Dear friends:
Long time ago, an accomplished scientist argued with me and said " In ancient time, people were ignorant about many natural phenomena, therefore they thought God had caused those phenomena to happen. namely, people subscribed whatever they didn't understand to God of gaps,
But now science has advanced so much,
the gaps have become fewer and fewer, so gradually,
there are fewer gaps to give God credits or to let Him hide. It is
as if God used to be very important and near highway, but
nowadays, God has to hide in far far away places where
people are still ignorant about science.
as if God used to be very important and near highway, but
nowadays, God has to hide in far far away places where
people are still ignorant about science.
After I thought carefully, I countered him and said:" Well, you
think nowadays, science almost has solved all the mysteries of the universe?
Contrarily, just the opposite, every time scientists solve one mystery of the
universe, more unsolved problems are discovered and the increasing problems
increase exponentially. And scientists today only know 10% or less of our
gigantic universe, the rest are unknown, right?
For example, after black holes were discovered, more questions and mysteries
popped up, right? Therefore, it is hopeless that science will ever have had all the
answers to our universe, since the mysteries of our universe are increasing
exponentially, not decreasing. Agree? So actually, the natural/scientific god of
the gaps will dwindle and fade away instead.
Though we are able to have more powerful telescopes and microscopes , as science advances nowadays; under those more advanced and powerful tele- & microscopes, actually, scientists have to face an explosion of more puzzles and mysteries of life & our universe. Our human dream to solve all the mysteries of our universe will remain just a dream forever.
Thus, Atheists do have a strong faith in their own natural/scientific god of gaps to assume that there is a naturalistic explanation for everything. That is a large assumption that is on very shaky philosophical ground.
For one thing, it implies omniscience. In order to know that there will be a naturalistic explanation for everything in the universe, you must have knowledge of everything in the universe. By admitting that there are still gaps, this argument undercuts itself.
It also presupposes that the scientific method itself is the only valid way to discern truth about the physical world...
Here below is an article worthy to explore further on this topic.
The Atheist’s God of the Gaps
by
I want to present you with a hypothetical conversation between your everyday Christian and your everyday atheist.
Christian: “I believe that God is the ultimate cause of the universe.”
Atheist: “Why would you believe that?”
Christian: “I believe that there are certain things that science can’t explain, and God is the most reasonable explanation for those things such as the ultimate origin of life.”
Atheist: “Hold on a minute. That is simply the God of the gaps. You don’t have an explanation, so you simply plug God in. I believe in science. One day there will be no more gaps and you will not have any more reason to plug in God.”
This may seem to be rather simplistic, but you’d be amazed at how many times this general line of reasoning comes up even from such prominent speakers as Richard Dawkins.
In a sense, the atheist is right. There are certain things that we do not understand, and we do take it by faith. For example, we believe that God is the uncreated Creator. It is technically impossible to prove that scientifically, and it is equally as impossible to disprove that statement.
However, there is a very interesting presupposition made by the atheist that needs to be taken into account.
The atheist is making the claim that there is a naturalistic explanation for everything. That is a large assumption that is on very shaky philosophical ground.
For one thing, it implies omniscience. In order to know that there will be a naturalistic explanation for everything in the universe, you must have knowledge of everything in the universe. By admitting that there are still gaps, this argument undercuts itself.
It also presupposes that the scientific method itself is the only valid way to discern truth about the physical world. However, how do we even know that? We can’t test the validity of the scientific method by testing it using the scientific method. However, if the scientific method is the only way to discern truth, then we cannot prove that the scientific method is true. That is absurd and circular, but it is the logical conclusion of making that type of absolute statement. Science cannot be the only way of determining truth.
However, the largest issue here is that even though the accusation of the God of the gaps is being thrown at the Christian, the atheist is actually committing that fallacy. Because we do not know exactly what happens, we believe that there will be a naturalistic explanation for it. Any gap in knowledge must be filled by science and there cannot be any supernatural. There is no way to prove that science fills every gap as has already been established, but for the naturalist, that must be the inevitable yet problematic assumption. If there is nothing outside of the natural, then the natural must explain itself rather than believe that there was outside intervention from the supernatural.
As much as atheists want to say that they go wherever the evidence takes them, by presupposing that everything needs to have a naturalistic explanation and eliminating the supernatural, they are committing the argument from ignorance also known as the god of the gaps. Why can they make claims about things that they truly do not know yet assume to be true without being accused of that fallacy?
That is not the pursuit of knowledge but rather the defense of a belief system that doesn’t want to answer questions.
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