We Must Not Make a God of the Gaps

We Must Not Make a God of the Gaps

“It was a dicey proposition introducing a monotheistic God in a polytheistic world. Could it be that the early Hebrew writers softened the blow by telling their tale in terms of already existing accounts? If so, this would be exactly what the apostle Paul did at the Areopagus in Athens, as related in Acts chapter 17. There, he too embarked on introducing a monotheistic God to a polytheistic people, which was also dicey and possibly illegal. He did it in terms of referring to a certain statue in their midst dedicated “to an unknown god”—they had gods for everything and didn’t want to miss one. ‘This is the god I am here to tell you about,’ he said. It was such an adroit approach that by the time his audience figured out that they didn’t like it, some of them did, even if it did imply changes to their way of life.

“We need not second the explanation above, but perhaps we can roll with it if need be. It would explain some Genesis similarities to the legends and histories of other peoples. Borrow from their language, dress it up a little, update this or that, and you are good to go. Is that what happened? Maybe. On the other hand, academic opinion can turn rapidly. Maybe everything is just as written. One must always be ready for the next headline proclaiming, ‘Everything you thought you knew about such-and-such is wrong!’ But, for now, the time has long passed for scholars to take ancient Bible history literally. Instead, they regard it as though a product of an ancient Mark Twain turned deist: religious men telling tall tales. Can they be accommodated?” (From: A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen)

In the same speculative vein, let us suppose, just for the sake of argument—you don’t have to believe it, we’re just playing here—that with God it is not the Michelangelo painting of Him stretching out to touch Adam’s finger, thus imparting life. Say instead it is like Tom Cruise lighting the fuse that sparks Mission Impossible, the mission in this case to establish life in all the earth. Say it unfolds the way the evolutionists insists it does, like one of those books featuring a 3D pop-up diorama. A lot of work goes into those books so that when you slowly open the page you behold the layered scenes sequentially unfolding, rising, and coming raging at you. Say life came about like that.

Then, at a certain point, God says of the seeds he planted long ago, ‘Okay, how did that garden turn out? Hmm. Here’s one I can work with”—at which point he elevates, enhances, upgrades—call it what you will—a certain Adam, and loads him up with all the additional accoutrements to decisively separate him from the animals and enable him to respond to more intense cultivation.

Any evidence for this? None. But then, people are enthralled with the Space Odyssey movie these days in which beneficent aliens did the same, so we cannot treat this speculation with less open-mindedness. One of the theories taken seriously today to account for the infinitesimally small likelihood that the universe would have developed to be amenable to life is that we are living in but one of a virtually infinitesimal number: a “multiverse” I mean, if this crock of insight is taken seriously, there is no reason that mine should be laughed off the table. “Can’t we all just get along?” Rodney King pleaded to the LA rioters before their continued actions indicated they couldn’t. That’s all I’m trying to do here. Besides, maybe my suggestion will soften out with context the brother at the Kingdom Hall razzing his Esau-like counterpart behind the now-phased out literature counter: “George, George, we try so hard to teach our kids that we didn’t descend from the apes, we read scriptures, we explain the pictures. We works so hard and we just about have them convinced—and then they look at you and they’re not too sure.”

Still, as farfetched as the multiverse theory may seem, it is an attempt to come to grips with the crazy odds that would favor nothingness over the present universe. Even if it represents a solution more crazy, it is still attempt to solve a problem. You don’t want to be like the guy before the firing squad of 100 crack riflemen, all of whom miss, and you never stop to think that circumstance a little odd. With many scientists, that’s exactly what they have done. “Ah, well,” they say, “if they didn’t all miss, I wouldn’t be here. Let’s just leave it at that.” It is a remarkably incurious attitude from those who are supposed to have boundless curiosity. It is as though they take an original miracle for granted, then endeavor to explain everything from that point on.

So then, at a certain point, per my musings, Jehovah injects some leaven into the top results of his evolution experiment, the hominids, and infuses all the additives to make the Adam and Eve scenario hold up. Work it through. Do what the mathematicians do in proving the square root of 2 is an irrational number. They start by assuming just the opposite!—that it is rational. Then they work it through to see if contradictions arise. One does. So they conclude the opposite of their initial assumption must be the answer. So work this revised Adam and Ever scenario out, too. Do contradictions arise? No. Does it leave plenty of gaps? Oh, yeah!—you can drive a truck through some of them. But gaps are perfectly permissible in science. You are not allowed to make a god out of them. Very well. Neither can they make a god out of ours.*

*”the god of the gaps”—what a stupid expression! It doesn’t occur to these characters who employ it that one can turn it on its head and apply it the opposite way. Or insert it in a totally different context. Let’s say you are trying to prove your case in court but it is overruled because it has significant gaps in it. Trust me on this: it will not advance your cause if you ridicule the judge for making a god of those gaps.

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