A NASA\/JPL-Caltech Hubble public domain photograph in infrared of the Sombrero Galaxy (Messier 104)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I published the article below in the Deseret News<\/em> back in 2016:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In pre-modern times, some explained lunar eclipses by a supernatural dragon\u2019s devouring the moon.\u00a0 Before the identification of germs and viruses, diseases were often attributed to demonic powers.\u00a0 And how did the planets move continually in their regular orbits?\u00a0 Angels, it was thought, were pushing the planetary spheres.\u00a0 And thunderbolts were hurled to earth by the god Zeus.<\/span><\/p>\nUnfortunately, when natural causes were identified for such phenomena and direct supernatural agents were no longer required, this weakened some arguments for the existence of God.\u00a0 Critics of religious faith denounced appeals to a \u201cGod of the gaps\u201d\u2014a term that refers to arguments for God (or, more generally, to theological ideas) that overeagerly seek to use God as an explanation for anything that current science can\u2019t explain, employing God to fill gaps in scientific knowledge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nPerhaps, though, criticisms of the \u201cGod of the gaps\u201d can themselves be pushed too far.\u00a0 Sometimes they seem almost to result in an \u201catheism of the gaps,\u201d equal (though opposite) to the theistic error.\u00a0 Modern science proceeds on naturalistic assumptions, and it\u2019s entirely proper that it do so.\u00a0 It\u2019s achieved great things, and it\u2019s a great global enterprise that transcends national, cultural, ethnic, and religious boundaries.<\/span><\/p>\nSometimes, though, it\u2019s altogether correct to acknowledge consciousness and purpose.\u00a0 Intelligent agents shouldn\u2019t always be ruled inadmissible.\u00a0 Homicide investigators, for instance, sometimes need to distinguish a murder from natural or accidental deaths.\u00a0 Arson investigators who ruled intelligent agency out before even considering the evidence would be essentially useless.\u00a0 Dogmatic resistance to a \u201chuman of the gaps\u201d argument would leave many a case unsolved.\u00a0 Often, it would thwart justice.<\/span><\/p>\nThe \u201cGod of the gaps\u201d argument has sometimes been crudely caricatured as \u201cI can\u2019t explain this, therefore God.\u201d\u00a0 And, plainly, such an argument will seldom be sound.\u00a0 But, at least in its basic logical form, it\u2019s not fundamentally different from another argument: \u201cI can\u2019t explain this otherwise, therefore deliberate human agent.\u201d\u00a0 And that argument is often quite solid.<\/span><\/p>\nImagine yourself cruising into the harbor at Victoria, British Columbia.\u00a0 On the lawn in front of the provincial parliament, flowers spell out \u201cWelcome to Victoria\u201d in large letters. \u00a0Was their arrangement designed?\u00a0 Or did it result from astounding botanical coincidence?<\/span><\/p>\nCompare Mount Rushmore to the other mountains around it among South Dakota\u2019s Black Hills. \u00a0Of course, rocks have to have some shape or other.\u00a0 So are those faces on Mount Rushmore merely the result of wind and water erosion, coupled with random chance and billions of years?<\/span><\/p>\nIf a plausible human author or set of authors can\u2019t be found for the Book of Mormon, it seems reasonable at least to consider Joseph Smith\u2019s explanation.\u00a0 Are there intricate chiasms in the Book of Mormon?\u00a0 Not a big deal, a critic once told me; it had to be organized somehow!\u00a0 Which is plainly true.\u00a0 But repeated, complex chiasms seem\u2014as a 2004 \u201cBYU Studies\u201d article argued\u2014extraordinarily improbable unless they were deliberately created.\u00a0 (See http:\/\/scholarsarchive.byu.edu\/byusq\/vol43\/iss2\/4\/.)<\/span><\/p>\nThe perception of deliberate order in nature is both very ancient and natural.\u00a0 In fact, as the vocally atheistic evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has defined it, \u201cBiology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.\u201d\u00a0 Dawkins, of course, contends that the appearance of design is illusory.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHowever, \u201cUndeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition that Life is Designed,\u201d a recent book by Douglas Axe, contends that random neo-Darwinian mutations cannot account for observed biological reality. \u00a0Axe\u2019s scientific credentials\u2014 undergraduate training at Berkeley, doctorate from Caltech, postdoctoral research at three laboratories in Cambridge, England\u2014appear to be solid. (The Jewish writer David Klinghoffer provides a sympathetic summary of Axe\u2019s argument under the title of \u201c\u2018Undeniable\u2019: Darwinian Explanations Not Just Unlikely, But \u2018Physically Impossible\u2019\u201d at http:\/\/www.cnsnews.com\/commentary\/david-klinghoffer\/undeniable-darwinian-explanations-are-not-just-unlikely-physically.) \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe point, as I see it, is as follows:\u00a0 Proposed instances of intelligent design need to be examined on an individual basis, not dogmatically dismissed in advance.\u00a0 (Or, if that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing, we should be open and upfront about it.)\u00a0 Perhaps they\u2019ll withstand scrutiny.\u00a0 Perhaps they won\u2019t.\u00a0 But a dogmatic assertion that, someday, we\u2019ll be able to explain every single mystery as the result of purposeless natural forces isn\u2019t obviously superior to its mirror image, the \u201cGod of the gaps\u201d argument. An atheistic \u201cscientism of the gaps\u201d is a mere promissory note, not actual evidence.\u00a0 And, while science\u2019s credit rating is very high, it\u2019s not infinite.\u00a0 There\u2019s no guarantee that naturalistic science will ultimately explain absolutely everything.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Orlando, Florida<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I published the article below in the Deseret News back in 2016: \u00a0 In pre-modern times, some explained lunar eclipses by a supernatural dragon\u2019s devouring the moon.\u00a0 Before the identification of germs and viruses, diseases were often attributed to demonic powers.\u00a0 And how did the planets move continually in their regular orbits?\u00a0 Angels, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Messier](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/12\/Sombrero_Galaxy_in_infrared_light_Hubble_Space_Telescope_and_Spitzer_Space_Telescope.jpg\")
<\/a>