Barry's Blog

In Woody Allen's film, Love and Death, listen to the conversation between Allen's character, Boris, and Diane Keaton's character, Sonia, as Allen waxes philosophical about God's existence: Boris: "Sonia, what if there is no God?" Sonia: "Boris Demitrovich, are you joking?" Boris: "What if we're just a bunch of absurd people who are running around with no rhyme or reason?" Sonia: "But if there is no God, then life has no meaning. Why go on living? Why not just commit suicide?" Boris: "Well, let's not get hysterical; I could be wrong. I'd hate to blow by brains out and then read in the papers they'd found something."

One of the recurring themes in Love and Death is Boris' quest to receive some kind of sign from God: "If I could see a miracle, just one miracle. If I could see a burning bush, or the seas part, or my Uncle Sasha pick up a check." In Allen's Broadway Danny Rose, Allen's character tries to convince the cynical Tina about the importance of guilt. After all, his rabbi has told him that we are all "guilty in the eyes of God." Tina asks him, "Do you believe in God?" To which Danny replies, "No, but I feel guilty about it." To Allen, there is no convincing proof of God's existence. only uncertainly and wishful thinking, and in the end, humor to stave off the isolation of being alone - adrift in the cosmos.

While Allen and other filmakers often explore issues of God and faith, and whether He even exists, an article in the June 11th issue of The Sunday Times told of another story, that of a scientist who has come to believe in God. Francis Collins, the director of the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute, believes that there is a reasonable basis for belief in a Creator, and that scientific discoveries actually "bring men closer to God."

His book, The Language of God (to be published in September) will again renew the age-old debate concerning the relationship between science and faith. Collins believes that "one of the greatest tragedies of our time is the impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war." Collins continues, "I don't see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past twenty years."

The fifty-six year old scientist offers that when he was part of the team in unravelling the human genome, it did not create a conflict in his mind between faith and his belief in God, but rather, it served as his "glimpse" into the workings of God: "When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it. But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the Creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along. When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can't survey that...without a sense of awe."

Collins was not always a believer in God. He describes himself as an atheist until the age of twenty-seven, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strong faith of some of his most critical patients. " They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance...That was interesting, puzzling, and unsettling."

When he visited a Methodist minister to discuss the matter, he was given a copy of C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, which argued that God's existence is at least a reasonable possibility. The book, as the Times article mentions, transformed his life: "It was an argument I was not prepared to hear. I was very happy with the idea that God didn't exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away." His "epiphany" came when he was hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state: "It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, 'I cannot resist this another moment'."

Collins, of course, joins a great chorus of famous scientists whose practice of science actually deepened their faith in God. Isaac Newton, whose work dealing with the laws of gravity has shaped our understanding of the universe, declared: "This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." And Einstein, who believed the universe had a Creator, once declared, "I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details."

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
 The moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
 What is man that you are mindful of him,
 The son of man that you care for him?

 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings,
  And crowned him with glory and honor.
 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
 You put everything under his feet, all flocks and herds,
 And the beasts of the field, the birds of the air,
 And the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

 Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"

 (Psalm 8: 3-9, a psalm of King David)

For FinishingWell,

Barry Morrow

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