The God of genome and the God of Bible

The World renowned Geneticist Francis Collins once said: 

"The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshiped in the cathedral or the laboratory."

Let us grant to Francis Collins the premise that indeed there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent transcendental God who created the genome.  

With this premise in our hand, let us revisit the conclusion provided above by Francis Collins and ask two questions:

• Is Yahweh, the god of the Bible, same as the transcendental God who created the genome?   

• If experiments in the laboratory constitute a form of worshiping the transcendental God, is that similar to worshiping Yahweh in the cathedral?

Difference between Yahweh and the transcendental God of genome:

God of the genome that Francis Collins is talking about is the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent transcendental God. We can praise Him, worship Him, or experience Him in our own ways.  We can ascribe anything true to such an abstract notion of God.  If we do, it is no different than ascribing such qualities to an abstract ideal.  In that sense, both theists and agnostics can agree at this level that this God is the same one granted in the premise. 

Trouble comes when we layer other characteristics, when we ascribe attitudes and behaviors to such a transcendental God.

Many things we ascribe to Yahweh in the Bible cannot be ascribed to the transcendental God.  Yahweh is characterized elsewhere (in the Bible) with His interest in intervening in matters of human life.  Yahweh says that He is a jealous God, sets rules, and punishes for violating rules.  Through historical interventions in human matters,  Yahweh picks sides and seems to favor some people over others.  For example, see  Morality and the Bible

We cannot say with any degree of confidence that the transcendental God, to who we granted the creation of genome, is same as Yahweh.

"Now, if you say God is love, for example.  Then you cannot say love is only from Israel, or love is only from France, or love is only from ... Love is in every being, love is all over the world, love is everywhere.  Love is logos, it is in the atoms of the Universe.  So people who try to grab it and own it and see that nobody else has it are the problem."

Professor Robert Thurman, Department of Religion, Columbia University

Difference between worshiping the God of genome in laboratory and worshiping Yahweh in Cathedral:

Transcendental God of the genome did not have miraculous interventions in history to share knowledge of genome with us.  Thankfully, we are endowed with faculties of intuition, reasoning, and inquisitiveness to empirically study in the laboratory and discover knowledge directly.  We are also endowed with the freedom to make mistakes in our understanding as we continue our quest of discovery.   

Yahweh likes to communicate with us through historical interventions which are pitifully rare. To make matters worse, Yahweh does not like to communicate with humans directly but only through a chosen prophet. Yahweh also communicates on all matters of his creative genius through the mediating prophets. For all his unlimited powers, Yahweh's communications are very limited, simplistic relative to the creation or the complexities of human problems, often allegorical and, in the imprecise human language.  We are destined in the Cathedral to a life of desperately deciphering his given word delivered to us through prophets, written down by his disciples, and given to us through scriptures.  If you do not believe me, look at the size of the Bible and compare that to volumes of theology that are written each year. 

Yahweh of the Bible does not allow direct experience of his Divine Self either in the lab or in the Cathedral.  Since transcendental God is not immanent i.e., not present in the physical world, lab experiments related to the physical aspects of Universe cannot constitute worship of the transcendental God who is outside the physical world.

Bible, and the various large denominations of Christianity that follow the Bible, will not accept lab work as worship.  Bible is the inerrant word of Yahweh.  Followers of Yahweh have to submit themselves to his lordship - they are not allowed to question or have doubts as scientists do.  Those who are not followers of Yahweh need to convert and become followers - no dissension or doubt is allowed (for Yahweh is a self-proclaimed jealous God per ten commandments).  They are not allowed to have varying Worldviews just because we Humans are not sure which is the true one.  If you do not believe me, look at how Christians push Creationism as the only truth and that natural biological evolution is false.  In spite of all the evidence to support natural evolution, Christians cannot even accept evolution an alternative plausible Worldview because Yahweh would be upset.  We know from history how Christianity ill-treated scientists like Galileo.

Accepting that Jesus is the only way to salvation is the only form of worship that Bible tells us is acceptable to Yahweh.  Lab experiments are not worship.  Seeking understanding of ultimate reality or serving other people are not spiritual pursuits in Judeo-Christian faith.  In fact, many Christians are quite sure that Gandhi did not go to heaven after death because he was not Christian.  It is just that simple.