'Mere Christianity' makes sense, scientist tells
CS Lewis Foundation

An American award-winning scientist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes, and leadership of the Human Genome Project to map the entire human DNA, has described his journey from atheism to Christian belief to an international audience in England.

"There really is no conflict between faith and reason," Professor Francis Collins told the CS Lewis Foundation's international summer institute, Oxbridge 2008, on at St Aldate's Church, Cambridge.

"As a committed materialist in college, I assumed the physical was all there was," said Collins, who in 1977 at the age of 27 completed a career change from chemistry to medicine and became a doctor. This, he said, forced him to confront pain and death face-to-face. "That was a dramatic turn for me. The concepts were not hypothetical anymore."

Through encounters with patients, pastors and, finally, by reading Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, Collins realised, "I had never really looked at the evidence. Atheism had only been a convenient pathway. I had to decide what was really the truth but I thought that faith and reason were on opposite poles."

Mere Christianity began life as a series of lectures given by Lewis in 1943, and the best-selling book that followed had a profound effect on Collins. "Even in the first few pages, all my arguments about faith just fell apart. It was breathtaking ... Lewis remains my best teacher," he said. Within a year, Collins had become a Christian.

Before a packed audience in Cambridge, Collins cited evidence for his beliefs based on the moral law and mathematical and universal laws. Defending his position as a 'theistic evolutionist', Collins said that his beliefs as a Christian and his research as a scientist had led him to the view that faith and reason are compatible.

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Released on Tuesday, 4th March 2008