I wrote this for CiC on a thread about Francis Collins and his new project http://biologos.org.

Francis Collins addresses the Veritas Forum recorded on YouTube.

I had found that site after an interesting Time Magazine article on Collins: http://digg.com/u12KMK

I took a look at the biologos site and was frankly disappointed.

Many of the approaches to the questions reveal an approach to Scripture reading that is rather scientistic. It’s hard to fault Collins and the group of evangelical scientists I assume he’s gathered around himself to look at these issues because neither they, nor perhaps their pastors, have approached language in any other way.

The Belgic confession talks about the “two books” but the approach to reading the two books matters because the manner in which the scientist finds helpful reading the one may not prove so helpful reading the other which really comes to us in a sense from other worlds with vastly different approaches to language, art, communication and worldviews than our own. All of this is to say, perhaps, that pastors, Biblical scholars, theologians, historians can’t comfortably delegate this project to believing scientists as perhaps we would like to because of the mine fields in many of the religious communities that may sustain our employment.

A couple more points.

I think it is important to recognize that this website is intended to be in the service of apologetics. Apologetics is a helpful project but seldom able to really carry all the weight that those who pursue it usually hope it well. Sometimes the best they can offer is a community with which to share questions to struggle over. Religious commitment tends to be a matter of the heart which is prior to the head most often.

The second point is that this will likely always be an ongoing project. Just like the poor, we will always have these kinds of projects with us. The church has always had them and I see no reason for that to end. I have lots of questions of these sorts in my mind. One of the things that I think the OT wisdom literature teaches is that part of the package of “The fear of the LORD” is gaining a sense of comfort with not having to know a lot of things. The book of Job is a brutal course in this. Job is never informed as to the wager in the heavenly court that devastated his life. The book doesn’t justify it, it just leaves it there. Something deep inside of us then joins Job throughout the book in his protest. “Would that God were available to me so that I could face him in court and demand an accounting of everything I’ve suffered!!!” When the shocking thing happens of God actually showing up, Job puts his hand over his mouth. That’s a pretty good word picture of “The fear of the LORD”.

The life of discipleship presupposes that “fear”. It is primarily about trust which is believing in the character of their Beloved rather than requiring the Beloved to offer a complete accounting (if that would be possible) as a pre-condition for the relationship. pvk