While Jerry Coyne's website Why Evolution is True is a far more pleasant read than PZ Myers' Pharyngula, Coyne's frankly sophomoric approach to the science-religion debate does get the better of him more often than not. Some time ago, I posted an ECACP article in which Mike Aus, an atheist who used to be a liberal Lutheran pastor outlined the salient points of his deconversion. I focused on his (accurate) comment that Original Sin and the immortal soul were impossible to honestly reconcile with the evolutionary origins of the human race and noted how our theological position, which rejects both tenets, is immune to any attack by non-theists which uses evolution as a blunt weapon with which to attack our faith. Coyne has once more attacked the idea that religion is an "alternative way of understanding" and has quoted this part of Aus' article, adding that "the part I've put in bold should be tattooed on the arm of every person who promotes 'other ways of knowing.'"
When I was working as a pastor I would often gloss over the clash between the scientific world view and the perspective of religion. I would say that the insights of science were no threat to faith because science and religion are “different ways of knowing” and are not in conflict because they are trying to answer different questions. Science focuses on “how” the world came to be, and religion addresses the question of “why” we are here. I was dead wrong. There are not different ways of knowing. There is knowing and not knowing, and those are the only two options in this world. Religion, even “enlightened” liberal religion, is generally not interested in the facts on the ground. Religion is really not about “knowing” anything; it is about speculation not based on reality.
Now, I agree that "there is knowing and not knowing, and those are the only two options in this world". Our faith is based on what we believe to be a historical event, one that we believe actually happened in time and space, and that of course is the resurrection of Christ. The centrality of that for Christian faith cannot be overstressed. As Paul said in 1 Cor 15.12-19, if Christ was not raised, then our faith is worthless. If we take our faith seriously, then we are obliged to investigate the circumstances surrounding the emergence of Christianity and determine whether a frankly supernatural event is the best explanation for why Christianity emerged. That definitely requires a Christian to investigate the facts using a systematic, rigorous method of applied scepticism.
Helen Bond, senior lecturer in New Testament at the University of Edinburgh [1] in her book on the historical Jesus asserts:
It might be argued that Jesus’ burial marks the end of what we can say about the historical man with any degree of plausibility. Christian claims regarding his Resurrection, however, have been so crucial in terms of determining the future of his movement that a book on the historical Jesus which did not examine the Resurrection would be lacking an important element. Although the event itself is not open to historical investigation, we can at least examine the effects of the Resurrection on Jesus’ earliest followers.
The claim that Jesus rose from the dead is undoubtedly very early. Paul, in the 50s, could already speak of it as part of the tradition he inherited:I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1Cor 15.3–4)Belief in the Resurrection was clearly central to Paul and is referred to many times in his letters. So powerful was the idea that it even began to redefine God, who could now be referred to as ‘the one who raised Jesus’ (Rom 4.24, Gal 1.1). The fundamental claim was not that Jesus had been glorified, or exalted, or even vindicated (though all of these were assumed), but quite specifically that God had raised him from the dead.
As I said, history cannot directly investigate the resurrection as it is an event beyond the natural world, but if such an event did take place (as we believe) it would have made a considerable impact. Bond continues:
Something happened to change frightened disciples, hiding for fear of the Jewish authorities, into bold missionaries. Their central claim, though, was not that something had happened to them, but that it had happened to Jesus. It was not a case of their own feeling of empowerment, or a vague sense that Jesus’ spirit was still with them, but the remarkable claim that God had raised him from the dead – and that they would soon share his triumph. For this to make any sense at all, stories of an empty grave and Resurrection appearances had to have been made in a highly charged apocalyptic context where the end was imminent and God’s power was at the point of breaking into the world. Only in such an atmosphere would appearances and an empty tomb be interpreted in an unparalleled way as a resurrection. [2]
It's easy to get frustrated at the fundamentalists in our community who have failed to provide a rigorous apology for what we believe, leaving the young in faith utterly at the mercy of those like Aus (who can readily demolish a fundamentalist worldview). This is particularly so given that there is a considerable number of Christians who are busily using the tools of modern scholarship to investigate their faith, without automatically sliding into unbelief. Remarks such as those of Aus cited earlier:
When I was working as a pastor I would often gloss over the clash between the scientific world view and the perspective of religion. I would say that the insights of science were no threat to faith because science and religion are “different ways of knowing” and are not in conflict because they are trying to answer different questions.
represent the non-theistic flip side of fundamentalism's mistaken belief that science should be rejected because it contradicts a literal reading of the creation narratives. As I have has been stressed repeatedly here, the creation narratives are more concerned about providing an account of functional origins as well as a fierce polemic against competing world-views, than in providing a 'scientifically accurate' account of origins. The clash between religion and science is one which only exists in the minds of fundamentalists and non-theists who share the fundamentalist mindset.
Aus is right - there is only one way of knowing. However, those who take their faith seriously have long been aware of that fact, and for Aus and Coyne to thump the anti-accomodationist drum merely demonstrates once again that the New Atheists who advance this argument are simply too confused to be taken seriously.
References
1. Bond is hardly a fundamentalist. She is doubtful about the prospects for ever recovering the precise words of Jesus, and thinks that it was unlikely he was buried in a rock tomb as narrated in the gospels but rather ended up in a shallow trench grave.
2. Bond HK "The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed" (2012: T&T Clark International)
