Jerry Coyne book is criticised by Ed Feser (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 21, 2016, 22:54 (3206 days ago) @ romansh

Feser is a Catholic philosopher. The book is Faith vs. Fact:-http://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/02/omnibus-of-fallacies-"Coyne's own method, then, is to characterize religion however he needs to in order to convict it of irrationality. Nor is “religion” the only term Coyne uses in a tendentious way. The question-begging definition is perhaps his favorite debating trick. He characterizes “faith” as “belief without—or in the face of—evidence” and repeatedly uses the term as if this is what it generally means in religious contexts. Naturally, he has no trouble showing that faith so understood is irrational. But this simply is not how faith is understood historically in Christian theology. For example, for scholastic theologians, faith is assent to something that has been revealed by God. And how do we know that God exists and really has revealed it? Those are claims for which, the theologian agrees, evidence needs to be given.-***-"But not so fast, because a couple of pages after that he says that if scientism is the view that science is “the only reliable ‘way of knowing,'” then “most of my colleagues and I are indeed guilty of scientism” and “scientism is a virtue”—never mind that he has just dismissed the accusation of scientism as a “canard.” Reading Coyne trying to do something as simple as defining his terms is like watching him play tennis with himself. And losing-" Then there is the problem that to appeal to science alone in order to show that science is reliable is to argue in a circle. Coyne is aware of the problem, but answers, “I'll pay attention to the circularity argument when someone comes up with a better way to understand nature.” Yet the only criteria of better and worse that Coyne will accept are scientific criteria. Hence his response to the charge that he has given a circular argument is to repeat the same circular argument. "-Comment: Feser's complaints are generally that Coyne keeps changing his position and doesn't understand at all the religions he is discussing.