Hypothetical Question

[Fed]

This is one of the few boards on this forum I can expect intelligent answers, so:

If we had a well-evidenced scientific theory for:
1) How the universe began (e.g. branes colliding)
2) Why the universe began (nothing is unstable)
3) The origin of the Moral Law

Would there still be room for God?

The reason I'm asking is I hear a lot of TEs use the lack of naturalistic explanations for the above as reasons for belief. It seems to me that reasoning is similar to the ID 'God of the Gaps' problem. Why can't God use naturalistic means to accomplish them, just like he uses evolution?

 

[Assyrian]

Of course he could.

 

[gluadys]

This is one of the few boards on this forum I can expect intelligent answers, so:

If we had a well-evidenced scientific theory for:
1) How the universe began (e.g. branes colliding)
2) Why the universe began (nothing is unstable)
3) The origin of the Moral Law

Would there still be room for God?

The reason I'm asking is I hear a lot of TEs use the lack of naturalistic explanations for the above as reasons for belief. It seems to me that reasoning is similar to the ID 'God of the Gaps' problem. Why can't God use naturalistic means to accomplish them, just like he uses evolution?

Yes, the whole "natural excludes God" notion is very strange and quite recent. It does not accord in any way with traditional Christian orthodoxy.

In Only a Theory, Ken Miller (p. 162) notes the following passage from Augustine:

We admit that what is contrary to the ordinary course of human experience is commonly spoken of as contrary to nature....But, God, the Author and Creator of all natures does nothing contrary to nature; for what is done by Him who appoints all natural order and measure and proportion must be natural in every case.​

So for Augustine, even out-of-the-ordinary experiences such as miracles were fundamentally natural. Nature IS what God does.

 

[Mallon]

The Bible describes God as being the originator and sustainor of all kinds of natural processes, including rain and fetal development, so I wouldn't say that just because we can explain some phenomenon without explicit reference to miracles means that God isn't involved.
Of course, for many stubborn creationists and atheists, natural processes occur apart from God's providence. That's why they characterize such natural processes as biological evolution as "godless". That's not a biblical understanding of God's place in creation, though. I think this attitude tells us more about them than about God.

 

[Van]

Hi Fed, your question seems to be "if we know how everything came into existence, would we need a concept like "God?"

The TE answer seems to be, God's invisible hand causes whatever happens, so we could still make that argument even if everything had an understood explanation.

One other observation is the possibility that the question is simply a "moving the goal post" argument. The Theist answers the question, why is there something with "God did it." An Atheist might respond, something other than god did it. But a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Higher dimensions and colliding branes had to pre-exist and so the question is what created them?

If we leave the goal posts where they are currently planted, we return to the basic question, something unknown caused what is known to come into existence. And it really does not matter what name we give it, God or non-god, the observation provides for the possibility of God.

 

[rockytriton]

Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone who understands anything about quantum mechanics can think that there is no God.

 

[champuru]

I agree with the others. Even if everything like that was explained and well proven, there would still be room for God. I've never like the God of Gaps thinking in the first place

 

[metherion]

The key word in your question is 'scientific'. Scientific deals only with the natural. God is supernatural. Therefore, no scientific theory could exclude Him because by definition science cannot deal with Him, either including or excluding Him. Period.

Metherion

 

[rockytriton]

The key word in your question is 'scientific'. Scientific deals only with the natural. God is supernatural. Therefore, no scientific theory could exclude Him because by definition science cannot deal with Him, either including or excluding Him. Period.

Metherion

I second that