Is God superfluous if everything is explained by appealing to nature?

[Asimis]

Normally the god-of-the-gaps argument is frowned upon by many, seen as a flawed argument that inevitably pits science against religion, faith against reason. People who affirm this are content in saying that no matter if science explains every natural process by appealing to nature, than that this wouldn’t make God superfluous as we would still need to trace all things back to God as their first cause.

Now, how is this so? If all things in nature can be accounted for by natural explanations, then isn’t God made superfluous? For example, evolution can give a completely natural explanation of the “design” we seen in living organism, and it stands in no need of invoking God as an explanation.

Where does God enters the picture in such a scenario? Wouldn’t it be necessary to admit that some natural things cannot be accounted for by natural explanations? And if so, wouldn’t this be essentially the very same god-of-the-gaps?

 

[DianaCC]

… isn’t God made superfluous?

No, you still have to come to a first cause. No matter what phenomenon you consider, you can always ask for an explanation of the explanation until you basically are asking why does something exist rather than nothing.

 

[cemiller]

I would say that being about to point out how things work and why things are the way they are points to God. All the laws of the universe have been designed to work in perfect harmony with each other. If anything was just a little different then life wouldn’t be possible anywhere. If you follow the big bang theory, then there was 1 defining moment at the very begging that determined the placement of everything. Decided how all the current laws of physics would mesh. Everything was decided at that moment. If anything were different at all then there is a much, much greater chance that no life would be possible. While I don’t agree with all his theology, godandscience.org/apologetics/is_god_real.html is a pretty good site by a Christian scientist that explains all this rather well

 

[Belloc_Fan]

Normally the god-of-the-gaps argument is frowned upon by many, seen as a flawed argument that inevitably pits science against religion, faith against reason. People who affirm this are content in saying that no matter if science explains every natural process by appealing to nature, than that this wouldn’t make God superfluous as we would still need to trace all things back to God as their first cause.

Now, how is this so? If all things in nature can be accounted for by natural explanations, then isn’t God made superfluous? For example, evolution can give a completely natural explanation of the “design” we seen in living organism, and it stands in no need of invoking God as an explanation.

Where does God enters the picture in such a scenario? Wouldn’t it be necessary to admit that some natural things cannot be accounted for by natural explanations? And if so, wouldn’t this be essentially the very same god-of-the-gaps?

That’s like saying that we shouldn’t arrest people for shooting deaths, since their involvement is superfluous. After all, we can explain the murders by physics - a bullet entered the victims’ body, as a result of a chemical process combusting inside a gun.

But that’s silly, of course. Even if we can explain the science of what happened chemically that caused the gun to fire a bullet, that doesn’t actually tell us why those circumstances exist. Put simply, the gun didn’t fire itself.

The First Cause argument, which is something of a ground-floor for Theism, explains that at a bare minimum, a Creator is necessary in order for things like physical laws and rational ordering to exist. All science has to presuppose physical laws and rational ordering, or else falsiability is meaningless (since something proven false once could become true later). Thomas Aquinas does a good job explaining it in the Summa, and folks like Edward Feser and William Lane Craig do a good job with this argument as well.

 

[Wowbagger]

Yeah, if science manages to explain the first cause of being and the existence of rational order using only nature, God would be philosophically superfluous, and thereafter his existence and nature would be a strictly question of history and testimony.

As pointed out above, though, it is fundamentally impossible for the natural sciences to do either. So God is philosophically in good shape, and always will be.

 

[Jim_Dandy]

Your premise is flawed. Everything is not explained by appealing to nature.

aquinasonline.com/Topics/5ways.html

 

[Asimis]

Your premise is flawed. Everything is not explained by appealing to nature.

aquinasonline.com/Topics/5ways.html

The premise of the thread is grounded in the objection presented by St. Thomas** in the Summa**:

*Objection 2. Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that **everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. *For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God’s existence.

 

[Asimis]

That’s like saying that we shouldn’t arrest people for shooting deaths, since their involvement is superfluous. After all, we can explain the murders by physics - a bullet entered the victims’ body, as a result of a chemical process combusting inside a gun.

But what if the scene of the crime is set up to look like a suicide? In such a case you could account for everything within it and no external agent (the actual killer) would need to be invoked. This is very much what OP is saying, if we can explain all natural things by appealing to nature, then wouldn’t the universe look just like this crime scene? With no need to invoke God to account for the things within it? Wouldn’t it make God superfluous?

Thomas Aquinas does a good job explaining it in the Summa…

But wasn’t Kant responsible for making the proofs Aquinas gives lose their validity? What is the usual answer to his critique and claims about a priori knowledge?