Lesson 4 - God Of The Gaps Flashcards
God of the gaps
-As scientific knowledge of the world increases, there is less and less scope for ‘God’ to be used as an explanation for what we do not understand.
-‘God’ then retreats further and further into the gaps of our knowledge. Using ‘God’ to fill in the gaps in our scientific knowledge means that God himself becomes simply an explanatory hypothesis – he becomes part of the scientific explanation.
What actually is god of the gaps?
-The “God of the gaps” is a term used to describe a theological perspective where God’s existence is used to explain phenomena that science has not yet been able to understand.
-For example, in the past, when people couldn’t explain certain natural phenomena through scientific understanding, they might attribute it to the direct intervention of God.
-As science progresses and provides natural explanations for these phenomena, the “gap” where God was once placed diminishes.
Parable of the gardener
-The ‘Parable of the Gardener’ by Anthony Flew, shows how people hold onto their beliefs despite the contrary.
-For Flew, the gardener symbolises God and that belief in God is completely unscientific.
How does Flew’s Parable of the Gardener attempt to show that belief in God is unscientific?
-Religious believers do not allow anybody to “falsify” their assertions, instead they simply change their beliefs to suit the questioner. They continually ‘move the goal posts’.
-Meaningful language needs to be falsifiable – it needs to be able to be proved to be false.
-Religious believers don’t allow this to happen. They have blind faith instead.
-Thus Flew concludes that religious believers cause God to “die the death of a thousand qualifications”.
Summary
-If God is part of the scientific explanation for the world, it should be possible to detect God by scientific means. If there is no convincing evidence, then his existence fails as a scientific hypothesis.
-If science can explain events fully, there is nothing in the event that requires further explanation. Therefore, God is not needed as an explanation.
How have developments in neuroscience challenged Christianity (synoptic link: religious experiences)?
-Can religious experiences be explained scientifically or psychologically? For example, as hallucinations.
Paul’s experience on the Road to Damascus could be explained as the result of an epileptic seizure, rather than divine intervention.
-God of the Gaps: Before we understood such experiences scientifically, humans may have concluded they were ‘religious experiences’. Today, we understand the physical / psychological origins.
-If God is part of the scientific explanation for the world, it should be possible to detect God by scientific means. If there is no convincing evidence, then his existence fails as a scientific hypothesis.
-As scientific understanding grows, God gets squeezed out of more and more gaps. Science ultimately replaces religion as our source of truth and understanding about the world.
Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich argued that classical theism is based on the idea that God is both immanent and transcendent. God is the means by which the whole world exists.
John Polkinghorne
John Polkinghorne thinks that God does not intervene in the world ‘crudely’, but instead influences it at a level that isn’t detectable for humans (the quantum level).
Maurice Wiles
Maurice Wiles argues that God is active all the time – He is everywhere, within and beyond the universe.
R. Laird Harris - quote on god of the gaps
it cannot be concluded that it can explain all phenomena.
R. Laird Harris
