The key point about the “God of the gaps” argument …

Comment on The God of the Gaps by David Read.

The key point about the “God of the gaps” argument was made early in the article, when Sean pointed out that the “God of the gaps” argument depends upon one’s beginning or default assumptions.

If we assume that the universe and life on this planet self-created and self-organized, then the fact that we cannot presently explain exactly how is merely a “gap” in our knowledge, a gap that will eventually be filled in by future scientific discoveries. (This is the assumption Darwinists make when they accuse creationists of worshiping a God of the gaps.)

But if we assume that God created the universe and life on this planet, then the fact that we cannot presently explain how these things came into being by random processes is not a “gap” in our knowledge, but positive evidence that God did, in fact, create these things, and future scientific discoveries will tend to confirm this. (And creationists do assume that God created, which is why we are not impressed by the Darwinists’ “God of the gaps” taunt.)

It all depends upon one’s starting assumptions.

By the way, it is clear that as science has progressed, and gained more knowledge of the complexity of life, the assumption of abiogenesis (the idea that life came from non-life by naturalistic, unguided processes) has become less and less tenable. This is an instance where science has tended to confirm creationism.

David Read Also Commented

The God of the Gaps
@Sean Pitman: Sean, you’re disagreeing with Ken about what science is. You say that science can include supernatural explanations; Ken is saying, no, if it does that it is no longer science but theology.

Ken’s view as to what science is by far the dominant view, which is why ID is a byword in science, marginalized and despised. Given Ken’s majority definition of science, it certainly isn’t unfair of me to point out how biased mainstream science is. It is extremely biased against supernatural or Biblical scenarios, to the point of ruling them out of bounds a priori.

For myself, I’m certainly not going to allow myself to “follow where the evidence leads,” if it appears to lead to long ages geology and Darwinism. I’m with Kurt Wise in that I’m going to follow the Bible regardless what my senses appear to tell me. I’ve made an a priori decision (comparable to, but opposite of, science’s a priori decision) that the Word of God is more trustworthy than unaided human reason.

And please, spare me your disquisition on the flying spaghetti monster, I’ve heard it all before.


The God of the Gaps
“What if one does not start off with any starting assumptions as to a God or not but just uses empirical knowledge to look for explanations as to why things occur? Isn’t this a more objective approach?”

What you’ve just said, Ken, is “why don’t we assume that if God exists, to exist is all that God has ever done, and look for naturalistic explanations for things.”

The pretense of scientists to objectivity is by far the most annoying thing about scientists. As currently defined by the high priesthood of science, the job of science is to find naturalistic explanations for things, “no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” If there’s another profession that has such an iron-clad philosophical commitment of any kind, I don’t know what it is.

I deny that anyone is unbiased and objective, least of all anyone with even the most superficial interest in the origins controversy. Believers are biased because we are believers in God, and the power of God to speak the creation into being. Scientists are biased because naturalism is the sine qua non of mainstream science. Even those scientists who privately believe cannot put that belief into practice in their professional careers, or said careers would come to a very abrupt and nasty conclusion.


Recent Comments by David Read

LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Pauluc: I do not agree that science must be naturalistic, but if that is your bottom line, it will not trouble me much where it concerns most day-to-day science–the study of current, repeating phenomena. But a rigid naturalism applied to origins morphs into philosophical atheism. Hence, mainstream origins science is not science but atheistic apologetics. This is what should not be done at an Adventist school, but sadly what has been the rule at La Sierra.


Dr. Paul Cameron and the God of the Gaps
@Pauluc: The Adventist doctrine of creation is that God created the world in six days and rested on the Seventh day and hallowed it. (Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 20:11) Do you believe that doctrine? It won’t do to say that you accept some vague “Christian doctrine of creation.” The Seventh-day Adventist Church has a very specific mission to call people back to the worship of the creator God, on the day that He hallowed at the creation.

You say you believe that the “core doctrine of Christianity is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ,” but what was Jesus Christ incarnated to do? Wasn’t his mission to redeem fallen humanity, to be the second Adam who succeeded where the first Adam failed? And doesn’t your view of origins make nonsense of a perfect creation, a literal Adam who fell, and the need for redemption because of Adam’s sin? You seem to want to gloss over all the very profound differences you have not only with Seventh-day Adventist dcotrine, but with the most basic reasons that Seventh-day Adventism exists.

The syncretistic hodgepodge religion you’ve created for yourself, combining elements of a biblical world view (the incarnation) and elements of a pagan worldview (a self-created creation) is not Adventism. It is anti-Seventh-day Adventism.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Holly Pham: Holly, I will try, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Pauluc: Since no creationist could land a job as chairman of a biology department at a public university, it seems entirely appropriate that no Darwinist should be given the chairmanship of a biology department of a Seventh-day Adventist college.

The SDA educational system doesn’t exist to expensively duplicate the public university system. It exists to provide a uniquely biblical and Seventh-day Adventist education to interested young people. If mainstream origins science is correct in its assumptions and conclusions about our origins, the entire enterprise of Seventh-day Adventism is an utterly foolish waste of time. So at Adventist institutions, our professors should assume that Darwinistic science is false, and that creationistic science is true (just the reverse of how it is done at public universities), and proceed accordingly.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@gene fortner: What I like about your list of topics, Gene, is that it points out that many disciplines are implicated in the necessary change of worldview. It isn’t just biology and geology, although those are the main ones. History, archeology, anthropology and other disciplines should also be approached from a biblical worldview. The biblical worldview should pervade the entire curriculum.