Humans have an uncanny ability to see shapes in random noise. We’ve evolved this ability over the millennia so as to avoid certain death when that random blob of different color in the nearby foliage turns out to be a predator intent on turning you into a snack. Those of us that were less able to do so, got eaten, and therefore over time we’ve gotten pretty incredible at it. I mean, in the random noise of a grilled cheese sandwich, a believer sees Jesus’ face, and in the random output of deadly x-rays in a false-color image of a pulsar, the same believer sees the hand of God.
That’s right, the hand of God apparently has three fingers, some kind of do-claw, and a compound fracture of the radius. Goes to show that you see what you want to see. I sooner see Homer Simpson reaching for a forbidden donut. Rarrgh…
For those of you that honestly, earnestly believe this nebula is a divine sign from a divine creator like some of the tear-inducing comments on this thread (never mind that if you were close enough, or waited long enough, or viewed it from another angle, it would look different), I want to remind you that space is really, really, REALLY, big. There’s a lot of stuff in it, a lot of it seems random-looking, and therefore there will be something out there that reminds you of some other thing. Like a horse’s head. Or a DNA helix. Or what God REALLY thinks of you.
Please don’t let that detract from the beauty of these scenes. Sure, they’re explicable, random, follow logical rules of physics and chemistry, and therefore not “special” in the sense of being designed, but they are undeniably beautiful. Those who ignore the natural world’s splendors, who prefer to credit a tiny and micromanaging God for a rainbow, reduce their God to a god of the gaps, where God only exists within those phenomena science has not yet explained.
Okay, that’s a tiny bit of a strawman — creationists stopped using that argument hundreds of years ago, since we figured out refraction. Every step in our march toward understanding this wholly understandable universe encroaches on the territory believers have staked out for God’s domain, so it’s no wonder they freak out and deny every scientific advancement from heliocentrism through evolution. To say that God didn’t create the animals on Earth presently, in their present form, and to say that they evolved naturally and became what we are out of pure chance and natural selection, reduces God’s domain significantly. To say that the initial spark that began the runaway chain reaction we call life, happened through the providence of chance, reduces it still further, almost to nothing. I almost feel bad for them.
Almost.
Go here for more beauty. I’ve saved probably half of this archive. And when you’re done, you can classify galaxies at Galaxy Zoo, or visit the Hubble’s archive. The universe’s untold splendors are ours to discover, if only we’d stop closing our eyes.
According to Stephen Colbert, rainbows are God’s way of frowning at gay people.
God of the gaps
I will begin this article with two postulates: 1) God has created this universe, 2) He has brought man in this universe with some purpose.
I am not claiming here that these two postulates are true, or that I can prove them to be true. But I want to show here that if these two postulates are true, then God will always be the God of the gaps. Anyone who will be reading this article should not forget that there is an “if” clause in the last sentence.
Now I will begin with the supposition that God has created this universe. If God has created this universe, then He could have created it in four different ways: 1) He created it in such a way that there was no necessity for Him to intervene in it after creation, 2) After creation He intervened in it, but these interventions were a bare minimum, that is, He intervened only when these were absolutely necessary. In order to clarify my point here, I will say that He intervened only when He found that without His intervention the universe would come to a standstill, 3) He created the universe in such a way that in order to keep it going He had to make very frequent interventions in it, 4) God’s total intervention after creation.
If it was the purpose of God to keep mankind crippled in every possible way, then He would have adopted either the third or the fourth way while creating the universe. This is because in these two cases man, in spite of his having sufficient intelligence and reasoning power, will fail to unveil the secrets of nature, because in almost every phenomenon of nature that he will decide to study he will ultimately find that there always remains an unknown factor, for which he will have no explanation. For him the book of nature will thus remain closed forever. But if it were God’s purpose that man be master of His creation, then it is quite natural for Him that He would try to keep the book of nature as much open to him as possible, so that with the little intelligence he has been endowed with man will be able to decipher the language of nature, and with that acquired knowledge he will also be able to improve the material conditions of his life. In that case God will try to adopt the policy of maximum withdrawal from His creation. He will create the universe in such a way that without His intervention the created world will be able to unfold itself. However that does not mean that He will never intervene. He will definitely intervene when without His intervention the created world would become stagnant. In such a scenario man will be able to give an explanation of almost all physical events in scientific language. But in those cases where God has actually intervened, he will fail to do so.
So I think there is no reason for us to be ashamed of the “God of the gaps” hypothesis. Yes, if God has created the universe, and if God’s purpose was that man be master of His creation, then He would try to keep as little gap in His creation as possible. But the minimum gap that would be ultimately left can never be bridged by any sort of scientific explanation. God will also reside in that gap. Why should we be ashamed of that?
The whole matter can be seen from another angle. Those who strongly believe that God has created this universe also believe that He has created it alone. Now is it believable that a God, who is capable of creating such a vast universe alone, is not capable enough to keep a proof of His existence in the created world? So I think it is more reasonable to believe that while creating the universe God has also kept a proof of His existence in something created. This proof is open to us all, but we have not found it, because we have not searched for it. So even if it is the case that God has never intervened in the created world after its creation, still then there will be a gap in this natural world, purposefully left by God, for which science will find no explanation. This will be the ultimate gap that can only be filled up by invoking God.
Therefore, I can conclude this article in this way: If God created this universe, and if God wanted man to be the master of His creation, then God would willingly choose to be “God of the gaps”.
A theistic God will always prefer to be the God of the gaps.
Hello new blog fodder!
Brief synopsis of the above comment by U.C.: If there is a God we should expect that everything we see should be exactly as we would expect if no such God existed, save for perhaps one ultimate proof in nature that we can in perpetuity claim we just have not found yet.
This way, science never contradicts theology until it has exhausted things to study.
Awesome!