured that's what I wanted todo.
But there was no religiousbackground involved in any of
this.
My parents weren't I don'tthink you'd call them atheists,
more agnostics.
They just didn't think religionwas very important to spend
time on.
I did get sent to the localEpiscopal church to learn music,
(04:05):
because that was very importantto my dad, but he instructed me
don't pay any attention to thetheology, just learn the music.
I dutifully followed hisdirections.
Brian Stiller (04:18):
So you moved from that into science and how was
your mind framed about what lifewas about or what mattered to
you in that educationalexperience?
Francis Collins (04:33):
The science I first learned to love was
chemistry.
So I figured I should be achemist and I majored in
chemistry at the University ofVirginia and then went off to
get a PhD in chemistry at Yale.
I ignored life sciences becausethey seemed kind of messy which
, by the way, they are.
I like their, you know elegantmathematical, beautiful array of
(04:55):
ideas that came out of physicsand chemistry.
But somewhere along the line Irealized I'd narrowed my
horizons a bit.
And so as a graduate student inchemistry I dabbled in
biochemistry and discovered itwas really interesting and it
really did have principles.
There was this DNA and RNA andprotein thing the molecular
biology was being kind ofinvented, a lot of it at the
(05:18):
time and I suddenly realizedthis is so much more compelling
to me than I would have everguessed and it's kind of calling
to me to make a big switch.
So with some trepidation,because it was a total
disruption of what had been mylife plan, I applied to medical
school.
I hadn't really given muchconsideration to being a
(05:39):
physician until then, so it'ssort of surprising the
admissions committee even let mein to the University of North
Carolina with this story.
But they did.
And there I really found thiswonderful synthesis of science
but something about humanitythat I could get excited about
throwing myself into.
And I entered that medicalschool class as a scientist,
(06:03):
getting excited about medicineand a strict atheist, and I left
that medical school as aChristian.
Something happened Not havinghad any background in faith
traditions, it was pretty easyfor me in college and in
graduate school to slip intowhat I consider to kind of be
the norm of other scientists,which is frankly a bit of a
(06:26):
matter of pride.
Well, I don't need any of thoseother concepts.
Everything that needs to beknown can be determined by
science.
So I was worshiping at thealtar of scientism as a student
and I hadn't really encounteredany serious rational arguments
for faith.
I assumed there weren't any.
But in medical school thingsthat were hypothetical, like
(06:49):
life and death, become much morereal, and especially that third
year of medical school whereyou are out there in the
hospital wards taking care ofpatients with terribly serious
diseases, many of whom are notgoing to survive for very long,
with terribly serious diseases,many of whom are not going to
survive for very long, and youhad to watch what their reaction
(07:11):
was to that.
Getting that news and dealingwith that news and wondering how
would I deal with that news.
And I noticed that the peoplewho had a strong religious faith
seemed strangely comforted byit.
I would have thought they mustbe just really angry that it
didn't work out for them, but no, they felt this sense of peace
and I was curious about that.
(07:31):
But I didn't understand it.
And there was a particularmoment, brian, that will always
be burned into my brain, wherean elderly woman who was my
patient with really bad heartdisease shared her faith with me
after a very bad episode ofchest pain.
And it was so personal, it wasso authentic, it was so intimate
(07:52):
and real how she was talkingabout her relationship with
Jesus.
And then she sort of stoppedand looked at me as I'm sitting
there silently, not knowing whatto say, and she challenged me.
She said, doctor, what do youbelieve?
It was a simple question.
Anybody listening to this.
(08:12):
What would you say if thatquestion was posed to you right
now?
I realized I had no answer atall.
What do you believe, francisCollins?
The thinness of my atheistperspective had never been more
prominent than right then and Ifelt it was almost insulting, in
(08:32):
the face of this loving gentlequestion, to even imply that I
had anything to say.
I said I just don't know and Iran out of the room.
I was really shooken up, shakenup about what happened there
and that haunted me for a fewdays and I realized there's
something I need to look at here.
(08:54):
She probably asked me the mostimportant question I've ever
been asked and I'm a scientistwho's interested in questions
and I'd never spent more thanfive minutes really thinking
about this one, and I set abouttrying to find ways to
strengthen my atheism so Iwouldn't be caught in this
pickle again.
Brian Stiller (09:14):
Francis, I want to come back to that, but I'd
like to just go back again toyour own career and how you
became head of the Human GenomeProject and why that mattered.
What was there about this thatwas so historic in the history
of medicine, and how did youcome about to mastermind that
(09:39):
project?
Francis Collins (09:40):
Well, my interest in medical science
settled in on the question ofgenetics.
How is it that we humans areafflicted with certain genetic
diseases and what can we do toactually find better ways to
treat or even cure them?
And I was particularlyinterested initially in the
disease called cystic fibrosis,which, when I started to work on
(10:02):
it, was really very much ablack box.
We didn't understand what theproblem was.
We could describe problems withthe lungs and the pancreas, but
we didn't know what the causewas.
And I was determined maybe wecould figure that out.
And over the course of severalyears, ultimately, in a
collaboration with another groupin Toronto, we discovered the
(10:22):
cause of cystic fibrosis in 1989.
It was a very simple threeletters of the code out of three
billion that were missing.
But that was a hugelycomplicated effort.
I wanted to understand thosethousands of other genetic
diseases and we were never goingto get there in my lifetime if
we didn't have better ways tosift through that DNA
(10:46):
instruction book, the humangenome, and find the
misspellings that are capable ofcausing illness.
So we needed a reference copyof the human genome.
We didn't have it.
Basically, that's what the HumanGenome Project was all about.
How do we, for the first time,read out the entire script, make
it in a public database whereeverybody can start working with
(11:07):
it and then greatly accelerateour abilities to understand,
diagnose and maybe even cure allthese thousands of diseases.
So the Human Genome Project wasbeing talked about.
I was excited about it, I wasenthusiastic about it and then
suddenly I was asked to run it,which was not part of my life
plan at all.
You can sort of hear a lot ofthings that happened to me,
(11:29):
brian, were not part of acareful, planned life trajectory
.
They were just doors thatopened I didn't expect and
others that slammed shut that Iwas counting on.
It was very much not the kindof thing that was linear in any
way, and it was God's grace tomake such things happen that I
never would have dreamed of.
Brian Stiller (11:50):
So just give me a quick descriptor of the Genome
Project.
What was it seeking to do?
What were the elements of thatthat made it so important for
the development of our medicalunderstanding of the body?
Francis Collins (12:03):
the development of our medical understanding of
the body.
Well, if you want to thinkabout what's really the center
of the center of the knowledgeof biology, it's the DNA
instruction book.
You and I were born with thatbook, half from our mothers,
half from our fathers.
It drove us somehow to become areally complicated organism
from what we started out as asingle cell.
And to be able to have thatinstruction book in all of its
(12:28):
complexity, all three billion ofits letters, written in a
language that has just fourletters in its alphabet, was.
It seemed like an absolutelystunning and highly difficult
task, but one that would changethings forever.
It would change things in termsof our understanding how life
works.
It would change things as faras medicine.
(12:48):
It would change things as faras our understanding of
ourselves that we've read ourown instruction book.
So that was the goal when itstarted.
There was a lot of skepticismabout whether this was going to
be feasible anytime this century, and there were a lot of people
arguing that this was foolhardy.
It was going to cost a lot moremoney than anybody thought it
(13:08):
would.
It would ultimately fail, andso when I started it, I was
aware I was taking a big risk totake on the leadership role,
but it was possible to recruitsome of the best and brightest
young scientists of this era,because this was historic.
They wanted to be part of thistoo, and we invented a lot of
technology and we scaled thingsup and we did things that had
(13:31):
never been done in life sciencebefore, basically almost
building factories to turn outthe information and building new
kinds of computer programs tointerpret it.
And ultimately, two years aheadof schedule and at price tag
$400 million less than what hadbeen originally projected, we
hit all of those goals and allthose milestones and declared
(13:53):
victory in 2003.
22 years later, this hastransformed the way we approach
cancer.
That's maybe the most dramaticexample, because cancer comes
about because of misspellings inDNA.
And now we have the chance,because the technology has
gotten so fast and so cheap,that for anybody who has
(14:14):
developed cancer, find out why,look at those cancer cells and
say what DNA glitches arecausing those cells to go bad
and grow when they shouldn't.
That's almost a standard ofcare now.
That was unimaginable even 20years ago.
We've come up with much betterways to diagnose lots of
puzzling illnesses, particularlyfor newborns, where you have
(14:37):
something that's not right andyou're not quite sure what or
what to do about it, and we'vecertainly empowered the
opportunity to practice muchbetter prevention by identifying
individual risks.
So, instead of one size fitsall recommendations, we're
starting to be able to givesomething much more personal,
for each of us to know whatthings would help us stay
(14:58):
healthy.
There's a long list of others,so all of that's come about in a
couple of decades.
But I would still say the fullflowering of what you might call
genomic medicine, or some wouldcall it precision medicine,
lies ahead, because it's justbursting with all this potential
to make it possible for us tobe much more precise in
(15:18):
diagnosing and treating diseasenot just rare diseases, common
diseases, all diseases.
Brian Stiller (15:24):
I have a personal testimony on this.
I have two grandchildren whohave mutation on the CNKSR2 gene
and your work on the GenomeProject has enabled the
geneticists at Sick KidsHospital in Toronto to better
(15:46):
understand what it is that theyhave their mutations, and
provide some kind of plan onmedical therapy.
So I dip into my own personalstory of thanks to you for what
you have done in giving us thatawareness and knowledge.
Francis Collins (16:04):
Really touching , brian, and I think, yeah,
thousands of stories like thatthat are happening almost every
day, because this technologygives answers that previously we
couldn't get.
Brian Stiller (16:16):
I want to come back to the question that that
lady asked you in North CarolinaHospital what you believe about
life after death and how thatbrought.
That was a bit of a fulcrum offaith change for you faith from
scientism to faith in God.
What were the elements of yoursearch that brought you to place
(16:37):
first of all to believe in Godand then to follow Christ?
Francis Collins (16:41):
I figured that there must be some arguments in
favor of belief or it would havedied out a long time ago.
And I even knew there werephysicians around me Some of
them were my mentors, myprofessors who believed in God.
And I asked a couple of themhow did you arrive at that?
I didn't get a terribly clearanswer to the question, but it
(17:04):
was clear, it was very sincere.
This is not something that wasjust sort of layered on for
social reasons.
And there was a pastor down thestreet from me, a Methodist
minister, and I said hello tohim on the sidewalk.
So I went and knocked on hisdoor and said I got questions.
He said well, I got questions.
And he said, well, come on in.
And I'm sure I hit him with along list of mostly blasphemous
(17:28):
questions about Christianity andhe was very tolerant and he
gave reasonable answers to someof them.
To some of them he said youknow that's going to take more
than this 20-minute conversation.
He said but I get the sense,francis, that you're kind of
searching here and you really dowant some answers.
So sometimes it helps to beguided by other people who've
(17:49):
traveled the same path.
So let me take this book downfrom my shelf because it's
written by somebody who hastraveled this and might have
something to say to you.
So I took the book home and Iopened it up and I realized in
the first few pages that myatheist arguments were
immediately lying in ruinsbecause of the strength, the
(18:11):
rational approach of this author, who by now you will have
guessed was CS Lewis.
And this was Mere Christianity,that wonderful book written now
80 years ago but which stillspeaks so clearly to this
question of is faith actuallysomething that you can see as a
rational conclusion to surveyingwhat we know about ourselves
(18:36):
and about nature, or is itsomething you just have to come
to by sheer determination?
And Lewis's argument for therationality of faith was
something I'd never heard beforeand I was deeply unsettled
because it was not the directionI thought this search was going
(18:58):
to take me, but it got mestarted.
Search was going to take me,but it got me started.
And the more he opened my eyesto the possibility of
considering various signpoststowards God, I began to realize
there were actually quite a lotof them around me, some that I'd
even studied as a scientist butnever really thought about.
Brian Stiller (19:17):
As I read your material, it seems that the
moral argument that CS Lewisputs forward became very
propositional for you as youwere on this journey of search.
Francis Collins (19:36):
And, like Einstein, concluded that you
can't dismiss the evidence thereof a mind that seems to be
behind it all, the fact that itwas a big bang, that somehow
something came out of nothing,that matter and energy follow
beautifully elegant natural lawsthat you can write down in
mathematical equations.
(19:57):
Why?
should that work.
And that those laws haveconstants in them, that if they
had a slightly different valuethan they do, like the
gravitational constant, therewould be nothing at all
interesting about the universe,just a bunch of particles flying
around.
So it looks from thatperspective that there is an
intelligence behind all this.
But then my next question wasdoes that intelligence care
(20:20):
about me or about humans ingeneral?
Basically, as a theologianwould say, I got to deism, could
I get to theism?
By considering the evidencethere and there it was, as your
question raises the point, themoral law, which, after all, was
the first chapter in mereChristianity.
(20:41):
That began to get to me.
And here's the argument Alldown through history, every
human society that we knowanything about has had this in
common, the sense that there isa certain moral law that we're
supposed to follow, that thereare things that are good and
(21:02):
there are things that are evil,and we ought to do the good ones
.
Even though we know we fail atthat, we feel that we're called
upon to be good people.
Now, quickly, somebody willraise the objection about well,
look at the way various cultureshave behaved and how
differently they haveinterpreted that.
Of course they have, becauseculture influences the
(21:24):
interpretation.
But even a culture that wethink is really evil is probably
believing they were doing thegood thing.
They just decided what theycalled good and nobody said well
, I don't care about good andevil.
I can't find even the strictatheists saying they don't care
about good and evil.
But why should you care?
If that's all just anevolutionary development that
(21:46):
somehow helped us survive, thenwe should just dismiss it and
say we've been hoodwinked,forget it, we're not going to
pay attention to that anymore.
Nobody is comfortable doingthat, even a Richard Dawkins.
So something's there, someprofound sense of goodness,
holiness even that's written inour hearts.
Maybe animals have someglimmers of that, but we have it
(22:09):
in a big way.
What is that about?
And if you were looking, as Iwas, for some indication that
God, that mind behind theuniverse, actually cares about
me and I find in myself thisdesire to be good and holy that
I can't explain, that got myattention.
That seemed to be a pretty goodindication of, not a proof, but
(22:34):
a strong, pointer evidence fora God who's not just about being
a creator of the universe butis also interested in me and in
having a relationship with me,and who wants me to be good and
holy, which sometimes I achieveand oftentimes I don't.
Brian Stiller (22:53):
So the moral law argument became kind of
foundational for in this search.
But as a scientist, how do youbring your scientific
investigatory skills into therelationship between faith and
science?
How did that work out as youwere on this journey in your
(23:14):
search for faith?
Francis Collins (23:16):
I was worried about that and my friends were
really worried about that.
Like, oh boy, where is he going?
This could be the end of hisscientific career.
If he ends up believing thisstuff about God, well, he might
have to give up anything interms of the scientific method.
You know, it never happened.
It never even came close tohappening.
By the way, I did have towrestle with what kind of faith
(23:40):
I was going to embrace and maybewe'll come back to that and
ultimately the person of Jesusas a historical figure, about
which we have a huge amount ofconcrete evidence, was so
compelling that it solved someof my other problems about how I
could even have a relationshipwith holy God.
So when I first became aChristian, I told everybody and
yes, my scientific colleagueslooked a little alarmed and said
(24:05):
your head's going to explodebecause you're going to pretty
soon figure out that yourscientific and Christian
worldviews are incompatible.
I never found it to be the case.
I certainly know that we humanshave identified instances where
we have decided that's the case, based upon interpretations of
scripture and findings fromscience, particularly about
(24:27):
things like origins of theuniverse or origins of ourselves
.
But I think thoughtful peoplewho are willing to look at how
we've interpreted both scienceand scripture down through the
centuries can find actuallyfairly straightforward ways to
put these worldviews together ina totally complementary and
(24:48):
harmonious way.
You just have to be reallycareful about what you're
talking about.
The Bible is not written as atextbook of science.
Science is not described in away that it helps you understand
God.
You have to figure out what'sthe question you're asking and
then which tools should you beusing.
Science is great at getting atthose questions that start with
(25:09):
how, and faith is much betteroften at the ones that start
with why.
And I like both those questionsand I don't want to be
restricted to one or the other,and I'm not in the mode of some
who have said well, you justhave to put a firewall between
your religious and yourscientific worldview, where
something bad will happen.
They're intermingled in me allthe time, which is actually kind
(25:33):
of joyful because it means thatscience, which is after all
exploring God's creation, isgetting a glimpse of God's mind,
and a scientific discovery thencan be a moment of worship and
a laboratory can be a cathedralwhy not?
This is all God's creation thatwe're studying, whether it's by
(25:54):
interpreting a particular verseof scripture and getting new
insight into it, or figuring out.
Oh, there's this reallyinteresting thing about cells
that we didn't know before andnow we do.
God knew both those thingsbefore we did.
Brian Stiller (26:08):
So you have this movement towards faith out of
the moral law argument, theresolution of science and faith,
but then you came particularlyto a trust in following Jesus of
Nazareth.
That must have been a majorstep, then, or did it come quite
simply out of the larger macroissues that you faced?
Francis Collins (26:36):
It was all part of this process that stretched
out over a couple of years.
But there were moments there ofsudden insight, revelation.
Again, I started out atheist.
I became uncomfortable withthat because that's the
assertion of a universalnegative which scientists aren't
supposed to do.
Then I kind of slipped intoagnosticism and then I got more
and more compelled by thearguments about a mind behind
the universe.
So I became a deist for alittle while.
(26:59):
And then the moral law broughtme closer to this sense that God
actually cares about me.
And then I had a bit of acrisis because if God does care
about me and knows me intimatelyand God is holy, I know I'm not
.
And I began to feel thissomewhat desperate sense that,
just as I'm beginning torecognize God, god is
(27:20):
recognizing me as the flawedcharacter I am, who probably
deserves judgment and not muchelse.
But then the person of Jesus,who again I had thought was a
myth, emerged in myconsciousness.
My understanding of what theChristian message is and the
idea that Jesus died on thecross for me, which I had heard
(27:43):
people say but had nounderstanding of, suddenly made
the most perfect sense.
And so, in all my sinfulness,all my flaws, all my rebellion
against God.
Jesus provided that bridgewhere I could still have that
relationship and be confidentthat I could be loved in spite
of myself.
(28:03):
That was the perfect solution,and I found that in no other
faith quite like I did in theperson of Jesus.
Brian Stiller (28:12):
Was there a moment in which that dawned on
you?
That became a reality?
Can you pinpoint a particularplace or time?
Became a reality, Can you?
pinpoint a particular place ortime.
Francis Collins (28:22):
Yes, I had that moment.
It was sort of building on meand I, at the same time, was
learning more about myprofession of medicine.
I went to a meeting in theNorthwest.
I'd never been west of theMississippi before and I went a
day early to hike in the CascadeMountains, which are beautiful
(28:43):
in Oregon and Washington Stateand on an absolutely
spectacularly perfect fallafternoon, hiking and feeling
this sense of God's grandeur andI'm turning a corner and saw to
my surprise, it was prettychilly.
There was a small body of waterthat was flowing across the top
(29:04):
of a cliff and then tricklingdown, but it had frozen, so it
was frozen waterfall and it wasjust this spectacular image with
the sun glistening off of it.
And for a moment there my heartstood still and I felt okay, I
can't resist anymore.
I don't want to resist anymore.
(29:26):
I can't prove that I'm about togive myself to Jesus, but
that's what I want to do.
Brian Stiller (29:33):
So, as a scientist, was there any tension
in embracing the resurrection?
Francis Collins (29:44):
any tension in embracing the resurrection,
which, for me, it sort of seemedto me like the big tension was
do I believe in God, the creator, who was responsible, therefore
, for all of the natural lawsthat I had studied in physics
and chemistry?
That if you accept that, which Ifound to be pretty compelling,
then if there was any capabilityof suspending those laws at a
(30:05):
moment where a reallysignificant message needed to be
sent, well, god could do that.
As the author of the laws, godwas the one entity that could
actually do something thatnaturally we would say made no
sense, and the resurrection was,of course, that remarkable
(30:25):
moment of suspending those laws.
So I've never had trouble withthat or with other examples of
biblical miracles.
For the most part, again, thosemiracles don't happen randomly.
Lewis says they happen at thosegreat ganglions of history
where God has a message that thepeople need to hear, and God
(30:45):
has the full capability to do somiraculously, if that's going
to be the way to do it, theresurrection being the most
compelling and most significantof all those, but not the only
one.
Brian Stiller (30:58):
But your career has taken you to the very
heights of medical leadership inthe US as director of the
National Institute of Health,and here you are very openly
identifying as an evangelicalChristian.
Has that brought tension oropportunity within your medical
community?
Francis Collins (31:17):
Some of both maybe.
I do think there are folks who,especially when I was nominated
to be the director of thelargest supporter of biomedical
research in the world, theNational Institutes of Health,
raised an alarm about whetherthis guy Collins could actually
be fully rigorously objective,about whether this guy Collins
(31:38):
could actually be fullyrigorously objective about
scientific questions.
If he happened to believe inthe resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead and even wroteop-eds about it in places like
the New York Times, it didn'tget a whole lot of traction.
It was a little troubling, butit no doubt spoke for more than
those who just wrote the op-ed.
I guess my inclination at thatpoint was well, just watch and
(32:01):
see.
If you see instances where I'mstepping into a scientific
question and infusing into itsome religious perspective that
doesn't belong there, well thenyou'd be right not to criticize.
As NIH director over 12 years,I don't think they found those
things happening.
(32:21):
I certainly got, from the otherside of it, concerns about
whether, if you're a Christian,you could possibly support
certain kinds of science whichsome Christians would not be
comfortable with, such asembryonic stem cell research
Very complicated issue, one thatI have wrestled with as well
where I do believe that aBible-believing Jesus follower
(32:44):
could be comfortable withcertain ways in which that
research is done, but you haveto be really careful how you
define those.
They happen to be the waysmostly that things are
restricted to doing, so there'smaybe less of a conflict in that
space than was originallyappreciated.
It's all about the details.
I have found it actually quitehelpful to me, though, brian, as
(33:06):
a person who is both ascientist in a leadership role
and a person of faith, to beable to reassure the 60% of
Americans who are sometimes alittle worried about what are
scientists up to.
There's been an assumption onmany quarters that scientists
are all atheists and even thatscientists have an agenda to try
(33:26):
to destroy any remnants offaith in God that they think
aren't helping us anymore, andthere's certainly a few
scientists like that.
Most aren't like that, and forme and my colleagues who are
actually deeply devotedBible-following Christians, it's
reassuring for the public toknow that that's part of the
(33:47):
community that sciencerepresents too Well your book,
the Language of God.
Brian Stiller (33:53):
A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
You touch so many areas thatare complicated and you provide
insights and responses to manyquestions that I've never seen
another do.
But your life has not only beenat the leading edge of
(34:16):
scientific discovery, but youhave also served publicly.
During the COVID crisis, youwere a voice that I listened to
most Sunday mornings on Americantelevision, even though I live
outside of the US.
I was intrigued by what wasgoing on there, because we were
also dealing with COVID inCanada and other places, but I
(34:36):
was interested in the story ofyou and your daughter going to
Nigeria and what that meant toyou as a scientist who was
seeking to serve as a Christianin public ways.
I'd be interested in youretelling that story for our
(34:56):
listeners today.
Francis Collins (34:58):
Yeah, after I became a Christian and I was
somebody who's getting trainedas a physician, I had this
hunger to see if there wassomething I might be able to do
with those skills in a placewhere they were much needed.
And so later on, as I got intoa position at the University of
(35:18):
Michigan doing research andteaching medical students and
taking care of patients, Ithought it would be a good
experience to travel to a placethat is much less well-supported
with resources, and my daughterat that point was a college
student, headed for medicineherself and ultimately ended up
as a nephrologist, wanted to gowith me and I thought this would
(35:39):
be great for a father-daughterexperience.
I'd never been to Africa.
We signed up for a rotationthere for a couple of weeks in
Delta State, nigeria, which isreally impoverished, in the
middle of the jungle, in amission hospital run by the
Baptist Church, and my goalthere was to basically step in
(36:00):
and take care of the medicalpractice of a Christian
missionary physician who neededa chance to go to a conference
and also recharge batteries,because this is super intense.
So I had like one day to learnthe ropes from Dr Tim McCall,
and then he disappeared.
It's like okay, it's yours.
It was incredibly intimidating.
(36:24):
I was seeing diseases I'd neverseen, only read about in a
textbook.
The resources were very limited.
In terms of laboratory, notmuch.
There was an x-ray machine, butit was usually broken.
So you were really down to whatyou could come up with with
your eyes and your ears and yourability to do a physical exam
and then try to make a diagnosis.
(36:44):
And I was overwhelmed and Iwould every night write in my
journal God, please come and bethe strength that I don't have,
because I don't think I'mactually prepared for this.
I have seen things today and Ihave no idea if I did the right
thing.
I'm trying, but I don't thinkI've really got the right sense
(37:05):
of competence here.
And there was a particular storythat I might tell about what
happened.
That helped me realize amessage that I was missing about
all this, because I think,brian, I had come to this
thinking oh, I'm this Westerntrained physician from the
University of Michigan, I'mgoing to walk into this mission
(37:25):
hospital in Nigeria and I willtake care of all these people
and they will all be gratefuland life will be changed forever
.
I realized that's not the wayit worked.
I had these grand schemes andthey were not happening.
About the fourth or fifth daythere was a young man who came
into the clinic very sick,brought in by his family, in his
20s, with profound swelling inhis legs, very short of breath,
(37:50):
coming on over the course ofabout a week, and he was one of
those people.
You look at him, you think thisguy is probably not going to
survive another 24 hours.
And what is going on?
And by a little bit of arecollection of something I had
learned as a medical student anddoing some basic measurements
of his blood pressure, I figuredout the only thing that could
(38:13):
explain this is that he haddeveloped a huge amount of fluid
around his heart, what's calleda pericardial effusion, and it
was basically strangling theability of his heart to beat
anymore because it was floatingin this tight sack of fluid.
Now, normally in a Westernsituation you would quickly
confirm that diagnosis with anechocardiogram.
(38:36):
We didn't have that.
The x-ray machine, again,wasn't working, so you had to
trust in God and your ownhoped-for expertise to make the
right diagnosis, and the onlysolution would be to place a
needle into that fluid and drawit off, which meant plunging a
needle directly in the chest,aiming at the heart and trying
(39:01):
not to go too far, one of themost terrifying moments I've
ever done as a physician,because I knew the risks here
were extremely high and I wasdoing something without the
support systems that wouldhappen in the West.
But by God's grace it worked.
The diagnosis was correct,almost a liter of fluid was
(39:23):
taken off and the response andthis is physiology in the most
dramatic way was just phenomenal.
Now, within a few hours, thisalmost dead young man was
looking awfully good and I sawhim the next morning coming
around, sitting up, reading hisBible, advocating it was time to
go home.
And the other residents that Iwas there supposedly mentoring
(39:50):
although they knew more aboutNigerian medicine than I did
were along.
And this patient looked at meand he was aware that he had
volunteered because I had askedhis permission to do this, to
engage in something that couldvery well kill them.
And he said you know, doc, Ihave the feeling you haven't
been here very long, you know,and that kind of bugged me
(40:14):
because I thought I was comingacross here as this highly
knowledgeable, experienced guy.
I said, well, okay, yeah, Ijust got here four or five days
ago, you're right.
And then he asked me thisquestion.
He gave me this insight.
He said I also get the feelingthat you're wondering why you
(40:35):
came here.
Oh man, how did he see that inme?
He said I have an answer foryou.
You came here for one reason.
You came here for me, sorry, Ialways get choked up when I
remember that moment.
(40:55):
Sorry, I always get choked upwhen I remember that moment.
That was just this blindingmoment of insight about what
everything we do, which isreally what God's plan is all
about is reaching out to anotherperson in a time of need.
(41:16):
Sure, you can have your big,grand plans about saving Nigeria
, but what it was really aboutwas a chance to touch one young
farmer's life, and he taught methat when I was too blind to see
.
I'll never forget that.
Brian Stiller (41:38):
Dr Collins, thank you for your years of service,
your medical expertise, thewealth of research and advance
you've brought to us all, foryour witness of Christ and your
testimony, and we're so gratefulfor your time with us today.
Thanks again for being with us.
Francis Collins (41:50):
Brian, it's been a pleasure.
Thanks for everything you'redoing to spread the good news.
God bless.
Brian Stiller (41:58):
Thank you, dr Collins, for joining us today
and allowing us to consider theanswers Christ has offered to
you in some of life's greatestquestions, and thank you for
being a part of the podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeusing hashtag Evangelical360 and
join the conversation onYouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
(42:22):
check the show notes for linksand info, and if you haven't
already received my free e-bookand newsletter, go to
brianstiller.
com.
Thanks again, until next time.
Don't miss the next interview.
Be sure to subscribe toEvangelical 360 on YouTube.
(42:44):
See you there.
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, brian Stiller,and I'm pleased to share with
you another conversation withleaders, changemakers and
influencers having an impact onChristian life around the world.
We'd love for you to be a partof the podcast by sharing this
(00:33):
episode using hashtagEvangelical360 and by joining
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
My guest today is Dr FrancisCollins, a geneticist and
physician who led thegroundbreaking human genome
project and is author of severalbooks, including the New York
Times bestseller, the Languageof God.
A Scientist Presents Evidencefor Belief.
(00:57):
I got to know Dr Collins duringthe pandemic On Sunday morning
talk shows.
He would be regularly invitedas guest because he served as
the director of the NationalInstitute of Health.
It was a challenge he handledwith care, dignity and gracious
expertise.
Today, I've asked him to sharesome of his personal story, to
(01:18):
let us in on this remarkablejourney of a world-famous
scientist discovering faith,journey of a world-famous
scientist discovering faith andremaining transparent about that
faith despite challenges andcomplexities across the cultural
landscape.
Listen in as Dr Collins tellsus his story.
Dr Francis Collins, a joy tohave you with us on Evangelical
(01:47):
360 today.
Francis Collins (01:49):
Brian, I'm really happy to be your guest,
looking forward to theconversation.
Brian Stiller (01:54):
Well, you have a remarkable career and I want to
get into the issues of how ascientist becomes a Christian,
but I think it would be veryhelpful for us to hear the story
of your childhood and how youcame to be head of the Human
Genome Project.
Where did life begin with you?
Was it in a religious home?
Francis Collins (02:16):
Not at all.
I grew up on a small farm inVirginia, in the Shenandoah
Valley, with parents who werekind of doing the 60s thing,
except it wasn't the 60s yet.
My dad was a college professor,my mother was a playwright.
They sort of wanted to live offthe land, but not very
successfully.
(02:36):
So my dad had to go back toteaching and, yeah, our little
farmhouse had no indoor plumbing.
But it was a great way to growup.
A lot of hard work involved,but also nature all around you.
And I didn't go to school untilthe sixth grade.
My mother and father were theteachers for me and for my three
brothers until it got to be alittle much.
(02:59):
I was the youngest, and so bythe time it got to me you can go
to public school in sixth grade.
It's all going to be fine, andI got the best of both worlds
because my mother was aparticularly gifted teacher in
terms of helping me develop thelove of learning that I carry
with me to today, just theexcitement about understanding
(03:20):
something you didn't know aboutbefore.
Maybe it was mathematics, ormaybe it was literature or
history or languages, but shewas so good at conveying that
excitement.
And then I went to public schooland there I encountered science
which I probably wouldn't havelearned much about from my
mother, but that became mypassion.
That this was a way you could,like a good detective story, use
(03:42):
the tools of science todiscover stuff and get answers
to questions that maybe nobodyknew the answer before, and I
figured that's what I wanted todo.
But there was no religiousbackground involved in any of
this.
My parents weren't I don'tthink you'd call them atheists,
more agnostics.
They just didn't think religionwas very important to spend
time on.
I did get sent to the localEpiscopal church to learn music,
(04:05):
because that was very importantto my dad, but he instructed me
don't pay any attention to thetheology, just learn the music.
I dutifully followed hisdirections.
Brian Stiller (04:18):
So you moved from that into science and how was
your mind framed about what lifewas about or what mattered to
you in that educationalexperience?
Francis Collins (04:33):
The science I first learned to love was
chemistry.
So I figured I should be achemist and I majored in
chemistry at the University ofVirginia and then went off to
get a PhD in chemistry at Yale.
I ignored life sciences becausethey seemed kind of messy which
, by the way, they are.
I like their, you know elegantmathematical, beautiful array of
(04:55):
ideas that came out of physicsand chemistry.
But somewhere along the line Irealized I'd narrowed my
horizons a bit.
And so as a graduate student inchemistry I dabbled in
biochemistry and discovered itwas really interesting and it
really did have principles.
There was this DNA and RNA andprotein thing the molecular
biology was being kind ofinvented, a lot of it at the
(05:18):
time and I suddenly realizedthis is so much more compelling
to me than I would have everguessed and it's kind of calling
to me to make a big switch.
So with some trepidation,because it was a total
disruption of what had been mylife plan, I applied to medical
school.
I hadn't really given muchconsideration to being a
(05:39):
physician until then, so it'ssort of surprising the
admissions committee even let mein to the University of North
Carolina with this story.
But they did.
And there I really found thiswonderful synthesis of science
but something about humanitythat I could get excited about
throwing myself into.
And I entered that medicalschool class as a scientist,
(06:03):
getting excited about medicineand a strict atheist, and I left
that medical school as aChristian.
Something happened Not havinghad any background in faith
traditions, it was pretty easyfor me in college and in
graduate school to slip intowhat I consider to kind of be
the norm of other scientists,which is frankly a bit of a
(06:26):
matter of pride.
Well, I don't need any of thoseother concepts.
Everything that needs to beknown can be determined by
science.
So I was worshiping at thealtar of scientism as a student
and I hadn't really encounteredany serious rational arguments
for faith.
I assumed there weren't any.
But in medical school thingsthat were hypothetical, like
(06:49):
life and death, become much morereal, and especially that third
year of medical school whereyou are out there in the
hospital wards taking care ofpatients with terribly serious
diseases, many of whom are notgoing to survive for very long,
with terribly serious diseases,many of whom are not going to
survive for very long, and youhad to watch what their reaction
(07:11):
was to that.
Getting that news and dealingwith that news and wondering how
would I deal with that news.
And I noticed that the peoplewho had a strong religious faith
seemed strangely comforted byit.
I would have thought they mustbe just really angry that it
didn't work out for them, but no, they felt this sense of peace
and I was curious about that.
(07:31):
But I didn't understand it.
And there was a particularmoment, brian, that will always
be burned into my brain, wherean elderly woman who was my
patient with really bad heartdisease shared her faith with me
after a very bad episode ofchest pain.
And it was so personal, it wasso authentic, it was so intimate
(07:52):
and real how she was talkingabout her relationship with
Jesus.
And then she sort of stoppedand looked at me as I'm sitting
there silently, not knowing whatto say, and she challenged me.
She said, doctor, what do youbelieve?
It was a simple question.
Anybody listening to this.
(08:12):
What would you say if thatquestion was posed to you right
now?
I realized I had no answer atall.
What do you believe, francisCollins?
The thinness of my atheistperspective had never been more
prominent than right then and Ifelt it was almost insulting, in
(08:32):
the face of this loving gentlequestion, to even imply that I
had anything to say.
I said I just don't know and Iran out of the room.
I was really shooken up, shakenup about what happened there
and that haunted me for a fewdays and I realized there's
something I need to look at here.
(08:54):
She probably asked me the mostimportant question I've ever
been asked and I'm a scientistwho's interested in questions
and I'd never spent more thanfive minutes really thinking
about this one, and I set abouttrying to find ways to
strengthen my atheism so Iwouldn't be caught in this
pickle again.
Brian Stiller (09:14):
Francis, I want to come back to that, but I'd
like to just go back again toyour own career and how you
became head of the Human GenomeProject and why that mattered.
What was there about this thatwas so historic in the history
of medicine, and how did youcome about to mastermind that
(09:39):
project?
Francis Collins (09:40):
Well, my interest in medical science
settled in on the question ofgenetics.
How is it that we humans areafflicted with certain genetic
diseases and what can we do toactually find better ways to
treat or even cure them?
And I was particularlyinterested initially in the
disease called cystic fibrosis,which, when I started to work on
(10:02):
it, was really very much ablack box.
We didn't understand what theproblem was.
We could describe problems withthe lungs and the pancreas, but
we didn't know what the causewas.
And I was determined maybe wecould figure that out.
And over the course of severalyears, ultimately, in a
collaboration with another groupin Toronto, we discovered the
(10:22):
cause of cystic fibrosis in 1989.
It was a very simple threeletters of the code out of three
billion that were missing.
But that was a hugelycomplicated effort.
I wanted to understand thosethousands of other genetic
diseases and we were never goingto get there in my lifetime if
we didn't have better ways tosift through that DNA
(10:46):
instruction book, the humangenome, and find the
misspellings that are capable ofcausing illness.
So we needed a reference copyof the human genome.
We didn't have it.
Basically, that's what the HumanGenome Project was all about.
How do we, for the first time,read out the entire script, make
it in a public database whereeverybody can start working with
(11:07):
it and then greatly accelerateour abilities to understand,
diagnose and maybe even cure allthese thousands of diseases.
So the Human Genome Project wasbeing talked about.
I was excited about it, I wasenthusiastic about it and then
suddenly I was asked to run it,which was not part of my life
plan at all.
You can sort of hear a lot ofthings that happened to me,
(11:29):
brian, were not part of acareful, planned life trajectory
.
They were just doors thatopened I didn't expect and
others that slammed shut that Iwas counting on.
It was very much not the kindof thing that was linear in any
way, and it was God's grace tomake such things happen that I
never would have dreamed of.
Brian Stiller (11:50):
So just give me a quick descriptor of the Genome
Project.
What was it seeking to do?
What were the elements of thatthat made it so important for
the development of our medicalunderstanding of the body?
Francis Collins (12:03):
the development of our medical understanding of
the body.
Well, if you want to thinkabout what's really the center
of the center of the knowledgeof biology, it's the DNA
instruction book.
You and I were born with thatbook, half from our mothers,
half from our fathers.
It drove us somehow to become areally complicated organism
from what we started out as asingle cell.
And to be able to have thatinstruction book in all of its
(12:28):
complexity, all three billion ofits letters, written in a
language that has just fourletters in its alphabet, was.
It seemed like an absolutelystunning and highly difficult
task, but one that would changethings forever.
It would change things in termsof our understanding how life
works.
It would change things as faras medicine.
(12:48):
It would change things as faras our understanding of
ourselves that we've read ourown instruction book.
So that was the goal when itstarted.
There was a lot of skepticismabout whether this was going to
be feasible anytime this century, and there were a lot of people
arguing that this was foolhardy.
It was going to cost a lot moremoney than anybody thought it
(13:08):
would.
It would ultimately fail, andso when I started it, I was
aware I was taking a big risk totake on the leadership role,
but it was possible to recruitsome of the best and brightest
young scientists of this era,because this was historic.
They wanted to be part of thistoo, and we invented a lot of
technology and we scaled thingsup and we did things that had
(13:31):
never been done in life sciencebefore, basically almost
building factories to turn outthe information and building new
kinds of computer programs tointerpret it.
And ultimately, two years aheadof schedule and at price tag
$400 million less than what hadbeen originally projected, we
hit all of those goals and allthose milestones and declared
(13:53):
victory in 2003.
22 years later, this hastransformed the way we approach
cancer.
That's maybe the most dramaticexample, because cancer comes
about because of misspellings inDNA.
And now we have the chance,because the technology has
gotten so fast and so cheap,that for anybody who has
(14:14):
developed cancer, find out why,look at those cancer cells and
say what DNA glitches arecausing those cells to go bad
and grow when they shouldn't.
That's almost a standard ofcare now.
That was unimaginable even 20years ago.
We've come up with much betterways to diagnose lots of
puzzling illnesses, particularlyfor newborns, where you have
(14:37):
something that's not right andyou're not quite sure what or
what to do about it, and we'vecertainly empowered the
opportunity to practice muchbetter prevention by identifying
individual risks.
So, instead of one size fitsall recommendations, we're
starting to be able to givesomething much more personal,
for each of us to know whatthings would help us stay
(14:58):
healthy.
There's a long list of others,so all of that's come about in a
couple of decades.
But I would still say the fullflowering of what you might call
genomic medicine, or some wouldcall it precision medicine,
lies ahead, because it's justbursting with all this potential
to make it possible for us tobe much more precise in
(15:18):
diagnosing and treating diseasenot just rare diseases, common
diseases, all diseases.
Brian Stiller (15:24):
I have a personal testimony on this.
I have two grandchildren whohave mutation on the CNKSR2 gene
and your work on the GenomeProject has enabled the
geneticists at Sick KidsHospital in Toronto to better
(15:46):
understand what it is that theyhave their mutations, and
provide some kind of plan onmedical therapy.
So I dip into my own personalstory of thanks to you for what
you have done in giving us thatawareness and knowledge.
Francis Collins (16:04):
Really touching , brian, and I think, yeah,
thousands of stories like thatthat are happening almost every
day, because this technologygives answers that previously we
couldn't get.
Brian Stiller (16:16):
I want to come back to the question that that
lady asked you in North CarolinaHospital what you believe about
life after death and how thatbrought.
That was a bit of a fulcrum offaith change for you faith from
scientism to faith in God.
What were the elements of yoursearch that brought you to place
(16:37):
first of all to believe in Godand then to follow Christ?
Francis Collins (16:41):
I figured that there must be some arguments in
favor of belief or it would havedied out a long time ago.
And I even knew there werephysicians around me Some of
them were my mentors, myprofessors who believed in God.
And I asked a couple of themhow did you arrive at that?
I didn't get a terribly clearanswer to the question, but it
(17:04):
was clear, it was very sincere.
This is not something that wasjust sort of layered on for
social reasons.
And there was a pastor down thestreet from me, a Methodist
minister, and I said hello tohim on the sidewalk.
So I went and knocked on hisdoor and said I got questions.
He said well, I got questions.
And he said, well, come on in.
And I'm sure I hit him with along list of mostly blasphemous
(17:28):
questions about Christianity andhe was very tolerant and he
gave reasonable answers to someof them.
To some of them he said youknow that's going to take more
than this 20-minute conversation.
He said but I get the sense,francis, that you're kind of
searching here and you really dowant some answers.
So sometimes it helps to beguided by other people who've
(17:49):
traveled the same path.
So let me take this book downfrom my shelf because it's
written by somebody who hastraveled this and might have
something to say to you.
So I took the book home and Iopened it up and I realized in
the first few pages that myatheist arguments were
immediately lying in ruinsbecause of the strength, the
(18:11):
rational approach of this author, who by now you will have
guessed was CS Lewis.
And this was Mere Christianity,that wonderful book written now
80 years ago but which stillspeaks so clearly to this
question of is faith actuallysomething that you can see as a
rational conclusion to surveyingwhat we know about ourselves
(18:36):
and about nature, or is itsomething you just have to come
to by sheer determination?
And Lewis's argument for therationality of faith was
something I'd never heard beforeand I was deeply unsettled
because it was not the directionI thought this search was going
(18:58):
to take me, but it got mestarted.
Search was going to take me,but it got me started.
And the more he opened my eyesto the possibility of
considering various signpoststowards God, I began to realize
there were actually quite a lotof them around me, some that I'd
even studied as a scientist butnever really thought about.
Brian Stiller (19:17):
As I read your material, it seems that the
moral argument that CS Lewisputs forward became very
propositional for you as youwere on this journey of search.
Francis Collins (19:36):
And, like Einstein, concluded that you
can't dismiss the evidence thereof a mind that seems to be
behind it all, the fact that itwas a big bang, that somehow
something came out of nothing,that matter and energy follow
beautifully elegant natural lawsthat you can write down in
mathematical equations.
(19:57):
Why?
should that work.
And that those laws haveconstants in them, that if they
had a slightly different valuethan they do, like the
gravitational constant, therewould be nothing at all
interesting about the universe,just a bunch of particles flying
around.
So it looks from thatperspective that there is an
intelligence behind all this.
But then my next question wasdoes that intelligence care
(20:20):
about me or about humans ingeneral?
Basically, as a theologianwould say, I got to deism, could
I get to theism?
By considering the evidencethere and there it was, as your
question raises the point, themoral law, which, after all, was
the first chapter in mereChristianity.
(20:41):
That began to get to me.
And here's the argument Alldown through history, every
human society that we knowanything about has had this in
common, the sense that there isa certain moral law that we're
supposed to follow, that thereare things that are good and
(21:02):
there are things that are evil,and we ought to do the good ones
.
Even though we know we fail atthat, we feel that we're called
upon to be good people.
Now, quickly, somebody willraise the objection about well,
look at the way various cultureshave behaved and how
differently they haveinterpreted that.
Of course they have, becauseculture influences the
(21:24):
interpretation.
But even a culture that wethink is really evil is probably
believing they were doing thegood thing.
They just decided what theycalled good and nobody said well
, I don't care about good andevil.
I can't find even the strictatheists saying they don't care
about good and evil.
But why should you care?
If that's all just anevolutionary development that
(21:46):
somehow helped us survive, thenwe should just dismiss it and
say we've been hoodwinked,forget it, we're not going to
pay attention to that anymore.
Nobody is comfortable doingthat, even a Richard Dawkins.
So something's there, someprofound sense of goodness,
holiness even that's written inour hearts.
Maybe animals have someglimmers of that, but we have it
(22:09):
in a big way.
What is that about?
And if you were looking, as Iwas, for some indication that
God, that mind behind theuniverse, actually cares about
me and I find in myself thisdesire to be good and holy that
I can't explain, that got myattention.
That seemed to be a pretty goodindication of, not a proof, but
(22:34):
a strong, pointer evidence fora God who's not just about being
a creator of the universe butis also interested in me and in
having a relationship with me,and who wants me to be good and
holy, which sometimes I achieveand oftentimes I don't.
Brian Stiller (22:53):
So the moral law argument became kind of
foundational for in this search.
But as a scientist, how do youbring your scientific
investigatory skills into therelationship between faith and
science?
How did that work out as youwere on this journey in your
(23:14):
search for faith?
Francis Collins (23:16):
I was worried about that and my friends were
really worried about that.
Like, oh boy, where is he going?
This could be the end of hisscientific career.
If he ends up believing thisstuff about God, well, he might
have to give up anything interms of the scientific method.
You know, it never happened.
It never even came close tohappening.
By the way, I did have towrestle with what kind of faith
(23:40):
I was going to embrace and maybewe'll come back to that and
ultimately the person of Jesusas a historical figure, about
which we have a huge amount ofconcrete evidence, was so
compelling that it solved someof my other problems about how I
could even have a relationshipwith holy God.
So when I first became aChristian, I told everybody and
yes, my scientific colleagueslooked a little alarmed and said
(24:05):
your head's going to explodebecause you're going to pretty
soon figure out that yourscientific and Christian
worldviews are incompatible.
I never found it to be the case.
I certainly know that we humanshave identified instances where
we have decided that's the case, based upon interpretations of
scripture and findings fromscience, particularly about
(24:27):
things like origins of theuniverse or origins of ourselves
.
But I think thoughtful peoplewho are willing to look at how
we've interpreted both scienceand scripture down through the
centuries can find actuallyfairly straightforward ways to
put these worldviews together ina totally complementary and
(24:48):
harmonious way.
You just have to be reallycareful about what you're
talking about.
The Bible is not written as atextbook of science.
Science is not described in away that it helps you understand
God.
You have to figure out what'sthe question you're asking and
then which tools should you beusing.
Science is great at getting atthose questions that start with
(25:09):
how, and faith is much betteroften at the ones that start
with why.
And I like both those questionsand I don't want to be
restricted to one or the other,and I'm not in the mode of some
who have said well, you justhave to put a firewall between
your religious and yourscientific worldview, where
something bad will happen.
They're intermingled in me allthe time, which is actually kind
(25:33):
of joyful because it means thatscience, which is after all
exploring God's creation, isgetting a glimpse of God's mind,
and a scientific discovery thencan be a moment of worship and
a laboratory can be a cathedralwhy not?
This is all God's creation thatwe're studying, whether it's by
(25:54):
interpreting a particular verseof scripture and getting new
insight into it, or figuring out.
Oh, there's this reallyinteresting thing about cells
that we didn't know before andnow we do.
God knew both those thingsbefore we did.
Brian Stiller (26:08):
So you have this movement towards faith out of
the moral law argument, theresolution of science and faith,
but then you came particularlyto a trust in following Jesus of
Nazareth.
That must have been a majorstep, then, or did it come quite
simply out of the larger macroissues that you faced?
Francis Collins (26:36):
It was all part of this process that stretched
out over a couple of years.
But there were moments there ofsudden insight, revelation.
Again, I started out atheist.
I became uncomfortable withthat because that's the
assertion of a universalnegative which scientists aren't
supposed to do.
Then I kind of slipped intoagnosticism and then I got more
and more compelled by thearguments about a mind behind
the universe.
So I became a deist for alittle while.
(26:59):
And then the moral law broughtme closer to this sense that God
actually cares about me.
And then I had a bit of acrisis because if God does care
about me and knows me intimatelyand God is holy, I know I'm not
.
And I began to feel thissomewhat desperate sense that,
just as I'm beginning torecognize God, god is
(27:20):
recognizing me as the flawedcharacter I am, who probably
deserves judgment and not muchelse.
But then the person of Jesus,who again I had thought was a
myth, emerged in myconsciousness.
My understanding of what theChristian message is and the
idea that Jesus died on thecross for me, which I had heard
(27:43):
people say but had nounderstanding of, suddenly made
the most perfect sense.
And so, in all my sinfulness,all my flaws, all my rebellion
against God.
Jesus provided that bridgewhere I could still have that
relationship and be confidentthat I could be loved in spite
of myself.
(28:03):
That was the perfect solution,and I found that in no other
faith quite like I did in theperson of Jesus.
Brian Stiller (28:12):
Was there a moment in which that dawned on
you?
That became a reality?
Can you pinpoint a particularplace or time?
Became a reality, Can you?
pinpoint a particular place ortime.
Francis Collins (28:22):
Yes, I had that moment.
It was sort of building on meand I, at the same time, was
learning more about myprofession of medicine.
I went to a meeting in theNorthwest.
I'd never been west of theMississippi before and I went a
day early to hike in the CascadeMountains, which are beautiful
(28:43):
in Oregon and Washington Stateand on an absolutely
spectacularly perfect fallafternoon, hiking and feeling
this sense of God's grandeur andI'm turning a corner and saw to
my surprise, it was prettychilly.
There was a small body of waterthat was flowing across the top
(29:04):
of a cliff and then tricklingdown, but it had frozen, so it
was frozen waterfall and it wasjust this spectacular image with
the sun glistening off of it.
And for a moment there my heartstood still and I felt okay, I
can't resist anymore.
I don't want to resist anymore.
(29:26):
I can't prove that I'm about togive myself to Jesus, but
that's what I want to do.
Brian Stiller (29:33):
So, as a scientist, was there any tension
in embracing the resurrection?
Francis Collins (29:44):
any tension in embracing the resurrection,
which, for me, it sort of seemedto me like the big tension was
do I believe in God, the creator, who was responsible, therefore
, for all of the natural lawsthat I had studied in physics
and chemistry?
That if you accept that, which Ifound to be pretty compelling,
then if there was any capabilityof suspending those laws at a
(30:05):
moment where a reallysignificant message needed to be
sent, well, god could do that.
As the author of the laws, godwas the one entity that could
actually do something thatnaturally we would say made no
sense, and the resurrection was,of course, that remarkable
(30:25):
moment of suspending those laws.
So I've never had trouble withthat or with other examples of
biblical miracles.
For the most part, again, thosemiracles don't happen randomly.
Lewis says they happen at thosegreat ganglions of history
where God has a message that thepeople need to hear, and God
(30:45):
has the full capability to do somiraculously, if that's going
to be the way to do it, theresurrection being the most
compelling and most significantof all those, but not the only
one.
Brian Stiller (30:58):
But your career has taken you to the very
heights of medical leadership inthe US as director of the
National Institute of Health,and here you are very openly
identifying as an evangelicalChristian.
Has that brought tension oropportunity within your medical
community?
Francis Collins (31:17):
Some of both maybe.
I do think there are folks who,especially when I was nominated
to be the director of thelargest supporter of biomedical
research in the world, theNational Institutes of Health,
raised an alarm about whetherthis guy Collins could actually
be fully rigorously objective,about whether this guy Collins
(31:38):
could actually be fullyrigorously objective about
scientific questions.
If he happened to believe inthe resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead and even wroteop-eds about it in places like
the New York Times, it didn'tget a whole lot of traction.
It was a little troubling, butit no doubt spoke for more than
those who just wrote the op-ed.
I guess my inclination at thatpoint was well, just watch and
(32:01):
see.
If you see instances where I'mstepping into a scientific
question and infusing into itsome religious perspective that
doesn't belong there, well thenyou'd be right not to criticize.
As NIH director over 12 years,I don't think they found those
things happening.
(32:21):
I certainly got, from the otherside of it, concerns about
whether, if you're a Christian,you could possibly support
certain kinds of science whichsome Christians would not be
comfortable with, such asembryonic stem cell research
Very complicated issue, one thatI have wrestled with as well
where I do believe that aBible-believing Jesus follower
(32:44):
could be comfortable withcertain ways in which that
research is done, but you haveto be really careful how you
define those.
They happen to be the waysmostly that things are
restricted to doing, so there'smaybe less of a conflict in that
space than was originallyappreciated.
It's all about the details.
I have found it actually quitehelpful to me, though, brian, as
(33:06):
a person who is both ascientist in a leadership role
and a person of faith, to beable to reassure the 60% of
Americans who are sometimes alittle worried about what are
scientists up to.
There's been an assumption onmany quarters that scientists
are all atheists and even thatscientists have an agenda to try
(33:26):
to destroy any remnants offaith in God that they think
aren't helping us anymore, andthere's certainly a few
scientists like that.
Most aren't like that, and forme and my colleagues who are
actually deeply devotedBible-following Christians, it's
reassuring for the public toknow that that's part of the
(33:47):
community that sciencerepresents too Well your book,
the Language of God.
Brian Stiller (33:53):
A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
You touch so many areas thatare complicated and you provide
insights and responses to manyquestions that I've never seen
another do.
But your life has not only beenat the leading edge of
(34:16):
scientific discovery, but youhave also served publicly.
During the COVID crisis, youwere a voice that I listened to
most Sunday mornings on Americantelevision, even though I live
outside of the US.
I was intrigued by what wasgoing on there, because we were
also dealing with COVID inCanada and other places, but I
(34:36):
was interested in the story ofyou and your daughter going to
Nigeria and what that meant toyou as a scientist who was
seeking to serve as a Christianin public ways.
I'd be interested in youretelling that story for our
(34:56):
listeners today.
Francis Collins (34:58):
Yeah, after I became a Christian and I was
somebody who's getting trainedas a physician, I had this
hunger to see if there wassomething I might be able to do
with those skills in a placewhere they were much needed.
And so later on, as I got intoa position at the University of
(35:18):
Michigan doing research andteaching medical students and
taking care of patients, Ithought it would be a good
experience to travel to a placethat is much less well-supported
with resources, and my daughterat that point was a college
student, headed for medicineherself and ultimately ended up
as a nephrologist, wanted to gowith me and I thought this would
(35:39):
be great for a father-daughterexperience.
I'd never been to Africa.
We signed up for a rotationthere for a couple of weeks in
Delta State, nigeria, which isreally impoverished, in the
middle of the jungle, in amission hospital run by the
Baptist Church, and my goalthere was to basically step in
(36:00):
and take care of the medicalpractice of a Christian
missionary physician who neededa chance to go to a conference
and also recharge batteries,because this is super intense.
So I had like one day to learnthe ropes from Dr Tim McCall,
and then he disappeared.
It's like okay, it's yours.
It was incredibly intimidating.
(36:24):
I was seeing diseases I'd neverseen, only read about in a
textbook.
The resources were very limited.
In terms of laboratory, notmuch.
There was an x-ray machine, butit was usually broken.
So you were really down to whatyou could come up with with
your eyes and your ears and yourability to do a physical exam
and then try to make a diagnosis.
(36:44):
And I was overwhelmed and Iwould every night write in my
journal God, please come and bethe strength that I don't have,
because I don't think I'mactually prepared for this.
I have seen things today and Ihave no idea if I did the right
thing.
I'm trying, but I don't thinkI've really got the right sense
(37:05):
of competence here.
And there was a particular storythat I might tell about what
happened.
That helped me realize amessage that I was missing about
all this, because I think,brian, I had come to this
thinking oh, I'm this Westerntrained physician from the
University of Michigan, I'mgoing to walk into this mission
(37:25):
hospital in Nigeria and I willtake care of all these people
and they will all be gratefuland life will be changed forever
.
I realized that's not the wayit worked.
I had these grand schemes andthey were not happening.
About the fourth or fifth daythere was a young man who came
into the clinic very sick,brought in by his family, in his
20s, with profound swelling inhis legs, very short of breath,
(37:50):
coming on over the course ofabout a week, and he was one of
those people.
You look at him, you think thisguy is probably not going to
survive another 24 hours.
And what is going on?
And by a little bit of arecollection of something I had
learned as a medical student anddoing some basic measurements
of his blood pressure, I figuredout the only thing that could
(38:13):
explain this is that he haddeveloped a huge amount of fluid
around his heart, what's calleda pericardial effusion, and it
was basically strangling theability of his heart to beat
anymore because it was floatingin this tight sack of fluid.
Now, normally in a Westernsituation you would quickly
confirm that diagnosis with anechocardiogram.
(38:36):
We didn't have that.
The x-ray machine, again,wasn't working, so you had to
trust in God and your ownhoped-for expertise to make the
right diagnosis, and the onlysolution would be to place a
needle into that fluid and drawit off, which meant plunging a
needle directly in the chest,aiming at the heart and trying
(39:01):
not to go too far, one of themost terrifying moments I've
ever done as a physician,because I knew the risks here
were extremely high and I wasdoing something without the
support systems that wouldhappen in the West.
But by God's grace it worked.
The diagnosis was correct,almost a liter of fluid was
(39:23):
taken off and the response andthis is physiology in the most
dramatic way was just phenomenal.
Now, within a few hours, thisalmost dead young man was
looking awfully good and I sawhim the next morning coming
around, sitting up, reading hisBible, advocating it was time to
go home.
And the other residents that Iwas there supposedly mentoring
(39:50):
although they knew more aboutNigerian medicine than I did
were along.
And this patient looked at meand he was aware that he had
volunteered because I had askedhis permission to do this, to
engage in something that couldvery well kill them.
And he said you know, doc, Ihave the feeling you haven't
been here very long, you know,and that kind of bugged me
(40:14):
because I thought I was comingacross here as this highly
knowledgeable, experienced guy.
I said, well, okay, yeah, Ijust got here four or five days
ago, you're right.
And then he asked me thisquestion.
He gave me this insight.
He said I also get the feelingthat you're wondering why you
(40:35):
came here.
Oh man, how did he see that inme?
He said I have an answer foryou.
You came here for one reason.
You came here for me, sorry, Ialways get choked up when I
remember that moment.
(40:55):
Sorry, I always get choked upwhen I remember that moment.
That was just this blindingmoment of insight about what
everything we do, which isreally what God's plan is all
about is reaching out to anotherperson in a time of need.
(41:16):
Sure, you can have your big,grand plans about saving Nigeria
, but what it was really aboutwas a chance to touch one young
farmer's life, and he taught methat when I was too blind to see
.
I'll never forget that.
Brian Stiller (41:38):
Dr Collins, thank you for your years of service,
your medical expertise, thewealth of research and advance
you've brought to us all, foryour witness of Christ and your
testimony, and we're so gratefulfor your time with us today.
Thanks again for being with us.
Francis Collins (41:50):
Brian, it's been a pleasure.
Thanks for everything you'redoing to spread the good news.
God bless.
Brian Stiller (41:58):
Thank you, dr Collins, for joining us today
and allowing us to consider theanswers Christ has offered to
you in some of life's greatestquestions, and thank you for
being a part of the podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeusing hashtag Evangelical360 and
join the conversation onYouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
(42:22):
check the show notes for linksand info, and if you haven't
already received my free e-bookand newsletter, go to
brianstiller.
com.
Thanks again, until next time.
Don't miss the next interview.
Be sure to subscribe toEvangelical 360 on YouTube.
(42:44):
See you there.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.