Atheist Jerry Coyne and YECist Ken Ham: Two Peas in a Pod

I have long said that atheists like Richard Dawkins and YECists like Ken Ham are each other’s doppleganger, and actually share the same fundamental worldview, despite being on completely opposites ends of the so-called “creation/evolution debate.” And every now and then, another piece of evidence presents itself to further solidify my view. In this case, it doesn’t involve Richard Dawkins, but another atheist/evolutionary biology, Jerry Coyne. I’ve written about him in the past (here and here), but for the purposes of this post, I am going to focus on a recent article Coyne wrote, entitled, “Yes, There is a War Between Science and Religion.” It came to my attention because Ken Ham tweeted about it three different times the other day. Ham’s tweets were as follows:

• “Jerry Coyne (emeritus professor) is an atheist, & so such an article as this is totally expected from one who is against God & totally committed to his religion of atheism. Interestingly he sees Christians who compromise as inconsistent–which they are”
• “There’s no war between observational science & creation, such science confirms Genesis account. But there’s a spiritual war between Christianity & blind faith religion of atheism & the belief in evolution which is contradicted by observational science”
• “This scientist arbitrarily defines religion as involving the supernatural, declares atheism is not religion, arbitrarily declares evolution science & fact, so he can then falsely declare creation is at war with science! It’s how secularists work”

When one looks at Coyne’s article and then at both Ham’s tweets and the overall teachings of AiG, though, it becomes quite obvious that YECists like Ham and new atheists like Coyne actually share many of the same fundamental worldview beliefs.

Coyne and Ham: Two Peas in a Pod

Coyne’s article isn’t that long. You can read it in full here. To cut to the chase, Coyne’s characterization of religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is simply cartoonish. Not only that, but it is fairly easy to see that Coyne’s cartoonish understanding of Christianity and is mischaracterization of science itself displays a positively Ham-like attitude in regard to both evolution and faith.  Let’s look at a few examples:

• (1) Coyne (like Ham) asserts that evolution and faith are at war, and that it is primarily because of evolution and cosmology that has led to a loss of faith.

Like Coyne, Ken Ham also sees the creation/evolution debate as being a war. Ham doesn’t see it as a war between science and religion, though. Ham simply throws in his made-up distinction between “observational science” and “historical science,” claims “observational science” confirms the creation account in Genesis, and then equates the scientific theory of evolution with “blind faith religion of atheism,” and claims the “war” isn’t between science and religion, but rather atheism and Christianity.  But make no mistake, both Ham and Coyne agree: evolution is atheism, and evolutionary science is at war with the Christian faith.

Now, sadly, it is true that many people have abandoned their faith because they think evolution has disproven the Bible. In that respect, both Coyne and Ham are correct. But let’s be clear, the reason why evolution has led to a loss of faith of many people is that people like Coyne and Ham are mischaracterizing what science is and what the Christian faith is. Ham is actually correct in one of his tweets: Coyne essentially is hijacking the scientific theory of evolution and smuggling in his atheism into—later in his article, he claims, “science is practiced as an atheistic discipline.” Yes, it is “atheistic” in the sense that is simply studies natural processes, but to call it an “atheistic discipline” as Coyne does is to falsely equate the scientific theory of evolution with the philosophical worldview of atheism.

To the point, when atheists like Coyne and YECists like Ham are telling people that if you accept evolution then you must reject belief in God and accept atheism, then a whole lot of them are going to reject their faith because they are being told they have to.

• (2) Coyne says that Christian/religious scientists who accept evolution but maintain their faith are guilty of “accomodationism.” Ham simply calls them “compromisers.” And in an effort to show how Christian scientists like Francis Collins are guilty of “accomodationism” and “compromise,” Coyne (like Ham) jump from evolutionary theory to things like belief in Jesus’ miracles and the resurrection. In essence, both Coyne and Ham say, “If you believe in evolution, then how can you believe Jesus healed people or was resurrected?”

I want to call attention to something Ham wrote in that first tweet: “Interesting he [Coyne] see Christians who compromise as inconsistent—which they are.” Like Coyne, Ham sees Christian scientists like Francis Collins and John Polkinghorne (of whom Coyne mentions in his article) who accept evolutionary theory as being inconsistent compromisers. And both Coyne and Ham lump the creation account in Genesis 1 in as being the same kind of writing as found in the Gospels. They see no difference between the genre of Genesis 1 and the genre of the Gospels. This failure of basic reading competency views anyone who acknowledges the difference in genre as trying to pull a fast one. Call it accomodationism or compromise, both Coyne and Ham think you are deceptive and dishonest if you simply acknowledge that the Bible is not written in one monolithic genre. Both men might think that failure to read Genesis 1 a literal history automatically means you have to reject the account of Jesus’ resurrection, but competent readers of Scripture know better.

• (3) Coyne (like Ham) sees that at the heart of this “war” lies in the “incompatible ways of viewing the world”—(A) Science has a “set of tools” and a certain methodology to find truth about the universe, but realizes the truths science finds are always provisional; (B) whereas religion (i.e. Christianity) simply is a “belief in a supernatural agent…whose approval is to be sought.”

• (4) Coyne (like Ham) see the heart of this “conflict” as resting on different methodologies and outcomes: the scientific method and provisional truths about the natural world vs. the “faith method” and absolute/authoritative truths adjudicated “via dogma, scripture an authority” about the natural world one must accept if one is to gain the approval of that supernatural agent.

To be clear, both Coyne and Ham present Christianity as being nothing more than a competing scientific theory of how the natural world came into being. In fact, the very thing Coyne criticizes in my fourth point is the very thing Ham presents when he makes up the category of “historical science,” defines it as “beliefs about the past that cannot be tested or observed but must be accepted on authority.”

Simply put, Ham’s definition of “historical science” and Coyne’s definition of religion/faith are the same thing. Neither one is a proper understanding of the Christian faith. Both share the same cartoonish understanding of the Christian faith. And sadly, they’ve done their work well, because a whole lot of people think that cartoonish view of the Christian faith is the actual Christian faith.

• (5) Coyne (like Ham) misinterprets Hebrews 11:1 (“the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”) as referring to believing things about the origins of the natural world without evidence.

Both men are horrible biblical exegetes, as seen in their understanding of Hebrews 11:1. Both view it as defining faith as nothing more than blind belief about the past creation of the natural world. On AiG’s website, one can find an article entitled “Blind Faith” that says this: “So faith, as commended in God’s Word, is being sure about something that wasn’t witnessed firsthand (including creation), or that cannot be seen now, or that is yet to be revealed. By this definition, all faith is blind! If we can see something, then faith is no longer operative.”

Well, not quite. To the point, the “substance (or assurance) of things hoped for” and “the evidence (or conviction) of things not seen” has nothing to do with looking back and believing things about the creation of the material universe. Rather, the faith of Hebrews 11:1 is forward-looking to the fulfillment of the saving work of Christ and the new creation. Faith is being certain that what had begun in Christ and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit will be completed in the New Heaven and New Earth. The faith that Hebrews 11:1 is talking about is the faith that sees the evidence of the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit in part, and that looks forward to the fulfillment of Christ’s work in the future. It is being certain of the outcome because we have been given, and now witness, a foretaste of that future reality. Contrary to what AiG (and Coyne) belief, the Christian faith is not blind, and Hebrews 11:1 isn’t about “blindly believing” that Genesis 1 is telling us exactly how God actually created the world.

Yes, Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible”—but it is not a scientific statement. It is saying something fairly simple: God created the universe and there is more to reality than just the material world.

• (6) Coyne dismisses the notion that religion and science are addressing different things (i.e. science: the natural world; religion: morality, purpose and meaning), and says that “religion certainly makes claims about the factual natural of the universe.”

In other words, Coyne says that religion is science. Similarly, Ham rejects this distinction between religion and science as well, only he comes at it from the other direction by calling any science that deals with the past “historical science,” and then defining “historical science” as “belief about the past based on authority.” And thus, for Ham, the scientific theory of evolution is atheistic religion. In any case, both men conflate religion and science, and this causes them to misunderstand, well, just about everything. It causes Coyne to think the purpose of religion is to provide answers to questions that modern science has about the workings of the natural world. And it causes Ham to think that science’s attempt to simply explain the workings of nature and natural processes is somehow an “atheistic religion” because God isn’t used within any scientific formulas.

Conclusion

At some point, I hope more and more people will see that the so-called “war between science and religion” (as Coyne coins it) or “battle of worldviews” (as Ham calls it) is ultimately bogus to its core. The only people who wage this “war” are those who confuse and conflate science and religion—people like Jerry Coyne and Ken Ham: two peas in a pod…but the pod is bad.