God & the Gaps

A Response to Data-Free Models for Origins

As I stepped to the podium before roughly 300 members and guests of an Atheists United club, two crucial questions flashed through my mind. The answers would determine whether saying "yes" to appear at this event had been a foolish act—or not. So I ventured to begin by voicing them. I figured, why waste my time or theirs?

My first question was this: "Would you be willing to believe in God's existence if you saw firmly established evidence for it coming from the leading scientists of our day, regardless of their own personal beliefs? Please raise your hand if you would."

About a third of the hands went up, some right away, and some a little more slowly, but up they went. At that moment, I saw a reason to stay and speak.

My second question was this: "How many of you would be unwilling to believe in God until and unless all imaginable alternative explanations for the universe and life were eliminated? Please raise your hands."

This time, a slightly larger number of hands floated upward. I let these people know they were free to leave, since nothing I—or anyone else—could present would be of use to them. Whether consciously or not, I told them, they were seeking something beyond sufficient validation. They were demanding absolute proof, which simply cannot be established, even for their own existence!

Despite some grumbling and murmuring and a few catcalls, I went on to present a summary of the accumulating evidence for the existence and involvement of God, the personal, transcendent, biblical Creator, in the origin and development of the universe and life. The questions and discussion that followed lasted late into the night, and I was grateful for the brave friends who accompanied me to the event to pray and participate in conversations.

Mounting Evidence

In the few decades since that event, the evidence supporting belief in the God of the Bible has become many times more extensive and compelling—so much so that committed skeptics are forced, as we would anticipate, to appeal increasingly to "non-empirical" arguments in defense of their stance. In other words, they appeal to the tiniest gaps in the current mountain of data or to options no scientific tools could possibly verify to sustain their persistent faith in a cosmos and life without need of a Creator.

Nonbelievers who are open to seeing, hearing, and considering the evidence can be reached through what we do know and can know. I've found that providing this information, prayerfully and patiently, often opens the door to discussion of the deeper, more emotion-laden reasons for their resistance to belief in God. A brilliant professor once shared with me privately, after a scornful public reaction to my presentation of evidence, that he had stopped believing in God as a young child when his earnest pleadings for his parents to stay together went unanswered. With this confession out in the open, we could begin to have a real conversation about the real issues of life.

We should not be surprised that some nonbelievers insist on taking the God debate into the realm of the unknown and the unknowable. As long as they remain in that realm, they are immune to whatever evidence and arguments we may present for the existence of our Creator and Savior. And they enjoy tying unwary believers in theoretical knots.

Beware the Absolute Proof Trap

By resting their case for nonbelief on Christians' inability to refute every imaginable non-empirical (non-evidence-based) hypothesis for our universe and life, some nontheists present us with an impossible challenge. What they demand would require complete knowledge not only of the physical universe but also of everything that could conceivably exist beyond the universe. The problem here is obvious. Given that our powers of investigation are constrained by the space-time dimensions of the cosmos, no human mind nor any device created by human minds can ever assemble a complete database cataloging all the properties of the universe, let alone what lies beyond. Our inability to ever gain absolute proof, however, does not mean that we cannot access adequate practical validation of the need for a Creator.

Consider the case of life's origin, for example. Given the current state of knowledge about living cells and the remarkable technological tools now available, scientists should have no trouble assembling a simple cell in the laboratory from chemical building blocks—that is, if a cell ever managed to self-assemble amid the stark conditions of early earth. However, even with vast material and intellectual resources at their disposal, these researchers' attempts to assemble a cell have been stymied. What's more, even if and when they do produce a simple living entity, their triumph will merely illustrate the necessity of a purposeful, resourceful, -intelligent, and knowledgeable Causal Agent to explain life's origin.

Nevertheless, nontheists persist in affirming that some hypothetical unguided, naturally occurring convergence of molecules and processes in the realm of the unknown, perhaps of the unknowable, actually brought life into existence from nonlife—then favored it, preserved it, developed it, and expanded upon it by sheer coincidence.

To circumvent such an absurdity while retaining the no-Creator-needed stance, some twenty-first-century scientists have turned to the notion of a multiverse as the potential explanation for the emergence of life as we know it—and not only to explain life, but also to account for the countless instances of exquisite fine-tuning that have been observed on every size scale, from the universe as a whole down to the smallest perceptible level. Hypothetically, if enough universes exist where each universe and its physical laws is different from all the others, one of them might have beaten the seemingly insurmountable odds against abiogenesis and this vast body of evidence for fine-tuning.

But no matter how appealing and imaginative it sounds, the multiverse scenario offers no escape. Why? The existence of other space-time realms beyond our own cannot be established or accessed, according to the laws of physics, by anyone inside our own space-time envelope. In other words, no one can possibly probe those other hypothetical realms even if they do exist.

Furthermore, a multiverse that explains away God's designs and achievements simultaneously explains away all human designs and achievements. It explains too much! How reasonable does it seem to rely on some unknown and unknowable phenomenon beyond the universe to nullify the accumulated findings of the past century? A "livable" worldview must draw from what is known and knowable to construct the most reasonable and comprehensive picture of reality possible.

Responding to the Gaps

An all-too-familiar complaint against theists, and Christians in particular, charges us with slipping God into every gap in scientific understanding. According to this accusation, whenever scientists bump into a phenomenon for which no natural explanation has yet been established, Christians seize the opportunity to claim a supernatural act. But then ongoing research yields a natural explanation, and the claim is undermined.

While on many occasions scientists' inability to comprehend something was later overcome by additional investigation and the invention of more advanced research tools, it does not necessarily follow that every gap in knowledge will eventually be filled and every failure to find a natural explanation will eventually be overcome. Such an a priori insistence assumes, but does not prove, either God's noninvolvement in nature or God's nonexistence. Philosophers often assert that absence of evidence is never evidence of absence, but "never" represents an indefensible absolute here.

A parallel and equally questionable argument may be described as the "nature-of-the-gaps" appeal. Many nontheists assert that each and every inexplicable phenomenon will certainly be understood, eventually, as resulting from still unknown but someday discoverable natural processes. At this point, "faith" in nature masquerades as science. The assertion presumes only one possible conclusion.

Gaps in human knowledge and understanding cannot be totally eliminated, given finite limitations imposed by physical reality. They can, however, grow smaller or larger. We can focus on what happens to the gaps as research continues to guide us on the pathway toward more thorough and trustworthy understanding.

From this vantage point, gaps provide a helpful opportunity to test competing explanatory models. If a model delivers an increasingly clear, comprehensive, and consistent explanation with smaller, fewer, and less problematic explanatory gaps, that's a model worth keeping and exploring further. On this basis, I see the biblical origins model as one that merits attention and further research. If a model's explanatory gaps grow larger, more numerous, and more problematic with advancing research, that model requires radical adjustment or, possibly, rejection. On this basis, I see the naturalistic origins model as a failing model.

Investigating what happens to gaps as we learn more provides a means for shifting non-empirical appeals into the arena of the empirical. It invites appeals to the unknown into the realm of the known. It encourages skeptics to make their case on what is known and knowable rather than on what is unknown and unknowable.

My deepest desire is to gently encourage nontheists to leave the world of irrational speculation and fantasy, except when it comes to literature, and to begin walking the road of reality to meet the One who created us and offers to walk with us.

—A fuller treatment of this article can be found at reasons.org/articles/responding-to-the-nonempirical-case-for-atheism-white-paper.