On the whole, Coyne’s blog post is less hostile to Craig than I expected. I just found it striking that as someone who’s been critiquing religion for many years, Coyne still misunderstands some basic theological concepts:
Here he’s simply making up stuff, picking and choosing the parts of the Bible he likes (universal sin, but not obviously inherited “original sin”, as well as “God’s saving grace”) and rejecting the parts he doesn’t like (Adam and Eve). And if that’s the case, what is the “authority” of the Bible? For if the Bible be but “inspiration” and not truth, how are we to be Christians? What are we to believe? The answer to his last question is clearly “no”. Evolution itself tells us we can’t trust what the Bible teaches…In the end, if we interpret the Bible by how we’re “inspired” by it, then each person has their own dogma and there is no one way to be a Christian. After all, why couldn’t “God’s saving grace” be metaphorical, or even the existence and story of Jesus himself? Who gets to be the arbiter of Biblical truth? In the end, it can be only science.
Here Coyne seems to miss that Craig is referring to the divine inspiration of the Bible, not the Bible being inspiring to believers.
Next, in response to Craig emphasizing the need to interpret Scripture according to its original meaning, not constrained by science:
…Indeed he does, for he’s trying to understand what the Bible says by ignoring from the outset the empirical facts. First you figure out what the authors of these texts meant (note: here he’s almost admitting that the Bible was a human production not guided by God), filter that through the “inspiration” that you get from the metaphors that you discern, and then somehow twist the science into that interpretation.
(Emphasis mine)
Coyne misunderstands Craig as departing from orthodoxy by trying to figure out the original meaning of the author. Of course, this is nothing new (Christians do it every single Bible study). That doesn’t negate the divine inspiration at all - in fact many Christians believe in the “dual authorship” model.
Finally, Coyne also seems to miss that the Resurrection of Jesus is more foundational than any other doctrine in Christianity, and it would be unthinkable for Craig to deny that:
Craig clearly is an odd duck (sorry for the insult to ducks) in so explicitly claiming that the Fall, and perhaps the Resurrection, aren’t so important at all.