That science is increasing the number of questions should cause us to be cautious about extrapolating future performance from past performance. Kelvin’s famous speech in 1900 showed how simple things seemed, reflecting the progress made to that point. But then things became complex again, and more complex over time. Anyone who has ever contemplated extrapolating a curve fit when the data is increasingly scattered, knows better.
As a scientist, I fully resonate with this. Everybody who does scientific research knows that at the end we always get more questions than answers. I think that's the beauty and fun of it. I do believe in genuine supernatural miracles, it requires rigorous discernment in that.
Agreed on all points. I love the mystery of science. Personally, I would find it a bit depressing if it looked like there was an endpoint to what we could discover through science, like an end to a video game.
I think you can make the argument that Christianity was necessary for modern science, but not that it was sufficient. (At least not as it actually happened.) We needed the advances in mathematics that came from India through the Arabs.
This is very good. I like the way you lay out the essential limits of scientific explanations, and show how the progress of science has raised more questions than it has answered. But I'm afraid that on the layperson level most people still imagine that they inhabit a fairly simple Newtonian world, and that in some way the idea of God is in conflict with the scientific world view.
Yes, most people probably have no idea how wild the world is in modern scientific terms. But the idea of God works as well in the Newtonian world as it does in the modern world. The only way you could make an argument that the Newtonian clockwork world doesn't need God is if you assume it's eternal and uncreated.
"Science of the gaps" is an interesting way of thinking of things. But God and scientific explanations are not mutually exclusive as atheists presume. A scientific explanation just describes the coherently ordered way in which God makes his creation work. Of course as well as acting through secondary causes, God can also act directly. This distinction was understood 400 years ago. See the section on providence in the Westminster Confession, for example.
I notice that science never reaches a bottom explanation.
Why do things fall? Gravity. "Gravity" how? Mass/energy bend space-time. "Bend space-time" how? The Higgs boson. How does "Higgs boson" apply force? Don't know yet...
Even if we get a few levels deeper, the question of, "Okay, but how does that work?" never reaches a scientific grounding. Either:
1. There is an infunite regress of answers to "Okay, but how does that work?" (a mathematically dubious idea that contradicts the Peano axiom of induction and the ZFC axiom of foundation).
2. There is a ground truth that "just is" (the classic, "Because I say so; stop asking questions.").
3. A mathematical Mind preceeded the material universe, and that Mind chooses the ground truth.
A Creator Mind is the most intellectually robust hypothesis. It's not a "god of the gaps," it is God as the basis from which everything derives. Its a grounding argument, not a gap-filling argument, and if a Creator Mind exists, that's exactly what we should expect to see--a descent of priors that originates from a mathematical basis, not a "just so" brute fact basis.
Brute facts are always irrational, while a Creator Mind whose very nature is existence is self-rationalizing. Once again, God is a more intellectually robust and better explanation for the laws of the universe, in addition to it's origin.
Another helpful article from Dr. Salviander at the confluence of science and Christianity. This one is fun to read and spot on!
Every major scientific breakthrough opens the door to a new frontier of potential knowledge. I agree with Dr. Salviander that this is by design. Whether we "look large" through the James Webb, or "look small" through an electron microscope—God is there playing "peek-a-boo" with us. He always will be.
I chuckle every time I dwell on the reality of quantum-entanglement. Spooky action at a distance indeed. It's as though Someone really is holding the whole dance together by His Word and power (Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:3).
It's important to realize that there are some frontiers that science can't explore. I so admire the attitude of Sir. Isaac Newton at the end of his life. At the height of his brilliance, Newton saw himself as but a child on the sea-shore noticing smoother stones and prettier shells while the whole ocean of truth lay undiscovered before him.
That's the attitude of a good scientist...philosopher...theologian...
Very nice article! Christians, particularly more modern strains of Christianity, occasionally do reach for the "God of the gaps" type of argument. We've seen arguments that "proved" evolution wrong by gaps in the fossil record or "proved" intelligent design by the complexity of the hemoglobin protein or the human eye. Young earth creationism also very much relies on a the "God of the gaps" argument. These kinds of arguments provide straw men for the atheists to justify brushing aside Christianity and religion as a whole.
I am fond of some fine-tuning arguments, though with those we have to be careful of leaving ourselves vulnerable to the same argument.
Faith and science simply cannot be in conflict. Science is simply incapable, by definition of what it is, of saying anything about the existence or non-existence of a Creator God. All of science is essentially a black box problem. The black box is the universe, and science is inside of it. It cannot see out. All science can do is measure, model, and predict what is happening inside of creation. Even if God is taking an active role in creation - poking inside the box to make things happen according to His will - science will just see that as part of nature that needs to be explained. And any good modeler will be able to come up with a model that includes that behavior.
Science doesn't "explain" anything. It comes up with a model, usually mathematical, that predicts what will happen in a given situation. Sometimes we try to bracket science and philosophy together, which can be fruitful, but science can be joined with a faith-based philosophy just as easily (and probably easier than) atheism.
I like to say that he is the God if the gaps between the gaps as well as God of the gaps. To posit God as a scientific explanation is surely a category error.
Yes, but science cannot explain as much as philosophy/mathematics can explain. Science is weak where math is strong. A Creator is a much better mathematical/philosophical explanation for the origin universe--something material science literally cannot explain because there is no material to construct a scientific hypothesis from. There is truth beyond the reach of human science that is still within the reach of the human intellect.
The truth that really matters - the life-changing truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ - is not attainable by any intellectual enterprise, be it scientific, philosophical or any other. It cones by revelation, by the goodwill of our Creator God, who says to us "come, whoever will".
I really enjoyed this, Sarah. I'd never thought about the reverse to God of the gaps - the "atheism of the gaps," as you called it. I've always argued that it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in God - I mean, just look at the spinning, floating ball we're on while we type to one another - but it didn't occur to me that the scientific atheist must have faith to fill in the gaps in scientific understanding. This is, as you pointed out, just the reverse of what believers do. Except believing in God is more consistent there. Thank you for making me think!
Even if we assume there is a finite number of explanations, how many are there? 10 more, a million more?
Why should we actually stop looking for explanations? Questions lead to answers, which lead to better questions, which lead to even better answers.
Answers that do not lead to better questions just kick the can down the road without improving it.
For example, from a counterfactual perspective, why is it not natural to ask: why is God’s nature the way it is (A) instead of some other nature (B, C, etc.)
There can be no explanation because that would be a more fundamental theory than God, which conflicts with theological commitments.
As for Christianity’s necessity for science to arise….
> Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.
Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
When I was student , and learnt the basic concept of quantum , to me it prove the existence of God , the theories unpredictability. Physics to me is strictly is predictable following laws that explain things : therefore everything is predetermined. Quantum mechanics shatters this by showing the future is not completely set. To me it shows that God could influence the outcome of quantum probabilities to guide the universe without violating any physical laws. God works within universal laws , quantum physics show he created miracles without breaking universal laws . I am not a scientist , some concepts in science I find hard to understand , but I did basic quantum physics show, even though I found it hard to understand , it make me reflect on Gods mysteries . Years later I still have this concept at the back of my mind
The quantum mysteries are not evidence that science has hit a wall. They are evidence that the formalism has a hole where the geometry should be.
Every quantum "magick" is what a measurement event looks like when the geometric structure that produces the measurement has been removed from the formalism. Superposition: a state before the contact boundary has forced commitment. Collapse: what the boundary event looks like from outside. Entanglement: correlated boundary conditions with the boundary geometry absent. Wave-particle duality: before-contact and at-contact described by a formalism that cannot distinguish the two. The measurement problem: measurement IS a contact event, and the contact form is absent from the standard formalism.
The 8-15 interpretations are not competing explanations of a deep mystery. They are competing workarounds for the same missing piece. Copenhagen: ignore the hole, just calculate. Many-worlds: fill the hole with everything-happens. Bohm: fill the hole with hidden variables. Each is a boundary workaround. Each fills the same gap with different material. None fills it with the geometry that belongs there.
Science does not raise more questions than it answers. Science with missing geometry raises questions that geometry answers. The questions are not evidence for God. The questions are evidence for a specific missing formal structure. The structure is known. It is the contact form on the thermodynamic state space. It generates measurement, probability, and the Born rule without postulation. The gap is formal, not metaphysical. God is not needed to fill a formal gap. Geometry fills it.
Great article!
That science is increasing the number of questions should cause us to be cautious about extrapolating future performance from past performance. Kelvin’s famous speech in 1900 showed how simple things seemed, reflecting the progress made to that point. But then things became complex again, and more complex over time. Anyone who has ever contemplated extrapolating a curve fit when the data is increasingly scattered, knows better.
As a scientist, I fully resonate with this. Everybody who does scientific research knows that at the end we always get more questions than answers. I think that's the beauty and fun of it. I do believe in genuine supernatural miracles, it requires rigorous discernment in that.
Agreed on all points. I love the mystery of science. Personally, I would find it a bit depressing if it looked like there was an endpoint to what we could discover through science, like an end to a video game.
I think you can make the argument that Christianity was necessary for modern science, but not that it was sufficient. (At least not as it actually happened.) We needed the advances in mathematics that came from India through the Arabs.
Yes, that's right: Christianity was necessary but not sufficient.
This is very good. I like the way you lay out the essential limits of scientific explanations, and show how the progress of science has raised more questions than it has answered. But I'm afraid that on the layperson level most people still imagine that they inhabit a fairly simple Newtonian world, and that in some way the idea of God is in conflict with the scientific world view.
Yes, most people probably have no idea how wild the world is in modern scientific terms. But the idea of God works as well in the Newtonian world as it does in the modern world. The only way you could make an argument that the Newtonian clockwork world doesn't need God is if you assume it's eternal and uncreated.
"Science of the gaps" is an interesting way of thinking of things. But God and scientific explanations are not mutually exclusive as atheists presume. A scientific explanation just describes the coherently ordered way in which God makes his creation work. Of course as well as acting through secondary causes, God can also act directly. This distinction was understood 400 years ago. See the section on providence in the Westminster Confession, for example.
I like Blaise Pascal's explanation of how one should logically respond to the Wager of life:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
I notice that science never reaches a bottom explanation.
Why do things fall? Gravity. "Gravity" how? Mass/energy bend space-time. "Bend space-time" how? The Higgs boson. How does "Higgs boson" apply force? Don't know yet...
Even if we get a few levels deeper, the question of, "Okay, but how does that work?" never reaches a scientific grounding. Either:
1. There is an infunite regress of answers to "Okay, but how does that work?" (a mathematically dubious idea that contradicts the Peano axiom of induction and the ZFC axiom of foundation).
2. There is a ground truth that "just is" (the classic, "Because I say so; stop asking questions.").
3. A mathematical Mind preceeded the material universe, and that Mind chooses the ground truth.
A Creator Mind is the most intellectually robust hypothesis. It's not a "god of the gaps," it is God as the basis from which everything derives. Its a grounding argument, not a gap-filling argument, and if a Creator Mind exists, that's exactly what we should expect to see--a descent of priors that originates from a mathematical basis, not a "just so" brute fact basis.
Brute facts are always irrational, while a Creator Mind whose very nature is existence is self-rationalizing. Once again, God is a more intellectually robust and better explanation for the laws of the universe, in addition to it's origin.
Another helpful article from Dr. Salviander at the confluence of science and Christianity. This one is fun to read and spot on!
Every major scientific breakthrough opens the door to a new frontier of potential knowledge. I agree with Dr. Salviander that this is by design. Whether we "look large" through the James Webb, or "look small" through an electron microscope—God is there playing "peek-a-boo" with us. He always will be.
I chuckle every time I dwell on the reality of quantum-entanglement. Spooky action at a distance indeed. It's as though Someone really is holding the whole dance together by His Word and power (Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:3).
It's important to realize that there are some frontiers that science can't explore. I so admire the attitude of Sir. Isaac Newton at the end of his life. At the height of his brilliance, Newton saw himself as but a child on the sea-shore noticing smoother stones and prettier shells while the whole ocean of truth lay undiscovered before him.
That's the attitude of a good scientist...philosopher...theologian...
...human.
God moves the planets. Curved space is how He moves them. And so on. Figuring out God's methods doesn't remove God.
Have you been following Schantz' discussion of quantum mechanics?
No, but I need to. So many things to read, so little time...
Very nice article! Christians, particularly more modern strains of Christianity, occasionally do reach for the "God of the gaps" type of argument. We've seen arguments that "proved" evolution wrong by gaps in the fossil record or "proved" intelligent design by the complexity of the hemoglobin protein or the human eye. Young earth creationism also very much relies on a the "God of the gaps" argument. These kinds of arguments provide straw men for the atheists to justify brushing aside Christianity and religion as a whole.
I am fond of some fine-tuning arguments, though with those we have to be careful of leaving ourselves vulnerable to the same argument.
Faith and science simply cannot be in conflict. Science is simply incapable, by definition of what it is, of saying anything about the existence or non-existence of a Creator God. All of science is essentially a black box problem. The black box is the universe, and science is inside of it. It cannot see out. All science can do is measure, model, and predict what is happening inside of creation. Even if God is taking an active role in creation - poking inside the box to make things happen according to His will - science will just see that as part of nature that needs to be explained. And any good modeler will be able to come up with a model that includes that behavior.
Science doesn't "explain" anything. It comes up with a model, usually mathematical, that predicts what will happen in a given situation. Sometimes we try to bracket science and philosophy together, which can be fruitful, but science can be joined with a faith-based philosophy just as easily (and probably easier than) atheism.
I like to say that he is the God if the gaps between the gaps as well as God of the gaps. To posit God as a scientific explanation is surely a category error.
Yes, but science cannot explain as much as philosophy/mathematics can explain. Science is weak where math is strong. A Creator is a much better mathematical/philosophical explanation for the origin universe--something material science literally cannot explain because there is no material to construct a scientific hypothesis from. There is truth beyond the reach of human science that is still within the reach of the human intellect.
The truth that really matters - the life-changing truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ - is not attainable by any intellectual enterprise, be it scientific, philosophical or any other. It cones by revelation, by the goodwill of our Creator God, who says to us "come, whoever will".
it should…
I really enjoyed this, Sarah. I'd never thought about the reverse to God of the gaps - the "atheism of the gaps," as you called it. I've always argued that it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in God - I mean, just look at the spinning, floating ball we're on while we type to one another - but it didn't occur to me that the scientific atheist must have faith to fill in the gaps in scientific understanding. This is, as you pointed out, just the reverse of what believers do. Except believing in God is more consistent there. Thank you for making me think!
Even if we assume there is a finite number of explanations, how many are there? 10 more, a million more?
Why should we actually stop looking for explanations? Questions lead to answers, which lead to better questions, which lead to even better answers.
Answers that do not lead to better questions just kick the can down the road without improving it.
For example, from a counterfactual perspective, why is it not natural to ask: why is God’s nature the way it is (A) instead of some other nature (B, C, etc.)
There can be no explanation because that would be a more fundamental theory than God, which conflicts with theological commitments.
As for Christianity’s necessity for science to arise….
> Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.
Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
When I was student , and learnt the basic concept of quantum , to me it prove the existence of God , the theories unpredictability. Physics to me is strictly is predictable following laws that explain things : therefore everything is predetermined. Quantum mechanics shatters this by showing the future is not completely set. To me it shows that God could influence the outcome of quantum probabilities to guide the universe without violating any physical laws. God works within universal laws , quantum physics show he created miracles without breaking universal laws . I am not a scientist , some concepts in science I find hard to understand , but I did basic quantum physics show, even though I found it hard to understand , it make me reflect on Gods mysteries . Years later I still have this concept at the back of my mind
The quantum mysteries are not evidence that science has hit a wall. They are evidence that the formalism has a hole where the geometry should be.
Every quantum "magick" is what a measurement event looks like when the geometric structure that produces the measurement has been removed from the formalism. Superposition: a state before the contact boundary has forced commitment. Collapse: what the boundary event looks like from outside. Entanglement: correlated boundary conditions with the boundary geometry absent. Wave-particle duality: before-contact and at-contact described by a formalism that cannot distinguish the two. The measurement problem: measurement IS a contact event, and the contact form is absent from the standard formalism.
The 8-15 interpretations are not competing explanations of a deep mystery. They are competing workarounds for the same missing piece. Copenhagen: ignore the hole, just calculate. Many-worlds: fill the hole with everything-happens. Bohm: fill the hole with hidden variables. Each is a boundary workaround. Each fills the same gap with different material. None fills it with the geometry that belongs there.
Science does not raise more questions than it answers. Science with missing geometry raises questions that geometry answers. The questions are not evidence for God. The questions are evidence for a specific missing formal structure. The structure is known. It is the contact form on the thermodynamic state space. It generates measurement, probability, and the Born rule without postulation. The gap is formal, not metaphysical. God is not needed to fill a formal gap. Geometry fills it.