Thinking Christian

Stanley Fish wrote a profound piece for the NY Times’ Opinionator Blog last Monday, “Are There Secular Reasons?” He’s addressing the Classic Liberal doctrine that public policy should always be decided on the basis of secular reasons, not religious ones; and in the end, he doubts there are any actually secular reasons. I read his article a couple days ago with the sort of disappointment only a blogger could know: he had said it so well, I couldn’t think of anything to add.

In terms of cultural proportionality, Fish’s piece is considerably more important than what I’m writing here. (Use your time wisely: read his article first.) He is speaking of a widespread social phenomenon; my topic relates to a small but terribly vocal minority.

One member of that minority is Jerry Coyne. Coyne is a professor of biology at the University of Chicago who has complained loudly about Francis Collins being selected as the head of the National Institutes of Health. Why the complaint? It’s not because Collins lacks scientific credentials; first a physician, later he was head of the Human Genome Project. No, it’s because Collins believes in Jesus Christ, Never mind his having headed up one of the most complex and significant scientific projects of the past two decades—Craig Venter notwithstanding—if he’s a Christian, he must be a blithering idiot.

It was David Heddle who reminded me of Coyne this week by drawing attention to his further complaints. Coyne said this week that Collins’s Christianity disqualifies him:

Collins gets away with this kind of stuff only because, in America, Christianity is a socially sanctioned superstition. He’s the chief government scientist, but he won’t stop conflating science and faith. He had his chance, and he blew it. He should step down.

David dealt with Coyne nicely enough; I don’t need to add to his piece, either.

Recall now that Fish was talking about whether religion ought to be allowed into public discourse. He cites two forms the objection against it takes:

A somewhat less stringent version of the argument permits religious reasons to be voiced in contexts of public decision-making so long as they have a secular counterpart: thus, citing the prohibition against stealing in the Ten Commandments is all right because there is a secular version of the prohibition rooted in the law of property rights rather than in a biblical command. In a more severe version of the argument, on the other hand, you are not supposed even to have religious thoughts when reflecting on the wisdom or folly of a piece of policy. Not only should you act secularly when you enter the public sphere; you should also think secularly.

Whether the argument appears in its softer or harder versions, behind it is a form of intellectual/political apartheid known as the private/public distinction: matters that pertain to the spirit and to salvation are the province of religion and are to be settled by religious reasons; matters that pertain to the good order and prosperity of civil society are the province of democratically elected representatives and are to be settled by secular reasons.

This “intellectual/political apartheid,” this “private/public distinction” is a real phenomenon. Francis Schaeffer was the first I know of to write on it; more recently there has been Nancy Pearcey. I don’t disagree with it. But it is no longer true, as it once may have been, that it is the one factor behind attempts to eject religion from the public square. The New Atheist line (and there are other examples) says those who believe in religion have committed intellectual suicide. Only secular rationalists are smart enough to lead.

The public/private distinction is powerful in our culture. It’s the way Western religion-deniers try to push faith underground. It’s not the only force in the debate any more, though. There’s a new prejudice out there gaining voice along with it: religious people are doofuses and on that basis alone, they shouldn’t be allowed to lead.

Coyne doesn’t propose a religious litmus test for public office. He knows that would be unconstitutional. Well, good for him. All he’s saying is that religious people, just because they are believers in God, are therefore too stupid to hold certain offices. That’s not as bad, is it?

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Jerry Coyne, atheistic evolutionist, is blogging now.

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Yesterday I tried to set aside a question about the relation between creationism and intelligent design, but bobxxx commented,

I have a few things to say about creationism and intelligent design. I think people who pretend these are different ideas are being dishonest. Invoking creationism is the same as invoking supernatural magic. Invoking intelligent design is the same as invoking supernatural magic.

… and it really does call for a thoughtful response. I have already answered him on the use of the word “magic,” so I will focus on the general question of creationism and ID.

D1. Self-Described Creationists‘ Definitions of Creationism
Let’s consider the definitions as they are put forward by different groups. First, those who use the term “creationist” describe themselves. There are two broad categories: old-earth creationists and young-earth creationists. Both agree on the following:

1. God is eternal, immaterial, all-powerful, omniscient
2. God created the universe ex nihilo, out of nothing. Matter, space, and time are not eternal but were created by his own word.
3. Life was originated on earth by God’s direct action, and God was directly involved in the formation of each new kind of organism. “Kind” is defined more loosely than species by most creationists, allowing for the possibility that closely related species (like dogs and wolves, for one very obvious example) resulted from a single creative intervention.
4. Humans were not only specially created in the sense of (3), but were also imbued with God’s image, meaning that God gave us, in a special creative act, the ability to reason, to communicate, to relate to others and to God as persons, to make choices with moral significance, to create, and so on.
5. Most crucial of all: the first three chapters of Genesis, understood literally, are a reliable guide to the science and the proper understanding of the history of life, the universe and (pardon the allusion) everything. It is from this conviction that (1) through (4) flow.

Young-earth creationists hold that all of this happened recently, in the past 10,000 years or so, and that scientific evidences for an older universe are based on various misinterpretations that I will not go into here, except to note that they consider the form of the fossil record to be the result of a universal Noahic flood. Old-earth creationists disagree: they accept the plain (in my opinion) evidence showing that the universe is about 14-15 billion years old, the earth is 3.5 billion years old, and so on. Old-earthers differ among themselves in their views on the Flood and its influence on geology and paleontology. They generally agree with (5) the validity of the first three chapters of Genesis, but they hold that its original intent was that some of the language be taken in some figurative sense, allowing for the passage of more than six 24-hour days in the process.

D2. Intelligent Design Proponents’ Definition of ID
Proponents of Intelligent Design define ID quite simply in these terms: there are features of life and natural history that are best explained by inference to an intelligent source in their origination. This is an uniformitarian argument: we see wherever the origin of complex information and certain other types of complexity can be identified, it always comes from an intelligence. We see complex information and those certain types of complexity in nature, and we can rationally infer intelligence also as the source of that. (I do not intend to go into the details of what constitutes such information and complexity; that’s not my purpose here and others are more qualified to discuss it.)

D3. ID/Creationism Opponents’ Definition of Creationism
Jerry Coyne helpfully provided one definition of creationism, from the perspective of an opponent to the view. I’ll quote it again in full:

But regardless of their views, all creationists share four traits. First, they devoutly believe in God. No surprise there, except to those who think that ID has a secular basis. Second, they claim that God miraculously intervened in the development of life, either creating every species from scratch or intruding from time to time in an otherwise Darwinian process. Third, they agree that one of these interventions was the creation of humans, who could not have evolved from apelike ancestors. This, of course, reflects the Judeo-Christian view that humans were created in God’s image. Fourth, they all adhere to a particular argument called “irreducible complexity.” This is the idea that some species, or some features of some species, are too complex to have evolved in a Darwinian manner, and must therefore have been designed by God.

That’s not a bad description of creationism as accepted by those who call themselves creationists, except that (4) irreducible complexity is optional; “scientific creationism” preceded any discussion of irreducible complexity by several decades.

D4. ID/Creationism Opponents‘ Definition of Intelligent Design
I think the most common definition of ID I’ve seen spoken among its opponents “is creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” The general sense is that it’s the same as creationism defined in D1, except ID people try to hide the religious aspect.

Analysis
So how do we sort out all of these definitions? Let us first note that ID (D3) makes no reference to the Bible as a research source. Therefore D1(5), the most crucial methodological component of D1 creationism, is completely out of the picture. If Genesis is of utmost importance to D1 creationists, and of no particular relevance to D2 Intelligent Design, can ID be the same as creationism? Frankly, this is possible only if the D2 Intelligent Design definition is an IDer’s lie. That’s where the D4 accusation of hiding comes from, and the belief that ID is dishonest is widely held. This is in spite of the fact that none of the arguments for ID depend on the Bible, or even make reference to it.

D1 creationism and D2 Intelligent Design share two crucial point of agreement: that it’s okay to consider the possibility that the world is not a closed system of natural cause and effect. This above all else is what raises ire among people like Jerry Coyne, who, as we have seen, will lump a committed evolutionist like Kenneth MIller in with a creationist like Ken Ham, because Miller believes in a God who has intervened in history—not the development of life, to be sure, but at least the original creation of the universe and the life of Christ.

D1 creationism and D2 Intelligent Design also share the opinion that neo-Darwinism and its variants are inadequate to explain the origin and development of life on earth.

Rhetorical Ploys
ID opponents consider Intelligent Design to be playing a rhetorical game: disguising and hiding their real agenda, which is religious (reports like this make put that in doubt, of course, and there are indeed many non-religious ID proponents). I think there is another rhetorical game going on. Opponents of Intelligent Design have a reason for equating it with creationism. Creationism (D1, young-earth variety) has a terrible scientific reputation, and it has a clear religious agenda that has been ruled out of school by U.S. courts. Though ID (D2) is quite clearly distinct from creationism (D1), it serves opponents’ rhetorical purpose to associate it with a long-standing poor science record and with religious motivations.

What About Dover?
Judge Jones ruled in Dover that ID really is creationism, and it really is religious. On this I think he was simply wrong. D2 is not equal to D1. Of course the local body, the Dover School Board, was not so clear on this, and they did have a religious motivation for introducing the topic of ID into the schools. On this they erred, but ID leaders know the difference more clearly than that.

One reason Jones ruled as he did is because of clear evidence that the library book in question, Of Pandas and People, used the term “creationism” rather than “Intelligent Design” in its early drafts. “Aha!” shouted the opponents, “Here’s proof that the two are the same, and they’re just hiding it!” No, that’s only proof if the term was used in the D1 sense in the original drafts, which according to my information was not the case.

There was a time when there was only one term in general usage for the view that evolution is an inadequate theory; and there was a time when that term “creationism,” was not as clearly defined as it can be now. There is nothing unusual about vocabulary evolving in that way, and every writer knows there’s nothing unusual about realizing your first draft is wrong and needs correcting. The time came when it was clear that creationism was the wrong word. ID opponents say this was because proponents saw the political disadvantage in it. Frankly, that too smacks as a rhetorical move on their part. Do they have evidence from the writers that this was their motive?. What about the possibility that the writers realized they were using the wrong word, because what they were talking about wasn’t D1 creationism at all, but D2 Intelligent Design?

What About Intelligent Design Proponents Who Are Religious?
Finally, what about people like me and many others who support ID and are at the same time openly believers in God? I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and that he was directly involved in the development of the various kinds of organisms. I hold to an old-earth version of D1 creationism, and I support ID. There are many others who would say the same. Does that make ID equivalent to creationism? Well, I believe that squirrels eat birdseed, while at the same time being convinced that birds eat birdseed. Does that mean I think squirrels are birds? Of course not.

I can support a program that seeks natural evidences for design, and at the same time hold the Bible teaches design, and at the same time recognize that those two attitudes are not identical to each other. That’s not so hard to see, is it?

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Yesterday in a very quick post I pointed to an inconsistency in Jerry Coyne’s New Republic article, “Seeing and Believing,” which is a critical review of two new books by the theistic evolutionists Kenneth Miller and Karl Giberson. Today I must mention several things I really appreciate about what he wrote, and offer some suggestions about what it it may mean.

My first appreciation is this: far too often when Intelligent Design opponents speak of it in terms of creationism, they leave their terms vague. “Creationism” is spat out as an epithet, almost never defined. That’s just never helpful, in view of all the multiple competing denotations and connotations of the word. Coyne, bless him, tells us what he means by it:

But regardless of their views, all creationists share four traits. First, they devoutly believe in God. No surprise there, except to those who think that ID has a secular basis. Second, they claim that God miraculously intervened in the development of life, either creating every species from scratch or intruding from time to time in an otherwise Darwinian process. Third, they agree that one of these interventions was the creation of humans, who could not have evolved from apelike ancestors. This, of course, reflects the Judeo-Christian view that humans were created in God’s image. Fourth, they all adhere to a particular argument called “irreducible complexity.” This is the idea that some species, or some features of some species, are too complex to have evolved in a Darwinian manner, and must therefore have been designed by God.

There are some points to criticize in that definition, especially with respect to the relationship of creationism and Intelligent Design. I have made corrections of that sort often enough in the past, so this time I’ll leave them for others to handle if they wish. Here is what’s more interesting to me. Let’s take this as a working definition for now, for the sake of seeing what it leads to. More specifically, given Coyne’s definition of creationism, what does he consider is wrong with it? The answer, as it turns out, is not what one would expect.

My second note of appreciation is for the careful way Coyne spells out his answer to that important question. He places the entire relationship of religion and science under scrutiny, presenting some very helpful, accurate analysis along the way. For example, some liberal theologians water down religion to make it compatible with evolution, which leaves it, he says, “a hairsbreadth from pantheism,” or “leaves God out completely.” In this he is exactly right. To achieve that compatibility in truth, “a proper solution must harmonize science with theism;” and he correctly recognizes that this theism ought to be of the sort that is “actually understood and practiced by human beings,” not by ivory tower theorists.

This sets the stage for his appreciation and then his criticism of Giberson’s and Miller’s books. Neither of these authors is friendly towards Intelligent Design, much less toward any of the earlier manifestations of “scientific creationism.” Miller is one of ID’s more vocal critics, possibly the most effective of them all. His particular effectiveness comes from his not presenting much of a theological axe to grind: he is a practicing Catholic, a vocal believer in God. Giberson, too, though not as prominent in the debate as Miller is, criticizes ID from the standpoint of a believer in God.

Coyne says several positive things about their critiques of design. Then, in preparation for his criticism, he takes aim himself against not only ID but also the general category of religious truths. Religious truth, he says, is fundamentally flawed:

What, then, is the nature of “religious truth” that supposedly complements “scientific truth”? The first thing we should ask is whether, and in what sense, religious assertions are “truths.” Truth implies the possibility of falsity, so we should have a way of knowing whether religious truths are wrong. But unlike scientific truths, religious ones differ from person to person and sect to sect. And we all know of clear contradictions between the “truths” of different faiths. Christianity unambiguously claims the divinity of Jesus, and many assert that the road to salvation absolutely depends on accepting this claim, whereas the Koran states flatly that anyone accepting the divinity of Jesus will spend eternity in hell. These claims cannot both be “true,” at least in a way that does not require intellectual contortions.

Coyne’s problem with religious truth is similar to that stated by Tom Clark: we don’t have an adequate test for its truth or falsity. Coyne should realize, I hope, that just because religions disagree, that is no proof that all of them are wrong, or that a wholesale rejection of a spiritual view of life is justified. He seems not to be aware that religions are subject to rational and evidential tests, which, though they may not in all cases be conclusive, are nevertheless strongly indicative of which beliefs are worthy of being held.

Be that as it may, in making his complaint about religious truth, Coyne draws a firm line in the sand. Though on the surface they may seem to be allies among those who battle against Intelligent Design or creation science, Coyne considers Miller and Giberson to be virtually creationists themselves.

Although Giberson and Miller see themselves as opponents of creationism, in devising a compatibility between science and religion they finally converge with their opponents. In fact, they exhibit at least three of the four distinguishing traits of creationists: belief in God, the intervention of God in nature, and a special role for God in the evolution of humans. They may even show the fourth trait, a belief in irreducible complexity, by proposing that a soul could not have evolved, but was inserted by God….

Besides his “aesthetic design” argument, Giberson offers another reason for his faith–we might call it the argument from convenience….

This touching confession reveals the sad irrationality of the whole enterprise–the demoralizing conflict between a personal need to believe and a desperation to show that this primal need is perfectly compatible with science.

It would appear, then, that one cannot be coherently religious and scientific at the same time. That alleged synthesis requires that with one part of your brain you accept only those things that are tested and supported by agreed-upon evidence, logic, and reason, while with the other part of your brain you accept things that are unsupportable or even falsified.

And now we are ready to answer the question, what is the problem with creationism, as Coyne sees it? And what is the problem with Intelligent Design? Astonishingly, it’s not that he disagrees with ID’s scientific findings! Otherwise how could he lump staunch evolutionists like Miller and Giberson together with ID proponents or other “creationists?” On this evidence, is it too much to suppose that Coyne would reject ID even if Behe’s and Dembski’s arguments for it were widely accepted?

The question isn’t about the science at all, is it?

No, it’s not the science, it’s the worldview behind the debate. And here is my final note of at least partial appreciation for what Coyne has done here: he has succeeded in making it clear that for him (and likely for others) the ID question is a matter of worldview. I call it “partial appreciation,” because I’m not entirely sure Coyne realizes what he has done. He has drawn his line in the sand, and where he places his friends and his opponents has nothing to do with their science; it’s about their religion.

It is for him a religious battle, and his position is a religious one—not that he is religious himself, but that his position is defined by his own view of religion. This is what he has accused ID of doing, and yet he has done it himself.

I’m glad he has made that so plainly apparent, whether he sees it himself or not.

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In his critical review in The New Republic of two theistic evolutionists, anti-theistic biologist Jerry Coyne speaks about various views of our fine-tuned universe. Contrasting materialist science with theism, he writes,

Also, scientists have other explanations, ones based on reason rather than on faith. Perhaps some day, when we have a “theory of everything” that unifies all the forces of physics, we will see that this theory requires our universe to have the physical constants that we observe. Alternatively, there are intriguing “multiverse” theories that invoke the appearance of many universes, each with different physical laws; and we could have evolved only in one whose laws permit life.

“Perhaps some day,” he writes; or alternatively, perhaps, his hope is in “intriguing ‘multiverse’ theories,” which he fails to point out are unlikely ever to be scientifically demonstrable, as far as we know now. He says “a few predictions” consistent with multiverse theory have been confirmed. As to the rest, well, he’s a man of great faith, isn’t he?

Later he writes,

Contrary to Miller’s claim, the existence of multiverses does not require a leap of faith nearly as large as that of imagining a God.

I wonder how he measured that difference?

In regard to this faith of his, I must grant him this:

It may be wrong, but wait a decade and we will know a lot more about the anthropic principle. In the meantime, it is simply wrong to claim that proposing a provisional and testable scientific hypothesis–not a “belief”–is equivalent to religious faith.

That’s right: it’s not equivalent to religious faith. Religious faith is a certain kind of faith, while belief that science will displace all religious claims is another kind of faith. It’s still highly unproved, and unprovable. Any conviction of that sort deserves to be called a faith.

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