Faith vs. Fact, by Jerry Coyne: An Extended Book Analysis (Part 1)

🔊 Listen to Post It was about ten years ago that I decided to read the “big three” writers of the New Atheist Movement: Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, and Christopher Hitchens’ god is not Great. I was teaching Worldview at a small Christian high school at that time, and I felt it would be a good challenge for me to read the works of the “other side” and critically analyze their arguments. Surely, I thought, even though I’m probably not going to agree with them on their ultimate conclusions, they are going to have some valid points that I’ll have to really wrestle with.

Long story short, “underwhelmed” does not even begin to describe my disappointment. Not only did these writers fail to convince me about anything, they displayed a level of ignorance about history, theology, and philosophy that truly shocked me. I ended up writing book analyses about each one of those books—the first post in each analysis is linked in the above titles. Earlier this year, I also did two more book analyses of Dan Barker’s books, godless and Mere Morality. I had the same reaction.

To be clear, no one in their right mind will deny there are plenty of black spots in the history of Christianity; no one will deny that the Bible has often been misused and misinterpreted in a variety of shameful ways. But the basic problem that all the above books by the so-called “new atheists” have in common is this: they are historically and theologically ignorant and they show little to no interest in getting the most basic facts and definitions correct. To the point: the writers of the New Atheist Movement simply strike me a incredibly intellectually lazy and emotionally manipulative. They, like young earth creationists like Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, have succeeded in ginning up a false narrative that there is a “war” between science and faith—and in the process, not only have they made themselves richer, they’ve made scores of people dumber: dumber about the Bible, dumber about history and theology, and dumber about the relationship between science and faith.

And Now…Jerry Coyne
A few months ago, I was in a discussion in one of the creation/evolution groups on Facebook. In the course of the discussion, there was an atheist who suggested that I read Jerry Coyne’s book, Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible. He had found it very convincing and he said he’d be interested in my take on it. Well, over the course of this July, I will be writing about my take on Coyne’s book. Not to give any spoiler alerts, but in many ways, I found it worse than the books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Barker.

For those who might not know, Coyne is an atheist and evolutionary biologist. He is probably most well-known for his book Why Evolution is True. I have a number of Christian friends who have read it and say it is a really good explanation of what evolution actually is. Needless to say, I think it goes without saying that Coyne is an expert in evolution. After reading Faith vs. Fact, though, let me suggest that he stick to writing in the area of his expertise, for the very thesis of his book is based on the false narrative of 18^th century propagandists of the so-called Enlightenment that he (as is obvious in the book) has simply swallowed completely without one ounce of critical thought. Is that too harsh? I will let you be the judge in the course of this book analysis series.

The Core Problem with Coyne’s Book
The core problem with the book, though, in addition to his uncritical acceptance of the provably false narrative of the so-called Enlightenment, is Coyne’s failure to even properly define (or even understand) what faith is and what the aim of religion is. One sees this all throughout his book, but especially in the preface, where he makes the following statements:

“Most religions are grounded in claims that can be regarded as scientific. That is, God, and the tenets of many religions, are hypotheses that can, at least in principle, be examined by science and reason. If religious claims can’t be substantiated with reliable evidence, the argument goes, they should, like dubious scientific claims, be rejected until more data arrive” (xii).

“Theology turns itself, or at least the truth claims makes about the universe, into a kind of science, but a science using weak evidence to make strong statements about what is true” (xv).

“Science and religion…are competitors in the business of finding out what is true about our universe” (xvi).

“Understanding reality, in the sense of being able to use what we know to predict what we don’t, is best achieved using the tools of science, and is never achieved using the methods of faith”(xx).

Do you see the fundamental problem in his very foundational assumption when it comes to even understanding what religion (and as he makes obvious in his book, his focus is really on Christianity) is? His fundamental assumption is that the primary focus and aim of “religion” (i.e. Christianity) is to explain natural phenomena. He sees religion and science as addressing the same question: “How does nature work?”

There simply is no other way to say it: Coyne’s foundational assumption is completely absurd. If I may make a silly analogy: Coyne is like hockey fanatic who sees nothing else in life as worth anything. Take him to a baseball game, and he’ll complain that baseball isn’t a real sport because there’s no net or puck. Take him to tennis court, and he’ll start shooting pucks into the net and claiming each one is a goal, and when you tell him you’re supposed to avoid the net, and no, you’re not supposed to use a puck and hockey stick, but rather a racket and a tennis ball, he’ll retort, “You just have no clue how play hockey!”

It doesn’t occur to him that different games play by different rules. It doesn’t occur to him that there are other arenas of human activity that don’t address the rules and aims of hockey. He honestly thinks hockey is everything in life, and he judges all other games by the rules of hockey. Now, just substitute the natural sciences for hockey, and Coyne’s problem becomes obvious. He thinks religion is incompatible with science just as a hockey fanatic thinks tennis is incompatible with hockey. He doesn’t get that tennis is a legitimate different game with different rules and aims. He honestly doesn’t get why Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams are considered good athletes—after all, Wayne Gretzky could skate circles around them!

And so, before we even get into the specifics of what is in Faith vs. Fact, it is important to make this clear: Coyne’s fundamental argument that religion and science are in conflict is based on an assumption that religion’s aim is to explain the natural processes of the material world, but that religion fails miserably at providing those explanations—that argument is utterly absurd and detached from reality. The aim of religion (and from now on, I’ll just say Christianity) is not to answer scientific questions with “faith.” If you try to understand religion, or faith, or even the concept of truth, using that assumption as your jumping off point, you’re going to be jumping off into an abyss of muddle-headed thinking.

Final Thoughts Thus Far
And let’s face it, there is a lot of muddle-headed thinking out there these days. I’ve written plenty about the muddle-headed thinking of Young Earth Creationism, but after reading a number of champions of the New Atheist Movement, I am convinced the same malady affects them both. The so-called “war” between science and religion isn’t really a war between science and Christianity. It is a propaganda war between advocates of both of these movements, and both movements are making it hard for anyone to come to any sort of clarity regarding science and religion.

To be clear, there most certainly is conflict these days when it comes to discussing science and Christianity. But that conflict is not between actual science and the actual tenets of Christianity. The conflict has been stirred up by what I call both Christian and Atheist Fundamentalists who have misrepresented both science and the Christian faith. If I can use another silly analogy, if the real “game” of understanding science and faith is being played on a football field from goal line to goal line, you’re going to find these Christian and Atheist Fundamentalists camped out in the end zone, trying to beat each other up with hockey sticks and tennis rackets.

It should be an interesting month as I go through Coyne’s book.