Last night a
sizeable group of us went hunting for the Aurora Borealis, to be honest I was
rather sceptical from the start. I was more than happy to venture out into the
cold hills surrounding Gloucester though - the stars were out in force.
We never did see the
northern lights in the end, seemingly the scientists that informed various news
agencies were wrong or maybe it just wasn't Gods will for us on that particular
night.
Now here we have a
bit of a conundrum, God Vs Science, arch enemies from the dawn of reason
endlessly pitted against one another in a fight to the death. Of course some
(Nietzsche) see that the fight is over 'God is
dead'. Nonetheless there are myriad believers who profess otherwise and
rather would see science as the losing side, never able to agree on a theory
for longer than a decade or two it is simply misinterpreted data that is
further misinterpreted every so often.
Of course this
debate is hashed out in numerous arenas but none so severely as the existence
of creation. The big bang theory and Genesis 1-3 are the weapons in this
battle, forged by the most rigorous of scholars.
So with these two
opponents poised ready to beat the snot out of each other what does the bookie
say? What are the odds? Who is going to win, and who will die?
Now here we need to
take a bit of a step back because something a bit odd is about to happen and we
need to understand why. The atheist scientist largely understands his concept
of God from the people who profess to follow him, naturally. The majority of
the time this is Christianity and what does the scientist see the Christian
doing? Well, he sees the Christian walk out into a field in the middle of the
night expecting to see the northern lights. Except in the face of the
disappointment of not seeing the northern lights the Christian decides to
comfort himself with the sentiment that God must have not wanted to him to see
the Northern lights that night. Now of course the reasonable scientist knows
that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the northern lights not
being visible from that particular field that particular night. The Christian
therefore must be decidedly ignorant to settle for 'God didn't want it'. This
behaviour is repeated everywhere to almost any question ... How did the earth
come to be? 'God made it' Why is the sky blue 'God likes blue' where did man
come from? 'God made man'
The Scientist
analysing the Christians behaviour comes to the perfectly reasonable
explanation that the Christian is like him seeking truth except whenever he
discovers a truth that is uncomfortable or cannot explain something he simply
replaces that truth with God.
Thus the God of the
gaps is born. There has to be a God because without him we wouldn't have an
explanation for the existence of the world, a reason to live or any warm
comforting thoughts to consol ourselves with.
The scientist then
has a mission, close the gaps! Pursue knowledge, provide explanations and there are no longer any gaps for God to be in and he will die and then we can all be
liberated to do as we please.
So we have God of
the gaps in one corner of the arena and we have science in the other, after
thousands of years, millions of papers, countless debates and a whole lot of
media hype science lands the final blow and the God of the gaps dies! Finally!
Now depending on
your perspective this point is either yet to come or has already happened but
the fact that it will happen is doubtless.
At this point the
scientist rejoices, finally he has killed the tyrannous God of the gaps and he
can pursue pure truth. He approaches the Christian to shake his hand, a
gentlemen victor. He finds the Christian rejoicing, he must be excited about his
new found freedom without God. The Christian exclaims 'now I understand how God
did it all it is even MORE amazing!'.
The scientist sits
back, looks at all that he has learned and for the first time perceives the
face of God in the complexity and detail and structure of creation and realises
that the whole fight was in fact orchestrated by God in the first place in order
to reveal himself. He is not the God of the gaps, he is truth that underlines
every discovery ever made. And yes, that is comforting.
