What Is (and Isn't) God of the Gaps

The “god of the gaps” fallacy is typically charged as an argument from ignorance. The idea is somebody, when encountering mystery, posits an unevidenced, superstitious, or corresponding (but not necessarily causal) explanation, and in claiming that because it has not been disproven, it must be true. Obviously, this is faulty reasoning.

If one appeals to their lucky socks to explain why their favorite baseball team won the World Series, that is an argument from ignorance. More to the “god” of the gaps objection, if somebody doesn’t know how lightening occurs, and they lazily purport Zeus sent it, same issue. The threat of god of the gaps reasoning is that it is (allegedly) a science stopper.

However, context matters, and not every argument that posits God (or other supernatural phenomena) as an explanation is automatically fallacious; just as not every ad hominem is an ad hominem FALLACY (there are legitimate uses of ad hominem) neither is every appeal to God. In fact, some arguments for God proceed not from ignorance but from what we know with either certainty or high probability.

For example, the Kalam argument:

• If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a cause.

• The universe began to exist.

• The universe has a cause.

Those familiar with the argument understand the cause to be God because whatever causes physical reality (to avoid circularity) must transcend it. However, the first premise is supported not just inductively (though it seems to enjoy as much inductive support as anything can get) but by accepting the fundamental metaphysical principle that from nothing comes nothing. The second premise has much philosophical AND scientific support — hence why it is an argument from knowledge, not ignorance. However, because the purpose of this post is not to defend the Kalam, I will not rehearse those lines of support now. The point is simply to highlight how this argument — which is deductive — is claiming that given what we know (either with certainty or probability), we can show how God’s existence is implied.

Notice the claim of knowing with some (presumably high) degree of probability is enough. Somebody needn’t take the strong stance that the Kalam (which is far from my favorite argument for God; it just makes for easy illustration) proves beyond any doubt that God exists; rather, I think it is better to say it shows probably God exists 1) given the best of what we currently know, and because of that is 2) perfectly reasonable to accept.