The God-of-gap myth

One of the favorite objections to Christian theism is the so-called God-of-the-gaps fallacy.

This is based on the warfare modeling of the relation between faith and science popularized by John Draper and Andrew White back in the 19C.

Here’s a conventional statement of the argument:

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The concept of the God of the gaps contrasts religious explanations of nature with those derived from science (see also Relationship between religion and science). It refers to a theistic position that anything that can be explained by human knowledge is not in the domain of God, so the role of God is therefore confined to the 'gaps' in scientific explanations of nature.

"God of the gaps" is often used to describe the perceived retreat of religion in the face of increasingly comprehensive scientific explanations of natural phenomena. An example of the line of reasoning starts with the position that early religious descriptions of objects and events (such as the Sun, Moon, and stars; thunder and lightning) placed these in the realm of things created or controlled by a god or gods. As science found explanations for observations in the realms of astronomy, meteorology, geology, cosmology and biology, the 'need' for a god to explain phenomena was progressively reduced, occupying smaller and smaller 'gaps' in knowledge. This line of reasoning commonly holds that since the domain of natural phenomena previously explained by God is shrinking, theistic or divine explanations for any natural phenomenon become less plausible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps#The_.22God-of-the-gaps_argument.22_in_modern_usage

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On this characterization, science has Christians on the run. The inexorable progression of science carries with it the inevitable regression of Christianity. Every scientific advance marks another hasty retreat for Christian theism.

Unfortunately for the atheist, the aesthetic appeal of this symmetrical relation is founded on a systematic ignorance of Christian theology.

As usual, the atheist doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What we have, instead, is a secular wives’ tale.

A writer like Draper or White presents a catchy way of framing the debate. Atheist A quotes Draper. Atheist B quotes Atheist A. Atheist C quotes Atheist B, and so on, ad nauseum.

You end up with a free-floating tradition that never touches base with the primary sources of Christian theism in Scripture or historical theology.

Like the tall tale about the fish that got away, the secular legend grows with each repeated recitation.

For the God-of-the-gaps fallacy is, itself, a fallacy, predicated on the wholly ignorant belief that traditional Christian theology used to ascribe every event to the direct action of God.

Whenever science uncovers some underlying mechanism, then this discovery nibbles away at Christian theism until the original foundation is honeycombed with scientific potholes. Or so we’re told.

But the truth of the matter is that traditional theology never attributed every event to the direct agency of God.

Using a variety of nomenclature, historical theology has always distinguished between creation, miracle, and providence, or immediate and mediate creation, or primary and secondary causality, or creation ex nihilo and continuous creation.

If you acquaint yourself with the “prescientific” models of providence in Thomism and Calvinism, you’ll find these distinctions in place.

Cf. T. Tiessen, Providence & Prayer: How Does God Work in the World (IVP 2000), chapters 9 & 11.

And you don’t have to read very far in Scripture to find out that the Bible never said everything comes straight from the hand of God.

Food comes from trees. Rain comes from clouds. Babies come from wombs.

What we have in Scripture is a balance between creation, providence, and miracle. It is not a choice between a God who does everything and a God who does nothing.

There’s no essential tension between ordinary providence and miraculous action.

So the mere fact that science may be able to identify a “natural” case of a given event or a certain kind of event does nothing to dethrone God and banish him to the ever-shrinking gaps of scientific ignorance.

“Natural” causes do not imply naturalism. The existence of natural causes has always been a fixture of traditional Christian theology.