In their new podcast “Language of God,” BioLogos has conducted an interview with Francis Collins regarding science, Christianity, and gene editing.
During the section in which gene editing was discussed, Collins said:
We believers, who view human beings as being of a special nature because of our relationship with God, ought to think carefully about scenarios that some are willing to begin to discuss about reinventing ourselves. Because not only can you edit a bone marrow cell and cure sickle cell disease, you could edit an embryo and create a human being that has a DNA instruction book that’s never happened before. And you might do so for benevolent reasons, but pretty soon you might do so because you think, you know how to improve the next generation. Who gets to decide what’s an improvement, and are we really smart enough to know all the consequences of those kinds of changes. Even from a safety perspective, this doesn’t sound to most of us like a thing that we’d want to do. But from a theological perspective, if we are fearfully and wonderfully made, do we want to be fearfully and wonderfully remade in some other kind of image based on what we think we ought to become?
The full clip can be viewed on the BioLogos website.