{"id":3365,"date":"2020-03-11T00:24:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T00:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthcounts.com\/blogtraducciones\/?p=3365"},"modified":"2020-03-11T00:24:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T00:24:27","slug":"no-christianity-does-not-teach-god-of-the-gaps-but-naturalism-does","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthcounts.com\/blogtraducciones\/2020\/03\/11\/no-christianity-does-not-teach-god-of-the-gaps-but-naturalism-does\/","title":{"rendered":"No, Christianity Does Not Teach God Of The Gaps, But Naturalism Does."},"content":{"rendered":"

Recovered from http:\/\/iapologia.com\/no-christianity-does-not-teach-god-of-the-gaps-but-naturalism-does-heres-why-iapologia\/<\/p>\n

One dark night, your neighbor steals apples from a local orchard. The next morning, the same neighbor is out and about screaming and crying that you, you stole apples from the local orchard! To add insult to injury, he is screaming and crying all this as he is munching on one of those apples from the orchard! Any rational being would say this guy is the worst sort of fellow. He ought to take responsibility, repay, repent and apologize, right? But no, he\u2019s going around projecting the blame, accusing you of a behavior that he actually did. What is this bad action called? Well, maybe reversing the blame, blame shifts, psychological projection, gaslighting, or maybe something akin to hypocrisy, right?<\/p>\n

Is It Really The \u201cGod Of The Gaps\u201d?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Well, this capitally illicit and infamous manipulative technique is also used by many atheists, naturalists and materialists to make Christians stumble mid-conversation! How do they do that? Well, they claim that Christians happily fill in gaps of knowledge with \u201cGod did it.\u201d In other words, Christians are using the \u201cGod of the Gaps\u201d fallacy! Maybe we don\u2019t know how rainbows, lightning and thunder work, so we just say \u201cGod did it.\u201d As time passes, we enter our advanced scientific era and we elucidate the mechanisms. The need for God is going away, God becomes useless, everything has a natural explanation. Ah, if you still believe in God, you are a science stopper, since \u201cgaps\u201d are just filled with \u201cGod did it!\u201d Enter the dichotomy, the war between fact in science and faith in God. But really, are Christians at war with science, or are these people actually gaslighting?<\/p>\n

The Fallacy Of The Fallacy<\/b><\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s clear up one thing: an educated Christian doesn\u2019t make such a \u201cGod of the gaps\u201d fallacy. Sure, if I would say that since I don\u2019t know how rainbows work, God directly causes all of them to appear, that would be some sort of God of the gaps fallacy. However, who says that? I don\u2019t. That\u2019s a straw-man fallacy.<\/p>\n

Rather, what I do is give evidence. If a certain phenomenon does seem to be the act of God, there should be evidence, and we should supply it. A capital example is the origin of first life on earth. I think God is the creator of life. I don\u2019t say that because I\u2019m ignorant, but because of multiple lines of evidence. For example, things that start to exist have a prior cause. Life started to exist, so it must have had a cause. Life never comes from non-life. Thus, whatever or whoever started life on earth must have itself been alive. Complex, functional, meaningful and specified information always comes from an intelligent mind. Cells burst with complex, ordered, and meaningful information. Machines come from a designer. There are thousands and thousands of various cellular machines. Plus, a book that bears evidence of supernatural inspiration (for reasons I don\u2019t have time to get into here) claims the one who inspired it was the one who actually created the first life on earth! So, here\u2019s my point: I don\u2019t think that God made life because of ignorance, but rather because of the evidence points to the Creator!<\/p>\n

The Blamer Actually Is To Blame<\/b><\/h2>\n

The real individual who is making a \u201cGod of the gaps\u201d type of argument is not the Christian, but rather the naturalist! The naturalist is a blame shifter who is actually the one who is committing the fallacy! Here\u2019s the dirty little secret: there are NO naturalistic evidential theories for the origin of life on earth. None. Nil. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Nothing.<\/p>\n

So, since there are no naturalistic theories for the origin of life, what do they say? I\u2019ve heard it over and over and over. It is this: instead of saying \u201cGod did it\u201d they punt off some type of unknown materialistic process. We don\u2019t know by what mechanism, but we know that \u201cmaterialism did it.\u201d Someday, of course, \u201cWe will someday find some materialistic process\u201d that created all of us. The answer is always some \u201cmaterialistic process\u201d or \u201cnaturalistic process.\u201d And, since obviously there is no answer yet, it is always \u201cit will eventually be explained by a yet-to-be-discovered materialistic process.\u201d This is the exact same fallacy, a fallacy from ignorance! This is a \u201cmaterialism of the gaps\u201d fallacy!<\/p>\n

But, Aren\u2019t The Gaps Getting Smaller Every Day?<\/b><\/h2>\n

And while still peacocking with the \u201cmaterialism of the gaps\u201d explanation, the next response is just as interesting: \u201cbut, the gaps of our understanding of the universe getting smaller and smaller, God will be soon out of work.\u201d What they are trying to say is that as \u201cscience\u201d progresses, we are gaining more answers how the natural world works, and thus the gaps are getting smaller. On one level, a superficial level, this is true. We do seem to know more about the universe than we ever did before.<\/p>\n

However, the oldest and most fundamental questions of all time are still there. In fact, as time goes on, those exact questions are not getting smaller, but rather larger! In addition, as we learn more about the universe, the world and life, every question answered raises a thousand new ones. These issues are big issues, really BIG issues!<\/p>\n

Thus, I was perplexed when someone once claimed this about the above \u201cgaps\u201d: \u201cthese are just small gaps that we have not yet explained, and you are just pushing your God into the gap.\u201d I had to respond with something like, \u201cMan, really, these are not small gaps. They are LARGE gaps, so large that they are the foundation of existence!\u201d And of course you now know the answer; some day we will find a yet-to-be-discovered naturalistic process to explain all this.<\/p>\n

The Mountain Of Pits<\/b><\/h2>\n

Think of a mountain with little pits and holes going up the side. As we probe some of the pits, we can trowel them over with true and simple naturalistic explanations. These are the ones that are relatively easy to understand. Some holes look like they were caused by the wind, the rain and earthquakes.<\/p>\n

But something odd comes to mind, where did the mountain come from? Where did the rocks come from? When did the substance start to exist and when and how was the mountain formed?<\/p>\n

Then there is another oddity. As we start probing other little entrances, we find they go much deeper. The deeper we go down these tunnels, we find that they are a complex labyrinth of tunnels. As we explore one, we find a thousand more tunnels. As we poke away, the complexity is getting greater, not lesser! These little holes have become bottomless pits! Some look like they were made by artificial process, like some sort of person that was there before us. In fact, as we look, it seems \u201cthat a super intellect has monkeyed with\u201d the mountain!<\/p>\n

As we start measuring and understanding these labyrinths of tunnels, as we crawl out with our data, we are slapped with a constraining order: some types of answers are off limits. True answers and explanations don\u2019t seem to be the goal, only non-taboo answers can be given. In other words, two plus two can equal anything but the answer of four. So, we are left scratching our heads. Why don\u2019t we want true explanations? You are accused of using the \u201cfour of the gaps\u201d explanation. Even though two plus two seems to add up to four, we can only pick three or five. Of course those answers don\u2019t seem to fit no matter how you swing the equations, and your answers will always be wrong. Then someone comes along and says that someday we will find a yet-to-be-found law of mathematics that will give the answer of three or five. You would, and should, be skeptical, right? Why not follow the true answer that has all the evidence?<\/p>\n

It would be like the city mayor limiting the homicide detective to only give natural explanations for the dead man on the sidewalk, even if all the evidence pointed to a homicide case! No matter the evidence produced of homicide, our corrupt mayor would shout \u201cyou are using a homicide of the gaps explanation.\u201d You would no longer be skeptical, you would be livid, right? In fact, not only would you be livid, but you\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0be livid, foul play seems afoot!<\/p>\n

Our philosophical, naturalist friends do the exact same thing. The only explanation allowed has to be natural, even if all the evidence points to a non-natural explanation! If a list of reasons are given for non-natural explanations, they wave away your evidence. \u201cThat\u2019s not evidence.\u201d \u201cI see no evidence.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s not convincing evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Religion Of Naturalism\u2019s Failure<\/b><\/h2>\n

Not only are naturalistic answers absent for the most important, critical and fundamental question in humanity, but in principle, naturalism is paralyzed. Opposed to rational and robust, naturalism is deficient and defective. It\u2019s a worldview that limits evidential, rational and true answers because those answers are not approved! For example:<\/p>\n