What’s Your Answer to the God-of-the-Gaps Challenge?

Question of the Week: Do you have any material covering the god-of-the-gaps challenge raised by atheists?

My Answer: Yes, in this open access peer-reviewed research paper on the origin and history of life and in my book More Than a Theory. It is important to contrast the god of the gaps with the no god of the gaps. It is what happens to the gaps as we learn more that shows the pathway to truth. If the gaps in knowledge and understanding from a model’s perspective get larger, more numerous, and more problematic, those outcomes stand as strong indications that the model is not on the pathway toward truth. Hence, such a model very likely needs to be abandoned or altered in major ways. On the other hand, if the gaps in knowledge and understanding from a model’s perspective get smaller, less numerous, and less problematic as more is learned about disciplines relevant to the model, such results strongly indicate that the model is on the pathway toward truth.    

Will gaps in knowledge and understanding ever be eliminated? No. Because we are constrained to the cosmic space-time dimensions, we can never learn and understand everything about the universe. For this reason we must test everything and hold on to what proves good (1 Thessalonians 5:21) and do so continually.