What God of the Gaps?

There are those whose God occupies the gaps where scientific advances still leave room. They cling to the belief that no research has spoken against their faith. But what happens to their God when science steps forward? Where will this God find room to fit in their universe?

I am speaking of the God of someone possibly like Olorin, whose faith in evolution seems to be based partly on his insistence that Intelligent Design research has produced absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Now, this may not actually apply directly to Olorin; he may be a type or a representation of a believer in the God of naturalism (and its cousin, naturalistic evolution), without actually being one himself. Olorin has mentioned his involvement in church activities and his view of the grandeur of the true God, so I assume he would not say naturalism is his "God."

But for those who do place all their trust in naturalism and naturalistic evolution, I say that you are trusting in something that could be slowly whittled away by the advance of science, for Intelligent Design continues to gather momentum. Your God--dare I say it--is subject to the same God-of-the-Gaps risk you say ID is subject to.

Call it a dangerous prediction if you will--I am fully aware of the risks in it. (This is one of those posts that I write--and then duck

.) When the current crop of students--IDEA club members, for instance--get in the labs for real, though, and the current reigning paradigm no longer holds monolithic power, I expect the pace of ID research will increase exponentially. Now, Olorin is already demonstrably wrong that "nada" has been produced through ID-related research. And while I don't have any way of knowing this for certain, I'm fairly sure that in ten years nobody will be able even to pretend to make a claim like that.

Posted: Wed - April 4, 2007 at 11:45 AM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

What God of the Gaps?

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson