Ignorance of the gaps

[jonathan_hili]

Hi all.

Was just watching the Brisbane dialogue between Lawrence Krauss and William Lane Craig and something struck me, which has often struck me before. Oftentimes, one hears atheistic debaters condemn (and rightly so, in my opinion) the “God of the gaps” approach to Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics: “God” should not be used as a catch-all theory to explain something we don’t know in science, for example, how human life began or why planets and stars move in the way they do.

However, I’ve found that the knife cuts both ways: Professor Krauss and many other atheistic thinkers often appeal to “ignorance of the gaps” to rebut cosmological or other arguments in favour of God’s existence. For instance, in response to Dr Craig’s arguments for the beginning of the universe or else for the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life, Dr Krauss responds on both occasions with essentially the same argument: Well, we don’t know. Yes, such arguments carry most of the evidence, however, anything is possible so we can conclude that these arguments are even probable or right. To me, this “ignorance of the gaps” is just as bad.

What do you think?

 

[Bahman]

We understand things based on logic. To me this gap can never be filled since otherwise life in general loses its meaning. In another word, there is only one purpose for an intelligent being to exist and that is existence something so called God that cannot be completely conceived. The main question is whether this gap is bi-directional.

 

[jonathan_hili]

We understand things based on logic. To me this gap can never be filled since otherwise life in general loses its meaning. In another word, there is only one purpose for an intelligent being to exist and that is existence something so called God that cannot be completely conceived. The main question is whether this gap is bi-directional.

What do you mean by that, Bahman? Bi-directional?

How would our understanding of the cosmos cause life to lose its meaning? I take what you mean by God not being fully comprehensible, but this is an argument made about the universe, not God.

 

[Bahman]

What do you mean by that, Bahman? Bi-directional?

How would our understanding of the cosmos cause life to lose its meaning? I take what you mean by God not being fully comprehensible, but this is an argument made about the universe, not God.

By bi-directional I mean if whether God comprehend us as we comprehend ourselves.

To answer your second question, what would be the ultimate purpose for a intelligent being? To understand everything, in another word to know absolute truth. And what is left for an intelligent being when it achieve its goal? Nothing. In simple word, the main fuel for an intelligent being to live life is to search and know life in general. Once the goal is achieved the fuel is gone and life loses its purpose.

 

[jonathan_hili]

By bi-directional I mean if whether God comprehend us as we comprehend ourselves.

To answer your second question, what would be the ultimate purpose for a intelligent being? To understand everything, in another word to know absolute truth. And what is left for an intelligent being when it achieve its goal? Nothing. In simple word, the main fuel for an intelligent being to live life is to search and know life in general. Once the goal is achieved the fuel is gone and life loses its purpose.

Thanks for the response.

Well, I’d assume that God, being omniscient and omnipotent, can certainly comprehend us. “As we comprehend ourselves”… That’s tricky. If one believes that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, then there is a sense in which God can comprehend humanity as a human being. However, I don’t think God can comprehend any particular person as that particular person, as God is not that particular person.

As for your second point: I’m not sure that the ultimate purpose for an intelligent being is to understand everything. Yes, that might be an insatiable desire or need, but it doesn’t follow that it is an ultimate purpose.

However, what I don’t like about the “ignorance of the gaps” approach is that its proponent uses ignorance to avoid unpleasant conclusions, almost like a deus ex machine.

 

[balto]

However, I’ve found that the knife cuts both ways: Professor Krauss and many other atheistic thinkers often appeal to “ignorance of the gaps” to rebut cosmological or other arguments in favour of God’s existence. For instance, in response to Dr Craig’s arguments for the beginning of the universe or else for the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life, Dr Krauss responds on both occasions with essentially the same argument: Well, we don’t know. Yes, such arguments carry most of the evidence, however, anything is possible so we can conclude that these arguments are even probable or right. To me, this “ignorance of the gaps” is just as bad.

What do you think?

I think you’re onto something. I started calling it “science of the gaps,” the view that if we don’t know something now science will eventually explain it. I think the issue stems from the fact that many people who use this line of argumentation are already committed to a materialist worldview, but if materialism is not true then science can’t answer every question as it is limited to the material order. Saying that science implies that materialism is true is question begging.

 

[balto]

Well, I’d assume that God, being omniscient and omnipotent, can certainly comprehend us. “As we comprehend ourselves”… That’s tricky. If one believes that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, then there is a sense in which God can comprehend humanity as a human being. However, I don’t think God can comprehend any particular person as that particular person, as God is not that particular person.

As for your second point: I’m not sure that the ultimate purpose for an intelligent being is to understand everything. Yes, that might be an insatiable desire or need, but it doesn’t follow that it is an ultimate purpose.

I’m not sure I’d agree with this completely. If I may offer my opinion, I think that God, being omniscient, understands us completely whereas our understandings of ourselves is limited. Suggesting that He cannot understand me as I understand myself would imply that there is knowledge outside of God’s reach, which contradicts His omniscience.

He also understands Himself infinitely as his knowledge is infinite. Actually this is related to the doctrine of the Second Person of the Trinity who is taught to be begotten by the First Person’s infinite understanding of Himself.

As to the second point, I think that we do have a desire or need to know, but it is supposedly satisfiable in heaven. So it may be one of the purposes of our existence (another being the need to love) and turning away from God leads to the state of hell because neither knowing nor loving can be satisfied by anything else. As St. Augustine said: “our hearts are restless until they rest in you [God].”

 

[Linusthe2nd]

We understand things based on logic. To me this gap can never be filled since otherwise life in general loses its meaning. In another word, there is only one purpose for an intelligent being to exist and that is existence something so called God that cannot be completely conceived. The main question is whether this gap is bi-directional.

I think you better rub the sleep out of your eyes, none of that made any sense. Sometimes the language barrier is too much to get around.

Linus3nd

 

[jonathan_hili]

I think you’re onto something. I started calling it “science of the gaps,” the view that if we don’t know something now science will eventually explain it. I think the issue stems from the fact that many people who use this line of argumentation are already committed to a materialist worldview, but if materialism is not true then science can’t answer every question as it is limited to the material order. Saying that science implies that materialism is true is question begging.

Hi Balto,

I agree, it is question begging. But I find this approach is worse: it’s not just assuming that science will answer our current ignorance one day, I can understand that position, but the argument that because we don’t know for certain X therefore any proposition is possible.

As to God’s understanding of myself, I agree with what you said too. The point I was trying to make was that God cannot understand me as myself since He isn’t me.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

By bi-directional I mean if whether God comprehend us as we comprehend ourselves.

To answer your second question, what would be the ultimate purpose for a intelligent being? To understand everything, in another word to know absolute truth. And what is left for an intelligent being when it achieve its goal? Nothing. In simple word, the main fuel for an intelligent being to live life is to search and know life in general. Once the goal is achieved the fuel is gone and life loses its purpose.

I would say that we seek and aim to know and understand, which is the goal, not learning and coming to understand, which is the process or route taken to the goal (knowledge). The good we aim to have is to actually know, and this knowing is good and pleasing and a source of joy. If we confine ourselves, however, to the limited and finite goods of the universe, our joy and satisfaction in knowing will always also be thus limited, however; whereas, we would yet desire to know something more. But - all things being equal - we would be happier knowing and understanding the material things of the universe rather than being more or less ignorant of that as well as any other conceivable thing(s).

The good we seek and desire in learning is acquisition of the knowledge itself or understanding. That is what we desire and the rest is ordered to its acquisition. Therefore the knowledge is itself the good we aim at and seek.

What we want is to increase our actual knowing or understanding; we certainly do not want this process to be anything like infinite, as then we would never actually attain to the knowledge we desire to possess.

 

[Catolico65]

Hi all.

Was just watching the Brisbane dialogue between Lawrence Krauss and William Lane Craig and something struck me, which has often struck me before. Oftentimes, one hears atheistic debaters condemn (and rightly so, in my opinion) the “God of the gaps” approach to Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics: “God” should not be used as a catch-all theory to explain something we don’t know in science, for example, how human life began or why planets and stars move in the way they do.

However, I’ve found that the knife cuts both ways: Professor Krauss and many other atheistic thinkers often appeal to “ignorance of the gaps” to rebut cosmological or other arguments in favour of God’s existence. For instance, in response to Dr Craig’s arguments for the beginning of the universe or else for the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life, Dr Krauss responds on both occasions with essentially the same argument: Well, we don’t know. Yes, such arguments carry most of the evidence, however, anything is possible so we can conclude that these arguments are even probable or right. To me, this “ignorance of the gaps” is just as bad.

What do you think?

What I see is a real crisis in scientific research due to the influence atheists and their innate lack of ethics by promoting baseless theories and using their credentials as research scientists to promote them as possible. I believe Newton would be rolling in his grave.

There are many that do this, such as Dawkins and Hawing.

 

[Catolico65]

I think you’re onto something. I started calling it “science of the gaps,” the view that if we don’t know something now science will eventually explain it.

That would meet the definition of an ideological system. If that is the case the high priests would have to be Hawking and Dawkins who want us to believe in fairy tales just because they say so.

 

[Oreoracle]

That would meet the definition of an ideological system. If that is the case the high priests would have to be Hawking and Dawkins who want us to believe in fairy tales just because they say so.

I’ve always known Hawking and Dawkins to admit that they are speculating when they propose something that is, as you say, “baseless”. Notice that they do not proclaim their speculations to be dogma as religions do.

If I am wrong, give me a link to an article or video where they claim that a speculation of theirs is a legitimate theory.

 

[Oreoracle]

Back to the OP: I simply disagree with your premise. The idea isn’t that science will eventually answer all questions about the universe; rather, it is that if we ever answer a given question about the universe, it will be through science.

I think this belief is justified. No other method of discovery has explained and predicted phenomena to the extent that science has.

 

[Catolico65]

I’ve always known Hawking and Dawkins to admit that they are speculating when they propose something that is, as you say, “baseless”. Notice that they do not proclaim their speculations to be dogma as religions do.

If I am wrong, give me a link to an article or video where they claim that a speculation of theirs is a legitimate theory.

They want us to believe them nonetheless, and most people don’t know scientific theory from a hole in the ground but that doesn’t stop them from throwing around “facts” as if they are not questionable. Here is a perfect example from Bruce Willis:

Organized religions in general, in my opinion, are dying forms. … They were all very important when we didn’t know why the sun moved, why weather changed, why hurricanes occurred, or volcanoes happened. … Modern religion is the end trail of modern mythology. But there are people who interpret the Bible literally. Literally! I choose not to believe that’s the way. And that’s what makes America cool, you know?

In my anecdotal experience in forums I would have to say the atheists are the worse at this, it’s as if they can’t stand anyone to question their religion. This is saying something because I have almost 25,000 posts in around 5 forums.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

Back to the OP: I simply disagree with your premise. The idea isn’t that science will eventually answer all questions about the universe; rather, it is that if we ever answer a given question about the universe, it will be through science.

But in Catholicism this is just a false dichotomy. The Bible speaks of a rational order watched over and ultimately ordered by an all-powerful, loving Creator. In other words we believe in Faith and Reason; therefore we expect a rational and generally naturalistic explanation of natural phenomena. What we deny is that such a rational order does anything to rule out God’s existence or His activity or dealings with his fallen creature, Man (as in public revelation).

The Catholic Church would resist Voodoo explanations of how the world works just as readily as she resists atheistic philosophies. She generally resists the irrational and will (and does) correct her members if they are contradicting reason out of, say, a misguided zeal. People sometimes forget that the very concept of superstition was invented by the Church and it retains its meaning as a vice down to this day. This concept was unheard of before. Aristotelian philosophy was ultimately rejected in the Islamic East because it was taken as too rationalistic and even when it flourished there was a tendency to fundamentally contradict it by giving it an Occasionalist interpretation as it was felt that Occasionalism was basically Islamic dogma following the Quran.

Science just means human knowledge or understanding or the present state of it, considered as an art (i.e. ‘art’ in the older, broader sense).

 

[Oreoracle]

They want us to believe them nonetheless, and most people don’t know scientific theory from a hole in the ground but that doesn’t stop them from throwing around “facts” as if they are not questionable.

I don’t think you’re being fair. There are some prominent Catholic apologists who write about their own opinions on matters that are not yet subject to Church doctrine. They are willing to concede that they are speculating when they do so. However, some people may choose to believe them unquestioningly. That doesn’t mean the apologists were trying to deceive anyone. It simply means that some people are gullible and are willing to place their faith in anyone. You can’t blame scientists for the gullibility of the general public any more than you can blame the aforementioned apologists.

 

[Oreoracle]

What we deny is that such a rational order does anything to rule out God’s existence or His activity or dealings with his fallen creature, Man (as in public revelation).

I didn’t mention any attempt to falsify God in my post. Indeed, God is an unfalsifiable entity and therefore the claim that he exists is not a hypothesis in the scientific sense.

Science just means human knowledge or understanding or the present state of it, considered as an art (i.e. ‘art’ in the older, broader sense).

By “science”, I am referring to the scientific method, which is defined in much narrower terms.

 

[KyrieEleison17]

I didn’t mention any attempt to falsify God in my post.

My bad

Indeed, God is an unfalsifiable entity

Granting God has a certain nature then yes, you couldn’t possibly “falsify him” anymore then we presently can realistically just “falsify” gravity (cancel or annul it, I mean) or some physical law.

and therefore the claim that he exists is not a hypothesis in the scientific sense.

Actually in the classical system you could prove He didn’t exist but you would have to prove that nothing did. So treated hypothetically the theory of God’s existence, so to speak, wasn’t strictly impossible to falsify.

By “science”, I am referring to the scientific method, which is defined in much narrower terms.

Ah yes, and this reminds me of our conversations on another thread I would still hold that the scientific method and, frankly, confidence carries with it a lot of assumptions and it’s really those assumptions that we need to look at for their implications.

 

[balto]

I’ve always known Hawking and Dawkins to admit that they are speculating when they propose something that is, as you say, “baseless”. Notice that they do not proclaim their speculations to be dogma as religions do.

If I am wrong, give me a link to an article or video where they claim that a speculation of theirs is a legitimate theory.

I disagree. They claim that scientific knowledge is the only real form of knowledge, which is a dogmatic claim. Also, there’s not anything technically wrong with being dogmatic. It can be subjected to rational inquiry much like any other claim to have its veracity examined.