Is theism (belief in any kind of God) a case of “God of the gaps”? This is an accusation that sceptics regularly make of Christians (and people of faith, generally). They say we are simply inventing a convenient ‘make believe’ God to fill in our gap in our knowledge of the universe. How did the universe come into existence in the beginning? How did biological life begin from non-living matter? How did the universe become so impossibly fine-tuned for life? Where did DNA originate? Where did human consciousness come from? How did irreducibly complex molecular machines develop incrementally by random chemical processes?
Sceptics argue that we are proposing that “God must have done it” simply because we don’t yet understand how it happened scientifically. They say we are essentially chucking God into the puzzle to fill in the gap in our knowledge – to cover up for our current ignorance. But one day, so they say, science will discover how the universe came into existence from natural causes and it will answer all these other questions as well.
But there are two problems with this argument. Firstly, those who accuse Christians of doing this are doing exactly the same thing, but instead of plugging the gap with God, they are plugging the gap with future science. They are saying, “We don’t know how the universe was created, but future science will come to our rescue one day and we place our faith in future science. We don’t know how all these other seemingly impossible things happened either, but future science will eventually reveal it all.” In this sense, atheists are doing exactly the very thing they accuse theists of.
The second problem with this argument is that belief in a Creator God is not being introduced arbitrarily here, out of the blue, as it were. The evidence – both scientific and philosophical – actually POINTS US toward a Creator – and there’s a WHOLE lot more evidence that I examine in detail in my series, EVIDENCE FOR BELIEF.
In a recent online discussion, an atheist posted this comment to me: “So, we don’t yet know how these things happened … so God must have done it? Really?”
Here was my response:
“You are implying that theism is a “God of the gaps” belief. But that argument is facile. The scientific evidence actually points to God’s existence. Atheism, on the other hand, is full of unexplained ‘gaps’. Atheism requires adherents to believe in TWELVE impossible things: the origin of the universe from nothing, the origin of amino acids from random chemical combinations, the origin of proteins from random chemical combinations, abiogenesis, autopoiesis, the development of molecular machines, the development of DNA, the development of human consciousness, the random fine tuning of the universe, the extraordinary correlation of abstract mathematics with the observable universe, the extraordinary alignment of habitability factors for life on Earth, the existence of moral values in a purely mechanistic universe. All of these provide overwhelming evidence of an Intelligent Designer. It is not theists who say “we don’t know …” but atheists. They are left scratching their heads and believing in the impossible, whereas theism provides a very reasonable explanation that accords with the evidence. The existence of an all-powerful, supernatural Creator is the most reasonable explanation of the evidence.”
I think that is a good answer.
For more information, check out my video and podcast series: EVIDENCE FOR BELIEF.