You may be familiar with the
phrase “The God of the gaps”; it might be used when Christians (or any deists)
use gaps in scientific knowledge as evidence for God’s existence. I can remember
a comedian mocking believers by using a childish voice to answer “God did it!”
to some ultimate questions of science.
Q: How can ordered, but dead matter & energy become alive?
A: God did it!
Q: How can something alive become self-aware?
A: God did it!
As science closes gaps between what we know and what we don’t know about the material world, will the god that lives in those gaps eventually be squeeze out of the minds of people? I should think that for every gap science closes several more gaps open up, but whatever the gaps are, is the more rational and intelligent answer to say “nothing did it”?
The Gap from Meaning:
Meaning is received, not made. Professor Joseph Ratzinger (future B16) gives a clever analogy to self-made meaning in his book Introduction to Christianity (2004 edition, pp 73). Imagine a man trying to pull himself out of a bog by his own hair. This is the absurdity of the statement, “We make our own meaning.”
The Gap from Goodness:
One might object and answer, “These are merely human opinions & concepts that evolve over time, so the ultimate source is human.” And what is the ultimate source of humans? The answer would still come back to nothing if we truly come from nothing intelligent and with no intended purpose.
A: Nothing.
Many atheists can gladly agree that the known universe began some 13.7 billion years ago and that every effect must have a cause, so if there was a big-bang there must also be a “big-banger”. They may even go so far as to agree that the big banger (whatever caused the big bang) must be something outside the known universe, but no matter how much consensus there is, it seems to stop at the gap of “intelligence”.
Q: What caused the Big
Bang?
A: God did it!
Q: How can a spontaneous “Big Bang”
give us a highly fine-tuned and intelligible universe?
A: God did
it!Q: How can ordered, but dead matter & energy become alive?
A: God did it!
Q: How can something alive become self-aware?
A: God did it!
As science closes gaps between what we know and what we don’t know about the material world, will the god that lives in those gaps eventually be squeeze out of the minds of people? I should think that for every gap science closes several more gaps open up, but whatever the gaps are, is the more rational and intelligent answer to say “nothing did it”?
Any thinking Christian will, of
course, acknowledge the many secondary causes that exist in all of reality, but
God as the first cause of all things material and
immaterial is a non-negotiable dogma. Likewise, a strict materialist or strong
atheist will recognize secondary causes, but do they not essentially defer to
“nothing” as the ultimate answer to certain gaps? So we end up with "the nothing
of the gaps".
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| Nothing to see here... Move along... |
Q: If we come from nothing for the
purpose of nothing and are going back to nothing, what is the meaning behind it
all?
A:
Nothing.
One might strongly object and answer,
“We make our own meaning!” Making our own meaning in life may be compared to
multiplying a number by zero. No matter how huge the number, multiplying by zero
always makes it zero. No matter what you achieve in life, when you decay to
nothingness it becomes “zero”. No matter how many future generations you help,
each one is “multiplied by zero” as the universe marches on
indifferently.
Meaning is received, not made. Professor Joseph Ratzinger (future B16) gives a clever analogy to self-made meaning in his book Introduction to Christianity (2004 edition, pp 73). Imagine a man trying to pull himself out of a bog by his own hair. This is the absurdity of the statement, “We make our own meaning.”
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| Little help!?! |
Q: What is the ultimate source for the
good, the beautiful and the true?
A:
Nothing.
One might object and answer, “These are merely human opinions & concepts that evolve over time, so the ultimate source is human.” And what is the ultimate source of humans? The answer would still come back to nothing if we truly come from nothing intelligent and with no intended purpose.
The Gap from Intelligence:
Q: Since the universe is highly
intelligible, where did its intelligibility come
from?A: Nothing.
Many atheists can gladly agree that the known universe began some 13.7 billion years ago and that every effect must have a cause, so if there was a big-bang there must also be a “big-banger”. They may even go so far as to agree that the big banger (whatever caused the big bang) must be something outside the known universe, but no matter how much consensus there is, it seems to stop at the gap of “intelligence”.
No matter how incredibly fine-tuned
things are, like the universe, our planet, our minds & our bodies, their
origins must be “dumb”. No matter how
much evidence of design there is it can only be by chance. The thinking of the
past was that a highly ordered and intelligible universe must clearly have an
intelligent creator. Today’s “progressive” thinking is that a highly ordered and
intelligible universe must clearly come from mindlessness…clearly. One might
call this having an irrational "faith" in chance.
If we insist on “nothing” to fill the
gaps for the most important question in life, then the effect of original sin
that dims the intellect is easy to see.
“Those who run after nothing become
nothing”
– Pope Francis
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| In the last analysis it's either all or nothing. |
