The God of the Gaps shrinks (again)
Ever since the Victorian era, when scientific discoveries such as Darwin's theory of evolution first started to seriously threaten established religious beliefs, a certain subset of people who are not comfortable with either outright atheism or dogmatic Creationism have adopted the fallback position of asserting that belief in God is necessary because, after all, human science can't explain everything. This is sometimes called the "God-of-the-gaps" position. The problem is, of course, that such a God is destined to shrink ever smaller as the gaps in human knowledge which He serves to fill in like so much metaphysical Bondo continue to shrink.
Consider, for example, this story from USA Today, which describes how a research group has managed to create a virus that reproduces itself, thus infringing on territory -- creating life -- which has heretofore been cited as an exclusive province of the God-of-the-Gaps. Creating a virus that reproduces itself is admittedly less spectacular than producing men from clay or women from spare ribs, but it does appear that the Gap just shrunk by a noticable amount.
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Carlos Zamora @ 1:16AM | 2003-11-23| permalink
I think "God of the gaps" theology still has value in making theism more plausible to the non-believer. Although scientific advances can close up gaps that the God-hypothesis had previously filled, they can also reveal new gaps. Two examples: (1) Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Boxargues that the more biochemists discover about the "irreducible complexity" of the cell, the less likely it is that such a structure could have arisen through random processes; (2) Astrophysicists are learning that some physical constants of the universe are strikingly fine-tuned, precisely what they need to be to allow for the existence of life.
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Fiend @ 5:33PM | 2003-11-23| permalink
I’d argue that non-theists would be more likely to adopt Felix’s position—it would probably be inexplicable to them that despite scientific and technological advances, theists continue to assert their belief in God.
I think it would be theists who would willingly adopt your position—already accepting of the notion of a Creator, any scientific advances that demonstrate the intricacies and complexities of the universe would only serve to strengthen their beliefs.
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