God of the Gaps

by László Balogh

 

          It seems to me many people have fallen into the notion that the advancement of science disproves the existence of God. Like, the more we know about our natural world, the more certain we can be that there is no God. Based on the principles of logic, this way of thinking seems wrong to me. But before I get into it why, let’s look at another idea that some believers often rehearse: God of the gaps.     

 

          “God of the gaps refers to the argument that gaps in scientific knowledge are evidence for God’s existence and direct intervention.” (source: link.springer.com, John R. Albright: God of the Gaps)

 

          “God of the gaps (…) is a logical fallacy that occurs when believers invoke Goddidit (or a variant) in order to account for some natural phenomena that science cannot (at the time of the argument) explain (…)

“God of the gaps” is a bad argument not only on logical grounds, but on empirical grounds: there is a long history of “gaps” being filled and the remaining gaps for God thus getting smaller and smaller (…)

…naturalistic explanations for still-mysterious phenomena always remain possible, especially in the future where research may uncover more information.” (source: rationalwiki.org)

 

          I actually do agree that God of the gaps is a logical fallacy, because it’s not the unexplainable that’s supposed to call for a God. God just is, whether you can explain phenomena or not. The fallacy unbelievers seem to fall into though is the above quoted “empirical ground”, that as the gaps are being filled, the chances for God’s existence are getting slimmer and slimmer. The idea that naturalistic explanations can somehow muscle God out of the picture, is just as much of a fallacy. This is the same erroneous thinking, just the other way around.   

 

          If “I can’t explain it, therefore God…” is wrong, then

          “I can explain it, therefore no God…” has to be wrong too!

 

          Just to illustrate this ongoing debate, let’s say, there is a complicated equation a group of mathematicians are trying to figure out, but as much as they think, they cannot solve it. After an extended time of struggle, half of the group come to the conclusion that some scientifically advanced aliens must have written the problem. The rest of the mathematicians are not sure about this, and they remain skeptical about this proposal. Years later, after much studying, the group returns to the same mathematical problem. This time they are able to solve it, and as a result, the skeptical half of the group make a conclusion that there are no aliens. I’m pretty sure we all know that this is faulty logic. Whether you can solve a mathematical problem or not, has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of aliens. What happened is that during the course of time you gained some knowledge. That’s it. 

 

          Missing scientific information does not call for a God, and in the same manner, the ever-growing appearance of scientific information does not do away with God. Our lack, or abundance of scientific knowledge and the existence of God are unrelated. God did everything in a scientifically explainable way, we just don’t know the science yet!