I’m not trying to say that there’s something inherently religious in this picture, but I think it’s emblematic of the potential to both interest people and to make them unsettled. Can you, in fact, admire both of these pictures? Can you do it at the same time? Is there an inherent problem in having both a scientific world view and a spiritual world view? … We live on this knife edge of improbability … the unreasonable effectiveness that mathematics points to God’s existence.

— Dr. Francis Collins

Some time ago I had the privilege to speak at a conference at Johns Hopkins University on the theme What Does It Mean to Be Human? Before my address, Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project and the co-mapper of human DNA, presented his talk. He spoke of the intelligibility and marvel of the book of life, filled with more than three billion bits of information. In a strange way, he became both the subject and the object of his study, both the designer and the design of his research. Extraordinary thoughts swarmed within me as I listened, virtually tuning in and out of the talk in order to reflect on the wonder of it all.

When Collins showed his slides there was a gasp in the audience. It dawned on me as I was looking that I was looking at that because of which I was able to look at it. I was awe-stricken by that because of which I was capable of being awe-stricken. I realized the magnificence and the grandeur of the way God has fashioned us and woven us together.

Francis Collins, when he finished showing those slides, said nothing. He picked up his guitar and sang a gospel song. The only response possible could be that of worship.

— Ravi Zacharias