The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

by Timothy J. Keller

When evolution is turned into an All-encompassing Theory explaining absolutely everything we believe, feel and do as the product of natural selection, then we are not in the arena of science, but of philosophy. Evolution as an All-encompassing Theory has insurmountable difficulties as a worldview. We will look at these difficulties in Chapter 9. Dawkins argues that if you believe in evolution as a biological mechanism you must also believe in philosophical naturalism. But why? The same year that Dawkins’s The God Delusion was published, Francis Collins published The Language of God. Collins is an eminent research scientist and head of the Human Genome Project. He believes in evolutionary science and critiques the Intelligent Design movement that denies the transmutation of species. However, Collins believes that the fine-tuning, beauty and order of nature nonetheless point to a divine Creator, and describes his conversion from atheism to Christianity. Here then is what Dawkins says can’t exist, someone with a firm belief in evolution as biological mechanism, but who completely rejects philosophical naturalism. Collins, of course, is not alone.7