Intellectual and Christian
Why “Willful Blindness” Prevents Truth Seeking
It is time for everyone to realize that many people with towering intellects in the past and now are Christians. Too often faith in God and in Jesus Christ is characterized as appealing only to dimwits.
I ran across The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief in a used bookstore. Published in 2006 by Simon and Schuster, this book was once a New York Times bestseller.
Author Dr. Francis S. Collins traces his journey from atheist to Christian; he also provides fascinating insights into scientific discoveries (often misunderstood and misrepresented), ranging from DNA to evolution, that have turned the world upside down.
Collins is no slouch intellectually. He headed the Human Genome Project, for starters. One of the world’s leading scientists, Collins is also a physician and served as director of the National Institute of Health from 2009–2021.
One of my favorite quotations from the book is “While rational argument can never conclusively prove the existence of God, serious thinkers from Augustine to Aquinas to C. S. Lewis have demonstrated that a belief in God is intensely plausible” (page 164).
St. Augustine and C. S. Lewis were also converts to Christianity later in life. Both were intellectual giants of their time. Collins recognized, especially by reading the works of C. S. Lewis, the uniqueness and feasibility of the truth in all of Christianity’s claims.
For example, in Christianity alone, God seeks out humans. In all other religions, humans go looking for God.
Collins admitted he was an atheist for years because of what C. S. Lewis termed “willful blindness.”
One thing that most impressed Collins was the innate shared sense all humans have of Moral Law. In other words, humans seem to be hard wired to know the difference between right and wrong, as C. S. Lewis so eloquently demonstrated in Mere Christianity. (Lewis also systematically dealt with every objection intellectuals have about the faith. For that reason, he was nicknamed “apostle to the skeptics.”)
An impressive feature of Collins’ work is the way he demonstrates that there should not be and actually is no war being waged between science and faith. He explains that if more people knew the actual scientific findings about everything, they would be more likely, not less likely, to believe in God.
He did point out that some Christians who unfortunately are not well versed in science hold fast to the outdated “young earth” philosophy which have been disproven. However, he adds that the age of the earth as well as the methods God used to facilitate creation are in no way stumbling blocks to faith.
He explains why the term “Intelligent Design” is outdated, and perhaps the ideal term for believers who accept scientific evidence for evolution should be “Biologos” from “bio,” meaning life, and “Logos,” meaning intelligibility or the Word. In fact, there is a website dedicated to the organization by this name, and its motto is “God’s Word, God’s World.” Like-minded scientists host conferences and are not hiding their light under a bushel.
Collins has no doubt that Genesis contains the truth, especially with respect to the fact that humans were made in God’s image yet sin entered the world and caused the human downfall. Like St. Augustine, Collins considers the possibility that Genesis could be an allegory which does not diminish its truth value. [One thought that occurred to me was that Jesus spoke and taught using parables; employing a literary device did not diminish the truth.]
Collins also believes scientific discoveries reveal truth and sees no reason both sources of truth, God’s Word and scientific knowledge, cannot stand side by side.
Science marches on, and new discoveries displace theories all the time. The God who made heaven and earth is not threatened by what scientists can learn by exploring the universe. I suspect He may be pleased we are making good use of the brains He created.
In my own life, I have encountered many atheists, some of whom admitted “willful blindness” or not wanting to take the time to rigorously explore what Christianity is actually all about. One friend of mine, a brilliant scientist, thought he would throw me a curve ball when he said, “God can’t be good since He created evil.’’
He was stunned when I told him that evil is the absence of good. He said that thought had never occurred to him. I asked if he had ever read St. Augustine, and he swallowed and said “no.”
The biggest questions in life are the ones that ultimately matter the most:
How did the universe get here?
What is the meaning of life?
What happens to us after we die?
It’s worth taking a look at what some of the towering intellects, such as C. S. Lewis and St. Augustine have to say on these matters. They both back up their claims with Holy Scripture.
