We now come to chapter 2 of Jerry Coyne’s book, Faith vs. Fact. The chapter is entitled, “What’s Incompatible?” And, to get right to the point, here is what Coyne’s answer to that question is: Methods. He writes: “My claim is this: science and religion are incompatible because they have different methods for getting knowledge about reality, have different ways of assessing the reliability of that knowledge, and, in the end, arrive at conflicting conclusions about the universe. ‘Knowledge’ acquired by religion is at odds not only with scientific knowledge, but also with knowledge professed by other religions. In the end, religion’s methods, unlike those of science, are useless for understanding reality” (64).
When it gets right down to it, Coyne says that what is incompatible is the conflicting methods science and religion use to discover truths about the universe. Packed within that claim, of course, are two highly problematic assumptions: (1) that “reality” consists of the natural/material world alone, and (2) as an outgrowth of that assumption, the odd view that the purpose of “religion” is the same as that of science, and that therefore “religion” has certain “methods” to investigate reality (by which Coyne obviously assumes is limited solely to the natural world).
In addition to his claim that the methods of “religion” to understand the natural world are incompatible with the methods of science, Coyne touches upon a number of other things in the chapter as well: (1) He discusses “liberal” Christianity’s attempt to claim the Bible is metaphor and allegory; (2) He discusses the early Church Fathers and claims they openly preached against reason; (3) He routinely lumps all different religions and cults together as one, and thus fails to differentiate or distinguish between them; and (4) He discusses philosophical naturalism.
Over the course of this post and the next post, I will address each one of these in turn.
Methods and Coyne’s Assumptions
It cannot be stressed enough: the very foundation of Coyne’s thesis, indeed his entire book, is based on this odd assumption that “religion” has certain “methods” by which it tries to understand the natural universe, what Coyne believes consists of all reality. What does Coyne say these “methods” of religion are? Simple: revelation, scriptural authority, and dogma. Well, let’s get one thing out of the way—those are not “methods.” It utterly astounds me that at the heart of Coyne’s complaint against “religion” (we will ignore the fact that Coyne has an odd way of conflating all religions together as if they were all basically the same) is a failure to understand the proper definition of “method.”
In addition, Coyne’s assumption illustrates what I’d like to call Coyne’s Abbot and Costello circle of logic. It goes something like this:
“Religion and science are at odds with each other.”
Why do you say that?
“Because religion’s methods for understanding reality don’t reveal anything about reality, like the methods of science do.”
How do you understand reality?
“The natural world and the cosmos.”
Why do you think the natural world and the cosmos consists of all reality?
“Because that is what science investigates and describes.”
Why do you assume religion addresses the same things science does?
“It claims to say things about reality, doesn’t it? Reality consists of the natural world and the cosmos.”
But religion isn’t trying to answer scientific questions.
“Oh, you’re admitting religion isn’t true!”
I didn’t say that.
“Sure you did. You said it isn’t doing science. If it’s not scientific, it’s not true. It’s not dealing with reality.”
Who’s on first? I don’t know. Third base!
We can see this in what Coyne says early on in the chapter: “Our experience that supernatural hypothesis have never advanced our understanding of the cosmos has, as we’ll see later, led to the idea of philosophical naturalism: the notion that supernatural entities not only fail to help us understand nature, but don’t seem to exist at all” (37). Notice the assumption that religion is some sort of “supernatural hypothesis” that tries, but fails, to advance understanding of the cosmos. And notice how Coyne then that is what leads to philosophical naturalism. No, the exact opposite is true. It is philosophical naturalism that starts with the assumption that the natural world consists of all reality, and that assumption leads Coyne to think that “religion” is trying to do the same thing science does. And since it doesn’t, Coyne then concludes “religion” isn’t true.
We see this assumption at work in another quote of Coyne: “One of their [liberal Christians] most common arguments against such literalism is this: ‘The Bible is not a textbook of science.’ When I see that phrase, I automatically translate it as, ‘The Bible is not entirely true,’ for that is what is means. The ‘nontextbook’ claim, of course, is a rationale for believers to pick and choose what they consider really true in scripture” (55).
This, of course, is not only completely nonsensical, but it is also the exact same point of view as the young earth creationist Ken Ham: if you say the Bible isn’t doing science, then you’re a “liberal” who wants to pick and choose what is true in the Bible, because if the Bible is not scientific, then it’s not true.” Sorry Jerry and Ken, you’re both wrong. Saying that the Bible isn’t a science textbook isn’t illustrative of “liberal Christianity.” It is illustrative of literary competency and proper genre recognition.
Metaphors and Allegories…Parables and Myths
This leads us to further connections between Jerry Coyne and Ken Ham in regard to the way they come to Scripture. As I’ve just said, both Coyne and Ham assume that the Bible really is essentially a science textbook, and that any attempt to say parts of the Bible are literary is a liberal conspiracy to salvage any relevancy in the Bible after modern science has “proven” the Bible isn’t true. In making this argument, though, both men prove themselves to be quite the literary dunces who can’t even get basic definitions of literary categories right.
I do not want to get bogged down in discussing definitions of literary terms and genres, but after reading Coyne (as well as many things by Ham) it is painfully obvious to me that both view things like metaphors, allegories, fables, parables, fairytales as all “kind of the same thing.” I can almost hear them say, “Oh, it’s all that fictional mumbo jumbo!” But definitions matter if you want to properly understand and discuss things, and neither Coyne (or Ham) feel it is really necessary to do that. To them, only science matters and only facts are true. Any kind of “fiction”—or writing that isn’t scientific or historical—is ultimately worthless and not worth their time. And that is why Coyne’s book displays not only such a condescending and derisive attitude toward literature, but also an astonishingly intellectual laziness in its discussion of the Bible as literature.
Let’s just consider a few quotes from Coyne that illustrate his inability to distinguish between literary genres and his obvious assumption that they’re all “pretty much the same thing.”
Quote #1
“A recurring pattern in theology is this: as branches of science…have disproved scriptural claims one by one, those claims have morphed from literal truths into allegories. This is one of the big differences between science and religion. When a scientific claim is disproved, it goes into the dustbin of good ideas that simply don’t pan out. When a religious claim is disproved, it often turns into a metaphor that imparts a made-up ‘lesson.’ Although some biblical events are hard to see as allegories (Jonah’s ingestion by a fish and Job’s trials are two of these), the theological mind is endlessly creative, always able to find a moral or philosophical point in fictitious stories” (54).
I have no doubt that Ken Ham absolutely agrees with Coyne’s statement. Furthermore, Coyne’s comments regarding Jonah and Job also echo the typical take of Ken Ham on those two books in the Bible. Both men think it is “obvious” that both Jonah and Job were meant to be understood as actual history, but that “liberal Christians” are trying to say these books are allegories, or metaphors, or whatever, because they feel science has proven they’re ridiculous. As a biblical scholar, I will tell you that the Book of Jonah is neither history nor an allegory—it is a post-exilic parable. And the Book of Job is literally listed among the Wisdom Literature in the Hebrew Bible. These are different literary genres that anyone who cares to do a little studying can readily figure out and understand. Understanding the proper genre in which something is written affects how one reads and interprets that particular piece of writing.
And that is the problem with Coyne’s (and Ham’s) take regarding the Bible. There is a failure to acknowledge that the Bible is a collection of many different genres of writing. To claim, as both Coyne and Ham often do, that “everyone always read the Bible as history,” but then after science debunked it all, “liberal Christians started making up all this metaphor-allegory-fictional mumbo jumbo” is just laughably absurd. The only two genres for the biblically illiterate are either history/science or “throw all those other literary terms in a bucket because it’s all fictional nonsense anyway.”
Those who are biblically literate know that such a view is absurd.
Quote #2
“If you want to read much of the Bible as allegory, you must overturn the history of theology, rewriting it to conform to your liberal, science-friendly faith. Besides pretending that you’re following in the tradition of ancient theologians, you must also explain the way you can discern truth amid the metaphors. What is allegory and what is real? How do you tell the difference? This is particularly difficult for Christians, because the historical evidence for Jesus—that is, for a real person around whom they myth accreted—is thin” (59).
In addition to noticing how Coyne just interchanges terms like allegory and metaphor, notice also his nonsensical, biblically illiterate genre categories: allegory or real? And notice too another very Ham-like train of thought that says, “If you say some parts of the Bible are allegory, metaphor (or whatever!), then how can you tell what is real (i.e. historical) and what is not real (i.e. all that fairytale nonsense)?” The answer to that question is fairly simple: become an informed and studied reader.
Authors of anything write with the intention to communicate. There is an understanding that the audience will recognize the writing. Shakespeare didn’t have to write at the top of Hamlet, “Hey, just in case you couldn’t tell, this is a play!” Since plays are still being written today, we don’t need to be told that—we recognize a play when we see it. We recognize a poem when we see it. If we are familiar with a style and genre of writing, we simply recognize it when we see it. The challenge with the Bible is that some of it is written in genres that we in the modern world aren’t as familiar with, and so sometimes we misunderstand a few things. But education about ancient writing really exists. It really is possible to learn these things.
I need to point out one more thing about the above quote. Apparently, Jerry Coyne is a mythicist who doesn’t believe (or at least highly doubts) that a historical Jesus ever existed. I’ve written about Jesus Mythicism elsewhere (notably in my posts about Richard Carrier), but for now I have to be blunt: Jesus Mythicism is to history what flat-eartherism is to science—full stop. Yes, it really is that nonsensical.
Quote #3
“Sometimes it seems that scriptural literalists are more intellectually honest than the ‘scripture is not a textbook’ crowd [i.e. informed biblical scholars], who, rather than admit that science has falsified much of the Bible—and, by implication, has cast doubt on the rest of it—argue that the book is effectively one long parable” (75).
Again, a very Ham-like sentiment: the “honest” Bible readers read the Bible like a science textbook, and it is those “liberal” Christians and scholars who try to go all “literary” on the Bible. Of course, in this quote, Coyne substitutes parable for metaphor or allegory. Again, to him, it’s all the same.
Quote #4
“The story of Job has baffled scholars for centuries, for its ‘meaning’ is murky, yet there is no lack of those willing to give it a metaphorical spin” (77).
Well, although it is true that one can say Job has baffled scholars, the challenging part has been understanding the question of theodicy: “Why would a good God allow good people suffer?” The genre of Job is not “murky” for biblical scholars. Like I said before, in the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Job is listed among the Wisdom Literature. That is clear as day. And must I point out Coyne’s uniformed grab bag literary term he has used in this quote is “metaphor”? What biblical scholar thinks the Book of Job is a metaphor?
Quote #5
“If Adam and Eve are metaphor, could the Resurrection be a metaphor as well—perhaps for spiritual rebirth?” (77).
Yet another example of how Coyne shares a similar understanding of the Bible as Ken Ham. Consider this quote by Ham: “When we deny the existence of Adam and Eve, then how do we explain the origin of sin and death in the world? And if we cannot explain how sin and death came into the world, or if we believe that it was always here, then what was the purpose of Christ’s death and Resurrection?”
Not only do both men read the Bible with a shocking amount of hyper-wooden literalism, both have an all-or-nothing approach that says, “If Adam and Eve isn’t historical, then who is to say that the Resurrection account isn’t historical? If one thing in the Bible is a metaphor, then who is to say that everything in the Bible isn’t a metaphor?” The answer to that rather ignorant question is obvious: an informed and studied understanding of the various genres in the Bible help us understand the various books of the Bible.
Simply put, basic competency in Bible reading tells us that the Bible is not all one, singular, monolithic genre. If you can’t tell the difference between the Adam and Eve story and the story of Jesus, it is simply hard for me to take you seriously. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but the truth hurts sometimes.
In my next post, I will attempt to tackle a few more items from Chapter 2 of Coyne’s Faith vs. Fact.
Hi Joel,
You wrote:
As a biblical scholar, I will tell you that the Book of Jonah is neither history nor an allegory—it is a post-
exilic parable.
I’m curious, what is your definition of the word parable? I looked it up on dictionary.com and here is their definition:
noun
1. a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson.
2. a statement or comment that conveys a meaning indirectly by the use of comparison, analogy, or the like.
I then looked up the word allegory:
noun, plural al·le·go·ries.
1. a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.
2. a symbolical narrative: the allegory of Piers Plowman.
I’m not sure how you consider Coyne ignorant and incompetent in Bible reading for claiming that the Book of Jonah is allegory. Which is why I ask; what are your definitions?
But the bigger issue is with ‘wooden literalist’ Christians and the reason they believe Jonah is historical. As you know, it isn’t only because they believe the Bible to be inerrant, it’s because Jesus quotes it.
Matthew 12:38-42 New Life Version (NLV)
Jesus Tells about Jonah
38 Then some of the teachers of the Law and the proud religious law-keepers said to Jesus, “Teacher, we would like to have you do something special for us to see.” 39 He said to them, “The sinful people of this day look for something special to see. There will be nothing special to see but the powerful works of the early preacher Jonah. 40 Jonah was three days and three nights in the stomach of a big fish. The Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the grave also. 41 The men of the city of Nineveh will stand up with the people of this day on the day men stand before God. Those men will say these people are guilty because the men of Nineveh were sorry for their sins and turned from them when Jonah preached. And see, Someone greater than Jonah is here!
There seems to be nothing to indicate that Jesus thinks Jonah is simply a parable (allegory) and didn’t really happen.
In fact, Christians have been defending that position for a very long time:
Is it possible to understand a reference like this on the non-historic theory of the book of Jonah?
The future Judge is speaking words of solemn warning to those who shall hereafter stand convicted at his
bar.
Intensely real he would make the scene in anticipation to them, as it was real, as if then present, to
himself.
And yet we are to suppose him to say that imaginary persons who at the imaginary preaching of an
imaginary prophet repented in imagination, shall rise up in that day and condemn the actual impenitence
of those his actual hearers.
—T. T. Perowne, Obadiah and Jonah (Cambridge, 1894), p. 51.
So, was Jesus also incompetent in Bible reading?
Let me try to address your two points fairly quickly.
(1) With all due respect, dictionary.com is not going to be giving a full, well-articulated description of the genre of parable as used in the Bible. I’m guessing Coyne’s “understanding” of terms like parable, allegory, etc. is probably limited to looking up the definition online–and that’s kind of the problem. Gordon Fee gives a very good discussion of parable and how it is different from allegory in his book “How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth.” In an allegory (like Pilgrim’s Progress) virtually every character and place is purposely representative or symbolic of something else. The parables of Jesus, though, aren’t like that. They are stories that serve a specific function–namely to call forth a response given the specific situation at hand. The parable of the Good Samaritan was answering the question, “Who is my neighbor?” The priest and the Levite in that parable aren’t “allegories” of anything–they represent a priest and a Levite. The parable of the Prodigal Son was told in response to the Pharisees who were angry that Jesus was hanging out with “sinners.” In a similar way, I believe the story of Jonah is essentially a parable that was directed to the post-exilic community to challenge them in their attitudes toward Gentiles. There is A LOT more to it, but that is basically what I’ve argued in both a master’s thesis and a few articles. But the story of Jonah simply is not an allegory. Jonah doesn’t represent something else; Nineveh isn’t symbolic for “hell” or something–Nineveh is Nineveh. The “big fish” isn’t an allegory of anything either. It is (I believe) a caricature of the ancient Near Eastern mythological Leviathan.
But the point is that actual biblical scholars don’t treat terms/genres like metaphor, allegory, parable, etc. as if they’re all the same thing. The way Coyne just throws those words around shows that he doesn’t really understand what they mean and how they function within the biblical text.
2. The main reason so many Evangelical Christians think the story of Jonah is actual history is because they, as most people these days, have unwittingly imbibed this Enlightenment notion that if something isn’t factual/historical/scientific then it isn’t true. Such a mindset denigrates any notion that truth and wisdom can be conveyed through creative and literary means.
And the fact is, just because Jesus alludes to the story of Jonah does not mean that he is saying, “Yes, I believe this story is historically factual!” The purpose of him alluding to the story is two-fold: (a) To provide an analogy and “sign” of his resurrection, and (b) To challenge and condemn his fellow Jews for not accepting the salvation he brought–the “sign of Jonah” is also basically saying, “Hey, my fellow Jews, when the salvation is offered to the Gentiles and they repent and accept it (like the Ninevites did in the story of Jonah), they’ll be able to rise up and condemn you, because I’m offering salvation and you are rejecting me.”
There is nothing in Jesus’ comments that tell us he is either affirming or denying the historicity of the story of Jonah. He doesn’t address that issue, and anyone who argues that his alluding to Jonah means he is affirming its historicity is simply reading something into the biblical text that isn’t there. And so, to your last question, an honest answer is this: I don’t know what Jesus really thought about regarding the question of the historicity of the story of Jonah–it’s not an issue he addressed. But I did do a master’s thesis on the Book of Jonah, and I looked into this issue quite a bit, and there is A LOT of evidence that indicates that it was a post-exilic parable of the returned exiles of the southern kingdom whose main character was a prophet of the pre-exilic northern kingdom. Yes, there was a historical prophet named Jonah of the northern kingdom who lived in the early 8th century BC, but the story of Jonah was written 300 years later by someone among the returned Babylonian exiles of the southern kingdom.
…I’m not sure if that answer qualifies as “quickly”–haha
Coyne shows, with evidence, why the tale of Adam and Eve is nonsense. The HGP proved that there was never any bottleneck that involved two humans who were the progenitors of the human race.
Fact.
However, to get over the problem this presented for creationists /creationism he even mentioned one fellow … I forget his name who … asserted that these two particular humans were nominated by Yahweh and the story proceeded as per usual.
More accommodaitionism.
What Coyne asks is how do we know that the resurrection tale is not meant to be seen as allegorical?
What evidence is there to suggest is was an actual physical bodily resurrection?
Of course, there is no evidence and this is what Coyne postulated; that this too may have been meant to have been simply allegory.
A spiritual resurrection rather than a physical bodily resurrection.
The very fact Coyne (and you) feel the need to “scientifically disprove” the Adam and Eve story shows that you are misreading it from the jump. SCIENCE doesn’t “prove the Adam and Eve story” is false. A proper understanding of ancient literature shows that it isn’t meant to be read as history to begin with.
And sure, there are plenty of Evangelical Christians who are trying to figure out a way to claim Adam and Eve are “historical”–they’re just wrong. Those arguments, just like Coyne’s argument here, is based on a fundamental misreading of the Adam and Eve story. All of those views, I would argue, reveal a basic literary ignorance of the ancient genre in which the Adam and Eve story is written.
Again, anyone who knows how to read competently knows that the resurrection account is not an allegory. For that matter, the Adam and Eve story isn’t an allegory either. And this points to something Coyne does that is utterly irritating–he has NO CLUE that terms like allegory, metaphor, legend, myth, etc. ARE NOT SYNONYMS. They are distinct genres, and when one throws them all together as if they’re “all fiction,” that person just reveals his own ignorance of the terms and what literature actually is. So when you say, “…this too may have been meant to have been simply allegory,” I’m sorry, you just are coming across as a YECist who throws around scientific terms without any knowledge of what they actually mean. Forget I’m a Christian for a moment–as a LITERATURE MAJOR that irritates the living hades out of me! haha…
There is no such thing as a “spiritual resurrection.” In first century Judaism, the term “resurrection” meant, BY DEFINITION, a BODILY RESURRECTION. They had ways of talking about claims that a “spirit had gone to heaven” or a “spirit had appeared to someone”–no one considered those claims to be claims of a RESURRECTION.
This is becoming pedantic. You don’t like Coyne or his book or his take on the bible or your religion. I get it. So let’s ditch the waffle and get right to the core.
Your worldview demands the inclusion of supernaturalism. Yahweh is central to everything you believe, including science in general and evolution in particular. The stumbling block as far as Coyne and other non religious scientists / humanists/atheists are concerned is there is no evidence whatsoever for supernaturalism. That is it in a nutshell.
If you consider you have evidence to demonstrate the supernatural as you understand it, then present it. Otherwise there is no argument.
The end.
No–there are demonstrable things Coyne says and claims that are provably wrong:
1. His listed “religious methods” AREN’T METHODS.
2. He throws “allegory, myth, metaphor, fiction, etc.” all into the same basket–that is intellectually lazy and wrong.
So please, interact with the actual content of the post. Do you think it is intellectually proper to conflate all those different genre categories and styles of writing as all “basically the same thing”?
The fact is, YOU KNOW COYNE’S ARGUMENTS ARE CRAP and YOU KNOW I AM POINTING THEM OUT, CLEAR AS CRYSTAL. And so, you want to “ditch it” because you don’t want to admit my criticisms of Coyne’s arguments are spot on. You have no defense, so you want to deflect.
His premise is accurate. Supernaturalism underpins your worldview and it has no place in science. That Coyne felt the need to write a book to demonstrate this is indicitive of how pervasive religion is and especially in your country as he demonstrated with evidence . There is no harmony only accommodationism. Repeated requests for you to present evidence that will demonstrate the veracity of your supernatural beliefs especially evidence if the resurrection and in context Yahweh’s role in evolution continually fall on deaf ears and / or are met with obfuscation and hand waves.
So present the evidence or have the integrity to acknowledge you have none.
Deflection, denial, evasion…and the pitiful refusal to acknowledge that Coyne’s arguments are fraught with problems. The “evidence” and “arguments” he presents to SUPPORT HIS PREMISE fail at EVERY TURN. And you KNOW IT. That is why you are deflecting. You are doing the EXACT SAME THING that YECists do when confronted with the clear falsities that are rampant through their supposed arguments–they say, “Nu uh! We’re right!”
Again, you CAN’T defend Coyne’s claims and arguments because you know I’ve blown holes in them. They are HORRIBLE arguments AND YOU KNOW IT.
Keep reading…and when you get to post #13, you’ll see what I would say if I were an atheist. Don’t cheat and skip to #13! I took the time to read through that entire book and write 13 posts on it. You need to take the time to at lead read my critique of the guy you are claiming has a great argument! haha
The fact you consider there are problems is simply a matter of interpretation, as you have demonstrated by your refusal to address the core element of the issue,
namely; Is there any place for supernaturalism in science?
Coyne has gone to great lengths to show with evidence that supernaturalism has absolutely no place in science, and why those who claim there is some sort of harmony are wrong.
The term is accommodationism, and it applies to people such as Francis Collins and his colleagues over at biologos and ANY scientist who as a professional scientist admits to holding religious beliefs that, in context, at some level impact on evolution and the involvement of Yahweh.
I reiterate … once again …. the evidence Coyne presents backs his premise to the hilt.
However, you claim he lacks understanding with regard your view / interpretation of Christianity. So be it . I accept your right to disagree with him on this score.
Now, I have no interest in your particular bun fight with people like Coyne. I am pretty sure you have similar issues with Dawkins, Hitchens, Dan Barker, Matt Dillahunty, and probably Dennett as well.
Again, so be it and so what?
Irrespective of your feelings towards people who you consider have a ‘grade 6’ view of Christianity The issue is the complete lack of evidence for supernaturalism.
In simple terms, you have no right to get pissed off if you cannot provide the evidence to demonstrate the veracity of the faith-based claims that for the bedrock of your Christian worldview.
This is the foundation of every dispute and this is why the likes of the above people take issue with views of people like you … and Collins and Lennox and Tom Wright, Habermas, Licona, Craig and every person who considers Yahweh or any other god as a necessary part of the scientific conversation.
You have avoided providing evidence for Yahweh and have also failed to provide evidence for the bodily resserection of the character Jesus of Nazareth.
I say again. If you have evidence, stop equivocating and present it.
If you don’t then have the humility and the integrity to acknowlege so.
Ark.