Is every version of God a God-of-the-gaps?

[Saint Frankenstein]

Can we use your beliefs and understanding about God as an example? Is your god a god of the gaps? why or why not.

I don't look for God in absences of knowledge. To Christians, all of nature's processes are of God since all of existence is grounded in Him.

What about you? You're marked as a theist, so what does your concept of deity say?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

So, is there anything God does, has done, or can do, that is truly divine (ie. inherently unexplainable by science today and forever), or are all suspected such interventions just of the God-of-the-gaps type - a simple explanation and an easy way out to explain stuff we do not yet understand?

And if God cannot affect the physical world, what reason is there to believe that it is real?

On the one hand, if every god-concept is a God-of-the-gaps, that would sort of destroy the meaningfulness of this phrase. And, as it happens, I don't think that all gods are posited in such a fashion. On the other hand, you've stumbled onto a very good point here- if there are no events or changes in the world which can uniquely be accounted for by (some) god, there is no non-anecdotal, non-subjective, corroborative basis for claiming that (any) god is real. And since there are no such events that we are aware of, there is no warrant for any other conclusion than no gods exist. Since the sine qua non of theistic deities is causal agency in the world (at the very least in creating the world), this necessarily entails worldly evidence of some (causal) divine intervention- which also means that the absence of evidence of any such events is necessarily evidence of absence.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I personally doubt that there will ever be a day where it is proven that God does not exist, And that everything in the universe will be explained.

Well, the first part of that is done- see above. Also, analysis of the theistic concept of God shows it to be incoherent no less than, e.g. "the round square", "north of the north pole", and it could not exist, even in principle.

There is a difference between theories and facts my friend, And one can hypothesize the why's, But that does not give it more or less value than belief in a God

Of course it does, since as an explanation, "God exists" or "God did X" is entirely vacuous. If explanations are propositional AND if explanations are answers to questions AND if mysteries beg questions rather than answer them AND if X is the ultimate mystery (i.e. theos), then "God did X" neither explains nor justifies why things happen, and is ethically and metaphysically vacuous.

 

[Iti oj]

I don't look for God in absences of knowledge. To Christians, all of nature's processes are of God since all of existence is grounded in Him.

What about you? You're marked as a theist, so what does your concept of deity say?

natural pantheism aka sexed up atheism. Though the reason i was listed as so was in response to one of chinus threads. I tried. Then I kept trying to explore Ganesh Further still trying to explore pantheism for a more theistic stance. .I've been meaning to change that. IS god hese thing or do these natural things require god? Do you think God is the

 

[Iti oj]

Greath thread with some great responses from all who are posting here. Frubals all around

 

[Iti oj]

I think to account for things that are currently referred to as 'paranormal', science of the future will expand to include things we commonly refer to as 'paranormal' now; like soul bodies, super-physical planes of existence, etc.. At that point science will merge with what eastern spiritual masters have been saying all along.

It's all science but the paranormal and spiritual masters have shown me our current science has only gone an inch deep and our universe is a foot deep.

Marking for comments to come.

 

[idav]

I don't look for God in absences of knowledge. To Christians, all of nature's processes are of God since all of existence is grounded in Him.

What about you? You're marked as a theist, so what does your concept of deity say?

The only way god isnt some sort of gaps is to know god exists to the point that faith isn't necessary. As long as theists require faith then they require gaps of knowledge in order to believe.

 

[George-ananda]

there is no non-anecdotal, non-subjective, corroborative basis for claiming that (any) god is real.

I have heard enough hard to explain away anecdotal evidence though.

Because hard science can't do anything with anecdotal evidence doesn't mean I shouldn't rationally analyse and consider the evidence in forming my view of the universe.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

natural pantheism aka sexed up atheism. Though the reason i was listed as so was in response to one of chinus threads. I tried. Then I kept trying to explore Ganesh Further still trying to explore pantheism for a more theistic stance. .I've been meaning to change that. IS god hese thing or do these natural things require god? Do you think God is the

Ah. Okay.

I think my concept of what sort of monotheistic deity God is panentheism. Basically, without God, there would be nothing and God indwells in all things. "In Him we move and live and have our being". It is God as Animator of creation.

I think this article explains it well: http://orthodoxwiki.org/Panentheism

 

[Parsimony]

This is a difficult question to answer. Any given mystery might theoretically be solved in the future by science. Perhaps even the hard problem of consciousness can some day be addressed. We just do not know now.

 

[ruffen]

I don't look for God in absences of knowledge. To Christians, all of nature's processes are of God since all of existence is grounded in Him.

What about you? You're marked as a theist, so what does your concept of deity say?

(i've made the intereseting bit bold)

You say that all existence is grounded in God. So if science one day can explain the origin of all existence, won't your belief then be yet another a god-of-the-gaps concept?

Or to put it another way, because we today don't have a good scientific understanding of the concept of existence, you fill that lack of understanding with a God?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

(i've made the intereseting bit bold)

You say that all existence is grounded in God. So if science one day can explain the origin of all existence, won't your belief then be yet another a god-of-the-gaps concept?

Or to put it another way, because we today don't have a good scientific understanding of the concept of existence, you fill that lack of understanding with a God?

How about we deal with that possibility when or if it happens?

 

[ruffen]

How about we deal with that possibility when or if it happens?

I'm sure people 1,000 years ago said the same thing about rainbows and disease as you say about creation of existence.

I might be arrogant, but I assert that you do not know with certainty how all of existence is grounded or what existence really is or where it comes from.

Therefore you must have faith that it is God that is responsible. Yet another gap filled by a deity.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'm sure people 1,000 years ago said the same thing about rainbows and disease as you say about creation of existence.

I might be arrogant, but I assert that you do not know with certainty how all of existence is grounded or what existence really is or where it comes from.

Therefore you must have faith that it is God that is responsible. Yet another gap filled by a deity.

Well, if you're going to go that far with it, then it could equally be said that you're filling the "gaps" with atheism. What it really comes down to is people with different worldviews (you - philosophical materialism; me - a theistic worldview) interpreting their levels of knowledge and observance through a certain lens. Everyone does it.

 

[ruffen]

My point is that if every God is a God-of-the-gaps just as the ancient belief that God or gods were responsible for all kinds of stuff that we now know is caused by microorganisms, plate tectonics, physics etc., then we can with quite a degree of confidence say that Gods are human constructs to fill voids in our understanding of nature.

Then all Gods become clear as human psychology at work - the urge to explain things simple even though the explanation is based on belief and hope instead of evidence and facts. It also forms a clear pattern from the past, and shows that all gods diminish as our gaps of scientific ignorance decrease.

So we construct Gods as a makeshift explanation (more or less a placeholder) for stuff we don't understand. It's been done for millennia, and is there any reason to truly believe that beliefs of today finally got it right this time and that the gaps filled by today's gods are really God's work and will never be closed or shrunk by science of the future?

 

[outhouse]

My point is that if every God is a God-of-the-gaps just as the ancient belief that God or gods were responsible for all kinds of stuff that we now know is caused by microorganisms, plate tectonics, physics etc., then we can with quite a degree of confidence say that Gods are human constructs to fill voids in our understanding of nature.

Then all Gods become clear as human psychology at work - the urge to explain things simple even though the explanation is based on belief and hope instead of evidence and facts. It also forms a clear pattern from the past, and shows that all gods diminish as our gaps of scientific ignorance decrease.

So we construct Gods as a makeshift explanation (more or less a placeholder) for stuff we don't understand. It's been done for millennia, and is there any reason to truly believe that beliefs of today finally got it right this time and that the gaps filled by today's gods are really God's work and will never be closed or shrunk by science of the future?

While I agree. Its only rational and reasonable to come to the conclusion man has made and defined all deities to date.


I also find that you will find wish and want attributed to all deities.


Take Yahweh, a warrier deity who was to set the people free. I hope they are not holding their breath

 

[BSM1]

Solar system accretion, anyone?

For lack of a better word--huh?

 

[ruffen]

For lack of a better word--huh?

The post that I responded to said:

They can explain the physical earth and even it's birth. But metaphysically they will never say why there was a birth to begin with (nor should they). Science will never tell us why we are here.

I misread it and thought you meant that science couldn't explain the birth of the physical Earth, as that is covered by accretion theory. And that IS part of how science can tell us why we are here.


But you speak of metaphysics. May I ask exactly what you mean by the word "metaphysically"?

 

[ruffen]

I love David Hume's statement about metaphysics:

"If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

 

[fantome profane]

They can explain the physical earth and even it's birth. But metaphysically they will never say why there was a birth to begin with (nor should they). Science will never tell us why we are here.

Quite right. And even if someone does not use the God of the Gaps to fill in the holes in their physics, they may still use the God of the Gaps to fill in holes in their metaphysics. But is that not still a God of the Gaps?