“Faith vs. Fact” by Jerry Coyne: An Extended Book Analysis (Part 6)–Finishing Up Chapter 2: Religious Conflation and Philosophical Naturalism

🔊 Listen to Post We now come to Part 6 of my analysis of Jerry Coyne’s book, Faith vs. Fact, where I will attempt to finish up my comments on chapter 2 of his book.

Christianity, Scientology and Mormonism: Religious Conflation
Another characteristic of Coyne’s analysis is his failure to distinguish between different religions and cults. To be sure, the main target of his attacks on “religion” is Christianity, particularly that of the ultra-fundamentalist strand. But that certainly doesn’t stop him from Christianity as a whole in with, not only YECism, but also Mormonism, Scientology, Islam, and Christian Science. But to lump them all together as if they’re all basically the same thing is just shockingly ignorant. And yet, that is what Coyne consistently does.

Take for instance Coyne’s attempt to argue that the Bible isn’t historically credible. Let’s be clear: it is. The amount of historically reliable information, both in the Old and New Testaments, is incredible. Sure, some people might question whether or not Jesus actually healed people, but no one in their right mind doubts that Pilate was the governor of Judea from 26-36 AD, or that Herod the Great was a historical person. No one in their right mind disputes that there really was a northern kingdom of Israel that was destroyed by Assyria in 721 BC, and that the southern kingdom of Judah was taken into exile by Babylon in 587 BC, only to return to the land in 539 BC after a decree by Cyrus.

So, the charge that the Bible isn’t historically reliable is bogus from the start. But the way Coyne tries to argue it isn’t, is even more ridiculous. He first appeals to Scientology, states that Scientology has millions of adherents, and they accept the story of Lord Xenu, and then asks, “If you don’t accept that story, why not?” The answer is obvious: there’s no evidence of the Lord Xenu story, there’s plenty of evidence for many things mentioned in the Bible, and only a fool would even dream of equating the Lord Xenu story with the account of the exile, or the account of the life of Jesus.

Coyne then switches over to Mormonism and brings up Joseph Smith’s claims about the angel Moroni giving him a seer stone and golden tablets. He then writes, “If that [i.e. the story in the Book of Mormon] doesn’t seem credible—and it does to the faith’s fifteen million adherents—remember that the Book of Mormon begins with the sworn testimony of eleven witnesses who claimed to have seen the plates. These were actual, living people—giving the Book of Mormon far more historical credibility than the Bible” (82).

That’s right, Coyne actually says the Book of Mormon has more historical credibility than the Bible. But let’s be clear: there is zero historical or archeological evidence for anything mentioned in the Book of Mormon. There was never an Israelite tribe known as the Nephites. There is zero evidence to support any river, mountain or supposedly ancient city mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Now, take just 5 minutes and list any historical people, cities or events mentioned in the Bible that are clearly historically verified, and you’ll see how ridiculous Coyne’s claim is.

Let’s also look at the underlying falsehood in Coyne’s claim: Yes, there were eleven people who swore they saw the plates. That doesn’t prove the validity of what was supposedly written on them. These plates supposedly told of events that had happened 1800 or so years earlier—there was no way those eleven people could verify that any of it was historically true. And the fact is nothing in the Book of Mormon is historically credible. It is much more believable to think Smith forged them as props to deceive people. Contrast that with the writings of the New Testament: Paul’s letters are dated to within 20-30 years of the life of Christ and the Synoptics are dated within 30-40 years.

Is anyone in their right mind convinced of Coyne’s claim that the Book of Mormon is more historically credible than the Bible?

Since we are on the topic of religious conflation, a second way Coyne tries to argue that science has disproven claims by “religion” is by presenting YECism as the model of Christianity, and then conflating it with, you guessed it, more Mormonism: “The disproved religious claims involve biology, geology, history, and astronomy, and include these assertions: animals and plants were created in their present form over a short period of time, the Earth is young and was once completely inundated by a great flood, modern humans descend from only two progenitors, Native Americans descend from immigrants from the Middle East, and Caucasians are the results of a breeding experiment by a black scientist. These are all wrong, and it’s science, not faith, that has shown them to be wrong” (90). I don’t want to sound mean, but it boggles my mind how any rational person can be taken in by such ignorant drivel.

There are many other examples of this kind of illogical argumentation in Coyne’s book on this topic, but these examples will have to do.

Philosophical Naturalism
In the last few pages of chapter 2, Coyne addresses philosophical naturalism. Now, philosophical naturalism is the philosophical stance that there is no reality outside of the natural world. This is to be differentiated with methodological naturalism, which basically says that when studying things in nature, one should look for natural explanations. Scientists who study nature and natural processes look for natural explanations—that is methodological naturalism, and that is different from philosophical naturalism that states that if the natural sciences can’t address it, then it doesn’t exist, it isn’t true—there is no reality outside of nature.

Coyne, though, has considerable trouble differentiating between the two, and this is part of what leads to his misunderstanding of both religion and scientists (like Francis Collins and John Polkinghorne) who are also Christians. Consider problematic statements like the following: After stating that science (and by that we can assume he means the natural sciences) is “deeply wedded to naturalism” (and if he means methodological naturalism, he is entirely correct), he then states that “Naturalism is not something that was always part of science, for at one time science did rely on supernatural explanations” (91-92), but because of “the recurrent failure of supernaturalism to explain anything about the universe, naturalism is now taken for granted as the guiding principle of science” (92).

Now, granted, I am not a scientist, but I would love to know what Coyne is alluding to when he says this. At what time in the development science were scientists inserting “God did this part” into their scientific analysis? Did Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, or Newton do that? How about Roger Bacon? In medieval universities that were founded by the Catholic church, 1/3 of the curriculum was devoted to the study of the natural sciences. Can Coyne show me where in that curriculum the “supernatural explanations” unit is? Perhaps I am the ignorant one here, but it certainly seems to me that Coyne is pulling a little bait and switch here by conflating methodological naturalism (which is a guiding principle of the natural sciences and that does go back to the medieval universities, and thus cannot be seen as antithetical to Christianity, given that it were Christians who laid the foundation for the natural sciences) and philosophical naturalism (the basic atheistic assumption Coyne shares that assumes the natural world comprises all of reality.

In any case, this bait and switch on the part of Coyne leads to further deception on his part. To be clear, the scientific study of the natural world (methodological naturalism) is not the foundation for philosophical naturalism. It can’t be, for the study of the natural world is obviously limited to the natural world. Whether or not there is some aspect of reality that goes beyond the natural world is something that the natural sciences simply cannot even address.

But Coyne not only conflates the two, but he attempts to argue that methodological naturalism has actually led to, and thus justifies, philosophical naturalism. As we can see in the above quote, Coyne essentially argues that originally, when the natural sciences were being developed in the medieval universities, that “supernatural explanations” for natural phenomena were an accepted part of science, but when those “supernatural explanations” couldn’t be proven with naturally (i.e. methodological naturalism), scientists now say, “Aha! God doesn’t exist!”

This is basically what he is saying here: “The methodological conflicts between science and religion have ultimately produced a conflict in philosophy: whether or not one sees gods as a realistic possibility.  It’s important to realize that this philosophical difference between scientists and believers was not established at the outset as an integral part of science but arose gradually as a by-product of science’s success” (91). Notice two things: (1) For all his conflation, Coyne makes a dishonest distinction when he puts “scientists” in one camp and “believers” in the another; and (2) His rational for his rejection of the possibility that there is an aspect of reality that goes beyond the natural world is that the natural sciences (i.e. methodological naturalism) can’t address it.

Think of how illogical that thinking is. When presented with the philosophical stance that there is an aspect of reality that goes beyond the natural world, Coyne says, “That’s impossible! I won’t believe it until you can prove it to me using methodological naturalism!” Don’t believe me? Consider this quote: “…because there is no evidence for supernatural entities or powers, although there could have been such evidence, one is justified in thinking that those entities and powers do not exist. This attitude is called philosophical naturalism” (94). Or perhaps his description of philosophical naturalism as the kind of worldview “that says, ‘Until I see some evidence, I won’t accept the existence of gods’” (96).

And what “evidence” does Coyne believe should exist that would prove the supernatural? Scientific evidence, of course! The kind that can have proper controls of methodological naturalism! He then claims that such “scientific studies” on the efficacy of prayer “prove” that the supernatural world doesn’t exist, because if it did, then praying to God that someone’s cancer is healed should always work. Of course, when told that that is not the proper understanding of what prayer is, Coyne strikes a condescending tone, throws up his hands, and essentially says, “God can be put in a test tube! I did it! Prayer doesn’t work! God doesn’t exist! Science proves it! If you can’t prove the existence of a reality that goes beyond the natural world with the laws that govern the natural world, then the supernatural doesn’t exist!”

When someone gets on that kind of “gerbil wheel of illogical thinking,” it’s best to just walk away.

Conclusion
You can call me a glutton for punishment, but I’m not going to take my own advice—I’m not going to walk away until I finish my analysis of Coyne’s entire book. I will end this post by addressing one more comment Coyne makes about various religions. He writes: “Clearly, religions aren’t compatible only with science; they’re incompatible with one another. And this incompatibility wasn’t inevitable: if the particular belief and dogma were somehow bestowed on humans by a god, there’s no obvious reason why there should be more than one brand of faith” (85).

This comment strikes me as hopelessly naïve and simplistic. It reminds me of how C.S. Lewis addressed this type of tactic in his book Mere Christianity. Although written over 50 years ago, Lewis warns about people like Coyne: “Such people put up a version of Christianity suitable for a child of six and make that the object of their attack. When you try to explain the Christian doctrine as it is really held by an instructed adult, they then complain that you are making their heads turn round and that it is all too complicated and that if there really were a God they are sure He would have made ‘religion’ simple, because simplicity is so beautiful, etc. You must be on your guard against these people for they will change their ground every minute and only waste your time.”