God of the Gaps??

Here’s the deal. This is pretty much a follow up to my last post which addressed an intelligent journey (with an example of how pondering on the evidence that presents the possible fine-tuning of the universe could instigate belief) to seeking the supernatural as well as the subjectivity of proof and evidence. I say “pretty much” because it isn’t a direct follow up to the article, it’s a follow up to a type of comment it got and one I expect it to keep getting. The “god of the gaps” objection.

God of the gaps” reasoning is basically when we look at something in the world that science cannot currently explain (gaps in science, unknowns in science) and attribute it to some kind of supernatural force.

So, for example, at some point somewhere in history someone probably said that the god Thor was responsible for thunder and lightning in the sky. At that time there was no naturalistic explanation for thunder and lightning. This is a “god of the gaps” argument. God of the gaps” arguments are said to be argumentum ad ignorantiam; argument from ignorance.They are usually categorized under logical fallacy a.k.a flawed logic. A “god of the gaps” objection aims to invalidate an argument on the premise that it is a “god of the gaps” argument. This objection is a cliche objection carelessly thrown around as an argument closer in atheism,theism,theology debates. Especially on the internet.

The “god of the gaps” argument sounds bad right? But is there anything actually wrong with a “god of the gaps” reasoning? I say it depends, this is why I’m writing this article and of course to establish why it was an unwarranted objection to my last post, almost off topic, I must add.

I’ll first express objections to the “god of the gaps” objection in general, then I’ll conclude with why it’s an unwarranted objection to my last post.

1. If there is a “God”, “he” is scientifically unknown at the moment, so why is it surprising or logically fallacious that, we tend to look for him in the scientifically unknown?

It’s almost like me asking you to tell me a story from history without ever using past tense. I say, pro-theistic scientific research can search within the gaps or outside the gaps. Searching in the gaps doesn’t invalidate the search.

2. The “god of the gaps” objection is double-edged.

The claim of those that are pro “god of the gaps” type arguments can be undermined if, as science progresses, it becomes clear that a complete explanation of such phenomena purely in terms of natural causes can be given. Equally, it must be acknowledged that this claim is strengthened if, as science progresses, the prospects of providing completely naturalistic explanations become increasingly remote. The real issue is not whether “god of the gaps” arguments are in principle inadmissible, but whether there is good evidence for the claim that natural causes are inadequate to explain certain phenomena.

3. Scientific research doesn’t slow down or stop because past scientific research is debunked.

Why can’t we seek “God” in the gaps simply because science has debunked “god in the gaps” ideas of the past? Atheist Bradley Monton concurs, when he writes, “Just because gaps in the past were filled in with further naturalistic scientific investigation, it doesn’t follow that every gap in the future will be similarly filled… To see this, consider an analogous argument. If one looks at the history of science, one sees that all scientific theories before the ones that we currently favor have been shown to be false. Does it follow that the scientific theories we currently favor will be shown to be false too?

4. Ironically, the “god of the gaps” objection tends to be hypocritical.

For example; when critics make this “god of the gaps” accusation to Intelligent Design, they are usually committing a “gaps” fallacy themselves. How so? Take for instance that these very same materialists admit that gaps in the evidence for Darwinian evolution exist. They also assume that those gaps can and will be filled by materialist explanations. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be attacking Intelligent Design claims for purportedly filling those gaps with “god.” They can’t make a “god of the gaps” accusation without also making a “materialism of the gaps” argument.

Most “gaps-based” criticisms and accusations are particularly flawed in this way. I suggest we avoid them, at least that’s what I do. People are entitled to make whatever arguments they want, provided they use positive evidence to back up their position. To ignore this will be to say that, hypotheses must be made from complete knowledge, weird right? since every hypothesis has some part of it’s root in ignorance.

Does a forensic scientist commit an “arson-of-the-gaps” fallacy in inferring that a fire was started deliberately rather than by natural causes?
If one were to take this way of thinking to its necessary conclusion, any tentative hypothesis at all about anything could be considered an argument from ignorance because a better explanation may be forthcoming in the future.

Furthermore, to assume that every phenomenon that we cannot explain yet must nonetheless have a materialistic explanation is to commit a converse “materialism of the gaps” fallacy. Take for instance, an argument widely approved by many “god of the gaps” accusers - One of Francis Collins’s flagship arguments for Darwinism which is based on the claimed non-functionality of much of our non-protein-coding DNA (which he dismisses as “genetic flotsam and jetsam”). But isn’t this, as argued here, an argument based on what we don’t know rather than on what we do know? By the way, Francis Collins does accept the “fine tuning of the universe” logic and does not see it as a “god-of the gaps argument. The fine tuning argument is not an argument from ignorance, it’s argument from process of elimination. If the fine-tuning argument is dismissed on a “god of the gaps” objection, all other propositions should also be dismissed on a “chance of the gaps” objections. Since chance can be a stop-gap for ignorance.

Some people may say that we should always assume that there is a naturalistic explanation for everything. However, such an assertion actually begs the question because they are presupposing naturalism to prove naturalism. Certainly, the idea that naturalism explains everything is not a knowledge claim that comes from naturalism. Thus, it’s self-defeating. Some “god of the gap” accusers often suggest that we will find a naturalistic explanation of the universe one day, therefore, we should assume that the universe has a naturalistic explanation for its existence. This is a fallacy known as an appeal to the future. Just because you think it will be proven later does not give you justification for maintaining your position.

5. God of the gaps” objections tend to be unnecessary stumbling blocks to true conclusion.

If supernatural causes are ruled out a priori (i.e. before even looking at the evidence), then we must admit that we are no longer looking for the most reasonable explanation; instead, we are looking for the most reasonable naturalistic explanation. However, if this assumed criteria (explanation must be naturalistic) is false, then it could easily lead to false conclusions.

6. God of the gaps” isn’t really an argument from ignorance.

A problem with the standard discussions of argumentum ad ignorantiam is that they tend to be very short and the examples used to illustrate this fallacy seem artificial. When I reference artificiality, I mean uncharacteristic of real life intelligent arguments. Take for instance saying let’s put the tooth fairy in the gaps instead of “God” If the tooth fairy was in the scientific gaps of a fine tuned universe, calling him the tooth fairy will be silly.

Discussions of the argumentum ad ignorantiam are typically in about one to two pages and the illustrations of the fallacy frequently hardly resemble real life arguments, they are often a caricature of how arguments actually take place. Copi’s widely used Introduction to Logic devotes one and a half pages to discussing the fallacy and provides the “practical” example that it is fallacious to argue that there must be ghosts because no one has ever been able to prove that there are not any. I suspect that it is extremely difficult to find a defense of the existence of ghosts that relies simply on the assertion that it has not been proved that ghosts do not exist. Those who believe in ghosts generally make appeal to some body of positive evidence that, rightly or wrongly, they take to support their contention that ghosts exists.

We can ask whether those who appeal to gaps in our scientific understanding of nature as evidence of supernatural intervention in the course of nature do so solely or simply on the basis of ignorance of how natural causes operate or rather on the basis of presumed positive knowledge of how natural causes operate. If the former, then those who appeal to such gaps as evidence of supernatural intervention are guilty of the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam. If the latter, although one may wish to dispute the truth of their conditional premise, one can scarcely accuse them of an error in logic.

Let’s take a Christian approach for example- “all phenomena which occur in Nature do so because “God” sustains the world in being, thus (at least indirectly) causing everything. But this doesn’t imply that all phenomena make equally good evidence for God’s existence. I don’t think any Christian apologist has ever made the following argument:

A. Science cannot explain high temperature superconductivity [a puzzling phenomenon in condensed matter physics]- B. Therefore an intelligent designer must have caused it- C. Therefore God exists.

The reason is that it is obvious in this case that there should exist in principle an ordinary scientific explanation for this phenomenon. Superconductors involve complicated, messy physics and there is no particularly good reason to be surprised that we don’t understand them fully yet.

When an Intelligent Design theorist such as St. Behe argues that:

A.There exist phenomena in Nature such as bacterial flagellum which could not plausibly have evolved naturally because they have irreducible complexity, -B. Therefore they must have been created by an intelligent designer.

He is not committing any type of logical fallacy, let alone “god of the gaps”. The problem with his argument is that biologists have shown that his premise is false, but it’s a perfectly good type of argument, if its premises were really true.

Consider if an apple was hanging delicately from a tree. Natural law would dictate that unsupported objects like the apple will fall to the Earth. However, imagine if you (a personal and intelligent cause) reached out and caught the apple before it hit the ground. Would this be a violation of natural law? Of course not. Instead, as a personal cause, you should be able to intervene into the world of cause-and-effect. This (your intervention) would not invalidate the regular rule (of gravity).

It is widely suggested that when dealing with non-repeatable events like the origin or fine-tuning of the universe, we need to engage in forensic science — not empirical science. Since the singularity cannot be repeated, we need to make an inference to the best explanation for what caused it. Put another way, while empirical science studies regular events, forensic science studies singular events. By identifying design in nature, we are not disregarding the uniformity of cause-and-effect; instead, we are affirming it. Because we recognize intelligent causes in the present, we should be able to recognize these same causes in the past. By offering a theistic explanation, we are giving an explanation based on what we do know (an intelligent cause), rather than what we don’t know. Since information always comes from a personal and intelligent cause, we have a criterion for recognizing personal and intelligent causes in the past.

6. The assumption or let’s say myth that, prior to the rise of science, theologians typically inferred that God was the immediate cause of any event they did not understand is historically naive.

It is uninformed to assume that thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas were just willing to propose the direct intervention of God simply on the basis of ignorance. Both Augustine and Aquinas could recognize the difference between direct and indirect divine action. Both held that supernatural interventions in nature take place, but neither argued for such interventions on the basis of ignorance of how indirect causes operate. This is not to claim that it is not possible to find examples of a simple appeal to ignorance in proposing supernatural intervention. It is to claim that it is a cultural myth that such reasoning is or ever was the stock in trade of theologians.

7. God of the gaps” as an objection tends to be vague and bogus.

If “God” did this, let’s say appear in the sky in full glory, ghen ghen! then surely we would know he existed, right? Well, why wouldn’t this kind of evidence also be subject to the “God-of-the-gaps” objection? Just because we don’t know how a giant man can appear in the sky doesn’t mean there is no natural explanation for him. Maybe aliens or time-travelers are at work, deceiving us?

Some people say that if Christian preachers for instance, could heal amputated limbs, that would convince them God existed. But once again, aren’t we just taking a gap in our knowledge (“I don’t know how these limbs are being healed”) and filling it with, “Therefore, God did it?” Critics could admit that no amount of evidence could satisfy the “god of the gaps” objection. This would leave atheism behind the fortress that protects other un-falsifiable beliefs, such as the belief the entire world is a computer simulation. This gives atheism the characteristics of religious belief. This is why when I was atheist, I completely disliked the “god of the gaps” objections.

8. Conclusion.

I strongly suggest that “god of the gaps” should be eliminated from our vocabulary because it is imprecise. This vague phrase is overpopulated with potential meanings. Does it refer to a “gaps are possible” view (this is theologically acceptable for a Christian theist) or a specific theory claiming “a gap did occur” (this should be evaluated using evidence and logic), or an “always in the gaps” habit (that is scientifically naive) or an “only in the gaps” view (that is theologically unacceptable and should be criticized)?

Instead, to improve clarity in communication a critic could say that someone is implicitly endorsing a “God only in the gaps” view, or naively thinking “a science-gap is always a nature-gap,” or not realizing that “a nature-gap is theologically impossible.” But simply saying “god of the gaps” is imprecise and confusing, it leads to false stereotyping because it lumps together different views instead of distinguishing between them, and it only attaches a label instead of clearly expressing a logical concern. It can cause confusion (when a reader wonders “what is the intended meaning?”) and miscommunication (when a writer intends one meaning and a reader receives another) and irritation (by those who are being wrongfully stereotyped and having their views misrepresented). The term is basic, It isn’t intellectually useful or spiritually edifying, so I support trashing the term.

My previous post addresses an intelligent journey to belief. It does not aim to prove the existence of a supernatural being. It clearly does not even attempt to provide a completely empirical reason to belief. It talks about how a dilemma in something as complex as astrophysics may instigate belief. Instigate is a very important word here. The focus here is not imputing God as the answer to the unknown, it’s seeing “God” in the awe of the unknown. in my previous article, There is no proving the idea of God into general/scientific knowledge, rather there is receiving the idea of God from general/scientific knowledge.

For instance naturalistic scientists are just as far from explaining the origin of life as they have ever been. In fact, the more they learn about this subject, the less they are able to explain it. This scientific lacuna raised doubts in the mind of the late Antony Flew, causing him to come to faith in “God”. He was a notorious atheist before his change of mind. The reference to Anthony flew I just made, is not a win point for theistic belief rather a validation to my last post, in the sense that an intelligent and scientific journey can instigate or cause belief based on the subjectivity of evidence. The “god of the gaps accusation or objection is irrelevant to my last post as my last post in the midst of expressing other points is also clearly acknowledging that the gaps can be a cause for belief. The article boldly makes a convincing call to a present gap.

Asides from the reality that the generic “god of the gaps” objection does not hold enough water to object to a proposition as detailed as the possible fine-tuning of our universe, it does not disprove the gaps as a cause or instigator for belief all it does is not recommend it as proof. The article obviously speaks from the subjectivity of recommendation (evidence/proof) so this cliche “god of the gaps” objection to my article falls flat. Neither does it hold enough water to recommend or not recommend anything in the first place. xoxo!