God of the Gaps

[bretsky2000]

Dr. Craig will never admit it but its obvious that his argument IS a god of the gaps argument.  Why is the debate not called "God and Meteorology".    Sean Carroll would argue that pressure and temperature cause thunder and Craig would be arguing that "God is the best explanation for Thunder"
The reason we are not having this debate is because the science on that matter is settled. The origin of the universe and cosmology are at the limits of our scientific understanding and therefore that is where the god of the gaps always resides.

[joppe]

God of the gaps means that you postulate God in order to plug up a gap in our knowledge. A deductive argument leading to the conlcusion cannot be a God of the gaps argument because it isn't trying to plug up a gap, instead it is a conclusion of premises.

This is a little offtopic but why are naturalists never accused of naturalism of the gaps? I mean the following: 'I don't know, however we WILL find a naturalistic explanation at some point'.

[The Watcher]

I've never quite understood what "God of the gaps" really means, and I'm guessing most atheists who use it reflexively as a rhetorical device don't either.  If it means inferring a supernatural cause because of evidence against naturalistic hypotheses, is this not a form of modus tollens?  For instance if the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life is not explainable in terms of necessity (the quantities are themselves unbound by any determining physical law of the universe) or chance (much too improbable), then design is the best explanation of the scientifically-discovered fine-tuning.

If we take Wikipedia's definition, where gaps in scientific knowledge are taken as proof or evidence of God's existence, then clearly neither the fine-tuning nor the Kalam argument can be classified this way.  Regarding the former, what brought about the theistic fine-tuning argument?  Was it not the scientific discovery of the remarkable fine-tuning itself?  In other words, we've always had scientific ignorance about the workings of the universe.  But the only reason the fine-tuning has emerged is due to recent information about fine-tuning, not ignorance of it.  So the FTA certainly does not fall under the fallacy of arguing from ignorance.

[Hugh Janus]

Greg Wilson, suppose we didn't know how lightning worked. Couldn't you use your same "argument" for that? If we are looking at probability, we have to ask ourselves this: Is it more probable that something unnatural would happen or that something natural would happen? We see natural things happen everyday, but rarely see (if at all) see unnatural things (like god). So the probability that god created the universe is at least 1:1 trillion. Think about that.

[Soyeong]

Is there any argument that leads to the conclusion that God exists that you wouldn't consider to be God of the Gaps? 

[Jubilee]

It's a deductive argument, but when Craig says "either God or abstract objects", he's positing God as an explanation. It is not analytic to a disembodied mind that it is the cause of the universe, so the inference is not deductive but abductive " God is the only thing that I know of that could have caused the universe, thus likely, god caused the universe".

The biggest difficulty is that without other explanatory virtues, there is no way to tell whether this is a good explanation or not. The history of science is filled with explanation in the form "x is the only explanation my linguistic paradigm has available, thus x is the best explanation".

Admittedly, its hard to conceive of alternatives, but presumably science gave up conceivability as a guide to theoretical posits a long time ago (gravity is explained by saying that space and time are curved...wahh?). I tend to agree with Carroll that " cause" is not the proper language of physics, and thus is misguided. It's like explanaining the big bang in terms of the universes essential tendency to expand (Aristotlian physics)--thats just a category mistake. Physicists and metaphysicians have different vocabularies.

[Soyeong]

I think there's a big difference between these two arguments:

1.) We don't know what caused the universe so it must have been God.

2.) Something can't be caused to exist by something that it caused to exist, so if something caused matter and energy, then it can't be caused by matter and energy, so it must transcend them.  If the universe has a cause, then there exists something in reality that transcends matter and energy and has the power to cause a universe.  At the very least, this cause corresponds to our idea of God. 

[Fred]

I've never quite understood what "God of the gaps" really means, and I'm guessing most atheists who use it reflexively as a rhetorical device don't either.  If it means inferring a supernatural cause because of evidence against naturalistic hypotheses, is this not a form of modus tollens?  For instance if the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life is not explainable in terms of necessity (the quantities are themselves unbound by any determining physical law of the universe) or chance (much too improbable), then design is the best explanation of the scientifically-discovered fine-tuning.

If we take Wikipedia's definition, where gaps in scientific knowledge are taken as proof or evidence of God's existence, then clearly neither the fine-tuning nor the Kalam argument can be classified this way.  Regarding the former, what brought about the theistic fine-tuning argument?  Was it not the scientific discovery of the remarkable fine-tuning itself?  In other words, we've always had scientific ignorance about the workings of the universe.  But the only reason the fine-tuning has emerged is due to recent information about fine-tuning, not ignorance of it.  So the FTA certainly does not fall under the fallacy of arguing from ignorance.

A "God of the Gaps" argument is an argument from ignorance.  i.e. we have no natural explanation available, therefore "it must be God." 

The "fine tuning argument" is actually a good example of an argument from ignorance/God of the Gaps.  The apparent fine tuning of the (so-called) fundamental constants in the laws of nature is an interesting scientific conundrum.  We don't REALLY know, although there certainly are scientific hypotheses about this (including String Theory, M-Theory, and various multiverse hypotheses).  Some theists assert that these speculative hypotheses are "desperate attempts" to exclude God - which seems an attempt to rhetorically argue for the existence of a scientific gap into which God can be inserted (while ignoring the fact that this is exactly the way science proceeds when encountering questions that are not answerable by then-current science). 

The KCA, as presented by Craig, is technically not a God of the Gaps argument (IMO)- and this is due to its careful construction.  The heavy lifting of his argument is not the trivial deduction that he presents, but rather, it's his conceptual framework; for example, what it means for the universe to have a so-called beginning of existence (this is an area in which he misinterprets the words of various cosmologists to support his concept of the universe's beginning; he also cherry picks the cosmologists he chooses to quote - as Carroll pointed out). A universe with a finite past does not entail an external cause, in fact it takes some conceptual gymnastics to insert an external cause (e.g. timeless causation based on logical priority - and arguing that logical priority is sufficient despite the fact that all known instances of causation depend on temporal priority). 

[The Watcher]

It's a deductive argument, but when Craig says "either God or abstract objects", he's positing God as an explanation. It is not analytic to a disembodied mind that it is the cause of the universe, so the inference is not deductive but abductive " God is the only thing that I know of that could have caused the universe, thus likely, god caused the universe".

The biggest difficulty is that without other explanatory virtues, there is no way to tell whether this is a good explanation or not. The history of science is filled with explanation in the form "x is the only explanation my linguistic paradigm has available, thus x is the best explanation".

Admittedly, its hard to conceive of alternatives, but presumably science gave up conceivability as a guide to theoretical posits a long time ago (gravity is explained by saying that space and time are curved...wahh?). I tend to agree with Carroll that " cause" is not the proper language of physics, and thus is misguided. It's like explanaining the big bang in terms of the universes essential tendency to expand (Aristotlian physics)--thats just a category mistake. Physicists and metaphysicians have different vocabularies.

Well then physics is of no use to us with regard to the important metaphysical matters and Carroll's scientism is dead.  Carroll's retreat to this position ultimately hurts him more than Craig.

[The Watcher]

I've never quite understood what "God of the gaps" really means, and I'm guessing most atheists who use it reflexively as a rhetorical device don't either.  If it means inferring a supernatural cause because of evidence against naturalistic hypotheses, is this not a form of modus tollens?  For instance if the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life is not explainable in terms of necessity (the quantities are themselves unbound by any determining physical law of the universe) or chance (much too improbable), then design is the best explanation of the scientifically-discovered fine-tuning.

If we take Wikipedia's definition, where gaps in scientific knowledge are taken as proof or evidence of God's existence, then clearly neither the fine-tuning nor the Kalam argument can be classified this way.  Regarding the former, what brought about the theistic fine-tuning argument?  Was it not the scientific discovery of the remarkable fine-tuning itself?  In other words, we've always had scientific ignorance about the workings of the universe.  But the only reason the fine-tuning has emerged is due to recent information about fine-tuning, not ignorance of it.  So the FTA certainly does not fall under the fallacy of arguing from ignorance.

A "God of the Gaps" argument is an argument from ignorance.  i.e. we have no natural explanation available, therefore "it must be God." 

The "fine tuning argument" is actually a good example of an argument from ignorance/God of the Gaps.  The apparent fine tuning of the (so-called) fundamental constants in the laws of nature is an interesting scientific conundrum.  We don't REALLY know, although there certainly are scientific hypotheses about this (including String Theory, M-Theory, and various multiverse hypotheses).  Some theists assert that these speculative hypotheses are "desperate attempts" to exclude God - which seems an attempt to rhetorically argue for the existence of a scientific gap into which God can be inserted (while ignoring the fact that this is exactly the way science proceeds when encountering questions that are not answerable by then-current science). 

The KCA, as presented by Craig, is technically not a God of the Gaps argument (IMO)- and this is due to its careful construction.  The heavy lifting of his argument is not the trivial deduction that he presents, but rather, it's his conceptual framework; for example, what it means for the universe to have a so-called beginning of existence (this is an area in which he misinterprets the words of various cosmologists to support his concept of the universe's beginning; he also cherry picks the cosmologists he chooses to quote - as Carroll pointed out). A universe with a finite past does not entail an external cause, in fact it takes some conceptual gymnastics to insert an external cause (e.g. timeless causation based on logical priority - and arguing that logical priority is sufficient despite the fact that all known instances of causation depend on temporal priority).

What is odd is that it is you who is using supposed scientific ignorance to defend a position (the possibility of naturalism), not Craig.  Theists aren't saying "we can't explain x therefore God," but rather the best explanation of x is an intelligent, timeless, transcendent, powerful, personal Being.  It certainly cannot be refuted that it may be possible that x can be explained better without referring to an intelligent, timeless, transcendent, powerful, personal Being; but then again it may be the case that further study in this matter provides even more evidence for that being than before.   

For "God of the gaps" to have any potency aside from its current status as a lazy rhetorical device, it has to do more than assume naturalism from the start and then argue that we can never infer God because one day Magic science may provide an explanation.

[joppe]

It's a deductive argument, but when Craig says "either God or abstract objects", he's positing God as an explanation.

Not really because when the cause must be immaterial, postulating a material cause would be contradictory. Surely no rational person would do that. Secondly, the atheist is welcome to give a better explanation that meet the desciption of the cause of the universe.

[Jubilee]

It's a deductive argument, but when Craig says "either God or abstract objects", he's positing God as an explanation.

Not really because when the cause must be immaterial, postulating a material cause would be contradictory. Surely no rational person would do that. Secondly, the atheist is welcome to give a better explanation that meet the desciption of the cause of the universe.

"Nonphysical" follows, in the sense of "not the stuff discussed in our current scientific paradigm", but that does not logically entail it is mental stuff.

Physics has already given up on trying to successfully describe the world in terms of things amenable to common sense. They speak of "curved space time" and other bizarre concepts. Although the KCA shows it is not something currently in the resources of physics, there is no reason to think future developments or a new paradigm wouldn't allow scientists to figure it out.

This is like the ancient physicists. They'd compare the competing "explanatory virtues" of positing the various elements as the fundamental nature of the universe: and indeed, that's all they had the conceptual tools to deal with. They had no idea about the widened conceptual tools that allow us to think about that question today. Maybe fire was the only explanation of the fundamental dynamic yet static appearing universe, as Heraclitus felt, but it was totally incorrect.

The history of science is filled with examples like this. Proponents of old paradigms make theoretical posits, without independent explanatory motivation (without empirical predictions, for example), and fail to see the real solution because they don't have the right concepts yet.

I'm suggesting that theists are making the same mistakes these ancient scientists made.

[Jubilee]

This is also why Carroll is correct that asking for a cause of the universe is the wrong languge to talk about the world. It's like asking to give a Newtonian explanation of the singularity.

"Causality" as it appears in both Aristotle and folk physics of everyday languge, has been superseded by talk about laws of nature and other types of talk just as absolute space has been superseded by einsteinian space-time.

[OneCheesyNacho]

Dr. Craig will never admit it but its obvious that his argument IS a god of the gaps argument.  Why is the debate not called "God and Meteorology".    Sean Carroll would argue that pressure and temperature cause thunder and Craig would be arguing that "God is the best explanation for Thunder"
The reason we are not having this debate is because the science on that matter is settled. The origin of the universe and cosmology are at the limits of our scientific understanding and therefore that is where the god of the gaps always resides.

God IS the best explanation for thunder.

Think about it, thunder is the ultimate result of the initial creation of the Universe. So the initial creation of the universe ultimately caused the thunder, therefore God is the best explanation for thunder (because God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe as Dr. Craig shows)

What you are confusing here is that you are assuming that if there are mechanisms of a phenomena, then God isn't the cause of that creation. This is plain wrong and I will show an analogy to explain why:

Let's say that I create a computer simulation (maybe a sims game), I am the cause of the initial creation. The initial creation of the sims game led to everything that occurred in the sims game. So let's say there is some thunder in the sims game and it was caused by the evaporation that occurs at the oceans creating a storm in the sims game. Just because there was a mechanism of the thunder (evaporation of warm water creating a storm), doesn't mean that I did not ultimately cause the thunder.

You are assuming that the natural phenomena that cause thunder prove God isn't involved. That is not true. Just like how the thunder in the Sims game being caused by evaporation of the sim's oceans doesn't prove that I didn't cause the thunder to occur ultimately.

[joppe]

"Nonphysical" follows, in the sense of "not the stuff discussed in our current scientific paradigm", but that does not logically entail it is mental stuff.

Nonphysical means that it cannot be studied by science. Science is limited to the physical realm. This subject has to do with philosophy, not science. And yes, if it can be shown that the cause of the universe is not a personal agent, then we should believe it.

Physics has already given up on trying to successfully describe the world in terms of things amenable to common sense. They speak of "curved space time" and other bizarre concepts. Although the KCA shows it is not something currently in the resources of physics, there is no reason to think future developments or a new paradigm wouldn't allow scientists to figure it out.

Yeah, but the problem with those is that you have to make new laws of physics and even change the current ones. It is actually amusing how Stephen Hawking compared some of these models to science fiction. Another problem is that they have only one criteria: the cause must be physical. To me, it seems that they aren't trying to discover the reality but to explain away things that aren't supporting naturalism.

This is like the ancient physicists. They'd compare the competing "explanatory virtues" of positing the various elements as the fundamental nature of the universe: and indeed, that's all they had the conceptual tools to deal with. They had no idea about the widened conceptual tools that allow us to think about that question today. Maybe fire was the only explanation of the fundamental dynamic yet static appearing universe, as Heraclitus felt, but it was totally incorrect.

They were wrong. Because they couldn't discover new things with good instruments, they had to explain away things they didn't understand (like some people are now doing). And they weren't even scientists, they had a certain school of thought and there were many other ways to describe our reality.

The history of science is filled with examples like this. Proponents of old paradigms make theoretical posits, without independent explanatory motivation (without empirical predictions, for example), and fail to see the real solution because they don't have the right concepts yet.

I'm suggesting that theists are making the same mistakes these ancient scientists made.

I don't see the conclusion. ALL the scientific discoveries we have found haven't been disproven. Yeah, some things like the theory of evolution have changed because we have found new evidence to lead the way.
So just because the theists are open to material AND immaterial explanations, the theists are wrong? In my opinion, the naturalist is not open to the evidence because he only allows natural explanations.