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Jerry Coyne on Deception and the Omission of Facts

October 21st, 2014 by Matt

In 2011 I wrote a criticism of Jerry Coyne’s USA Today article, “As  atheists know, you can be good without God.” My critique, “When Scientists make bad Ethicists,” attracted some attention motivating Coyne to write a response. I wrote a following up piece the next year, “Jerry Coyne on God and Morality Revisited,” my conclusions were not flattering. I wrote:

“Nothing in Coyne’s follow up leads me to revisit my initial conclusion. Misrepresenting people’s views, calling people names, quoting from articles out of context, denigrating others’ scholarly qualifications and confidently asserting a position whilst reasoning in a circle, and ignoring objections, are not the same as actually addressing them.  I doubt such sophistry would pass muster in the scientific community when people write on scientific topics, and it does not pass muster when scientists comment on theology or philosophy.”

Jerry CoyneRecently I discovered Coyne’s latest riposte on the issue of divine commands: “William Lane Craig answers a distressed reader: ‘If ISIS’s god were mine, should I do what he says?’”  which  has   subsequently  been posted on richarddawkins.net. Little, it seems, has changed. Coyne begins by sarcastically referring to William Lane Craig as a “sophisticated theologian” and commending him for addressing a question “not often taken up by theologians”. I am not sure which “sophisticated theologians” Coyne has read because, contrary to what he says, almost every major monograph on divine command theory (“DCT”) in the last thirty years has discussed the problem he refers to in his post, as do most articles on the subject. Undeterred by these facts, or perhaps unaware of them, Coyne suggests in closing that “sophisticated theologians” like Craig who defend DCT are like real estate salesman in Florida.

Apart from sarcastic names and insinuations of dishonesty Coyne’s central argument purports to highlight an inconsistency in Craig’s divine command theory. The inconsistency relates to a distinction Craig (and others like Baggett and Walls) draw between a voluntaristic and a non voluntaristic DCT. According to Craig’s account of a voluntaristic DCT ,“God’s commands are based upon His free will alone”; God “arbitrarily chooses” what we are required to do.”[1] On a non-voluntaristic  account, “Our duties are determined by the commands, of a just and loving God. God is essentially compassionate, fair, kind, impartial, and so forth, and His commandments are reflections of His own character”;[2] because he has these character traits, essentially, “it is logically impossible for Him to issue certain sorts of commands”.[3]

I think Craig’s use of the term “voluntarism” is somewhat inaccurate. Yet he is correct when he adds that most (if not all) divine command theorists are non-voluntarists, as he defines the term. Coyne thinks this “is bait and switch”. This is because “Craig himself seemed in at least one case to hold to the voluntarist view of the DCT.”  Coyne quotes from Craig:

“But God has no such prohibition [the prohibition not to take an innocent life]. He can give and take life as He chooses.  We all recognize this when we accuse some authority who presumes to take life as “playing God.” Human authorities arrogate to themselves rights which belong only to God. God is under no obligation whatsoever to extend my life for another second.  If He wanted to strike me dead right now, that’s His prerogative …

… On divine command theory, then, God has the right to command an act, which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been sin, but which is now morally obligatory in virtue of that command.”

Coyne rejoins, “If that’s not voluntaristic DCT, I don’t know what is.” Coyne provides a link to the article in question, so presumably he expects his readers – good free thinkers who accept nothing blindly on authority – to check his quote and verify what he says. When one does, however, the picture is interesting. Coyne starts his series of quotations from Craig halfway through a paragraph. If one looks at the sentences immediately before the snip one finds that Craig said the following:

“I think that a good start at this problem is to enunciate our ethical theory that underlies our moral judgements.  According to the version of divine command ethics which I’ve defended, our moral duties are constituted by the commands of a holy and loving God.  Since God doesn’t issue commands to Himself, He has no moral duties to fulfil.  He is certainly not subject to the same moral obligations and prohibitions that we are.  For example, I have no right to take an innocent life.  For me to do so would be murder.  But God has no such prohibition …”[4]

Two things immediately stand out here. First, in this paragraph Craig explicitly endorses a non-voluntaristic DCT. He states “our moral duties are constituted by the commands of a holy and loving God.” Second, he explains what he says “God can give and take life as He chooses” and doing so is his “prerogative.” He means that God is under no moral obligation to preserve anyone’s life. This is seen by the phrase “For example” just prior to where Coyne snipped the quote.

The claim that God is under no moral obligation to issue any command is not, however, the same as saying that it is logically possible for God to issue a command. It is logically impossible for a Bachelor to be married, it does not follow that Bachelors are under a moral obligation to not marry. To affirm voluntarism Craig must hold that it is logically possible for God to command anything at all, and he does not affirm this.

It is clear that while Craig does not believe God is under any moral obligation to issue any command at all, he does believe that it is logically impossible for any being that has the title God to do so. In the sentence that immediately proceeds the section Coyne snips, Craig states “All right; but isn’t such a command contrary to God’s nature?  Well, let’s look at the case more closely…”

Craig here in the very next line shows that he is aware of a potential response to his argument. That although God is under no moral obligation to refrain from commanding killing, there is a separate question of whether it is contrary to his nature. Craig proceeds to address this objection in the article, not by saying God can do whatever he likes, but by attempting to argue that such a command is not contrary to God’s nature. He concludes the article with the following: “in Islam God’s omnipotence trumps everything, even His own nature.  He is therefore utterly arbitrary in His dealing with mankind.  By contrast Christians hold that God’s holy and loving nature determines what He commands.” A person might, of course, agree with Craig’s arguments that the commands in question are compatible with God’s nature and one might disagree with his comments about Islam, but both arguments show, pretty clearly, he is not defending a voluntarist account of God’s commands; his whole argument assumes a non-voluntarist account.  Coyne is flatly mistaken in his presentation.

That Craig does not endorse a voluntarist account is confirmed by what he writes elsewhere.

“Our moral duties are constituted by the commands of a just and loving God”  and that  this fact also supplies the key to the arbitrariness objection.  For our duties are determined by the commands, not merely of a supreme potentate, but of a just and loving God.  God is essentially compassionate, fair, kind, impartial, and so forth, and His commandments are reflections of His own character.  Thus, they are not arbitrary,…Nonetheless, the fact that God is not duty-bound should alert us to the fact that He may well have prerogatives (for example, taking human life at His discretion) which are forbidden to us. Taking the life of an innocent person is something we have no right to do; but God is not similarly restricted. ..This also not to say that God could have brought it about that it be a general moral duty for people to kill one another. The case of Abraham and Isaac is the exception that proves the rule. Issuing a general command that we should seek one another’s harm would be contrary to God’s loving nature, but in the extraordinary case of Abraham and Isaac, it was not unloving of God to so try Abraham’s devotion, and God had good reasons for testing him so severely.”[5] [Emphasis mine]

Here, Craig explains that in saying that God has the prerogative to take human life at his discretion he does not mean he can command anything at all. It means only that God is not subject to a duty to refrain from killing. Craig explicitly denies that God’s commands are arbitrary, and states they must be consistent with his character. Gods having this prerogative also does not mean he can issue a general command to kill human beings for fun. It is only in extraordinary or exceptional cases where doing so serves some greater good that such a command would be compatible with God’s nature.

Of course this last paragraph comes, not from any of Craig’s popular online writings, but from a philosophy textbook. So perhaps Coyne and his readers can be forgiven for not noticing it. Though it is worth noting that I referred Coyne to this passage when he made the same accusation 2 years ago.

Less understandable are the omissions Coyne makes with regard to the passages he himself quotes. One assumes that Coyne had read the actually before he quoted from it and told his readers what it said. So it is very odd he cites it as an example of Craig endorsing voluntarism. It is also odd that he has snipped Craig’s comments in the exact precise spot that gives the false impression to his readers that Craig does.

Despite these strange omissions, Coyne takes himself to have  found a problem with a DCT, and, as noted, he suggests advocacy of DCT is comparable to being a real estate agent from Florida. Presumably this is intended to suggest holders of DCT are people who promote a position we know to be faulty through deception and the omission of facts. I leave my readers to ponder the irony of this accusation.


[1]  http://www.reasonablefaith.org/if-isis-god-were-real-would-i-be-obliged-to-follow-him
[2] William Lane Craig and J P Moreland Philosophical Foundations of a Christian WorldView (Downers Grove Il: Intervarsity Press academic) 531.
[3] http://www.reasonablefaith.org/if-isis-god-were-real-would-i-be-obliged-to-follow-him
[4] http://www.reasonablefaith.org/slaughter-of-the-canaanites
[5] William Lane Craig and J P Moreland Philosophical Foundations of a Christian WorldView (Downers Grove Il: Intervarsity Press academic) 531.

Tags:   · · · · 4 Comments

4 responses so far ↓

  • I agree with your analysis entirely. it just really bothers me the way Bill uses the word “voluntarist,” because it makes his defenders – for example you in this article accommodate to him by using it that way too. He does hold a voluntarist view as careful proponents of DCT use that term (e.g. in Phillip Quinn’s masterful article “Theological Voluntarism” in The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory).

    That aside, I don’t know if Coyne is being intentionally misleading or just flailing wildly. I actually suspect the latter. Even setting aside the context of what Bill was saying, his claim that God has an absolute right to take life has no relation at all to voluntarism as an ethical theory. part of the problem will possibly be that Bill uses the word “voluntarism” in an irregular way and Coyne isn’t sophisticated enough in his approach to translate what Bill is saying out of Bill’s language and into more common language.

  • Hi Glenn, I agree with you about the word “voluntarism” at one point above I use the phrase “voluntarism as Craig defines it” but I felt I had to use the word for clarity and to enable the discussion to occur seeing those are the terms Coyne and Craig uses. That was frustrating.

    That aside, I don’t know if Coyne is being intentionally misleading or just flailing wildly. I actually suspect the latter. Even setting aside the context of what Bill was saying, his claim that God has an absolute right to take life has no relation at all to voluntarism as an ethical theory. part of the problem will possibly be that Bill uses the word “voluntarism” in an irregular way and Coyne isn’t sophisticated enough in his approach to translate what Bill is saying out of Bill’s language and into more common language.

    I suspect that is some of it, I think Coyne tends to confidently assert things he often has very little understanding or knowledge of in this context. It appears to be pretty smug, kind of an attitude that because those who disagree with him are so obvious stupid and morally and intellectually inferior he can simply dismiss it all without even understanding it. However, given the quote he provides is snipped precisely just after and just before the places where he clarifies his position is not that its logically possible for God to command anything at all, its difficult to not suspect something deliberate has occurred.

  • I’ve got an event you and your readers might be interested in. It’s a conference. Reading your post today, I thought you might like notice of this upcoming event. It features a gathering of some of the best minds currently thinking on Nietzsche. The topic is the moral problems of nihilism.
    It will be held on October 30 & 31 at Salt Lake Community College’s South City Campus, located at 1575 South State Street in Salt Lake City, UT. Much of the conference will also be broadcast online.
    The conference will feature: Dr. Paul van Tongeren from Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
    Dr. John Richardson from NYU, Dr. Elijah Millgram from the University of Utah, and Dr. Werner Stegmaier from the University of Greifswald.
    More information, and a livestream of the conference at: http://slccnietzsche.wix.com/slccphilosophyconf

  • Thank you for that Dave. If was in the area I would be interested in attending that, I am actually writing something which involves uses an interesting argument of Elijah Millgram’s at the moment. So it’s kind of timely