.
Whose proposition is that? Certainly a person at the end of his rope who calls out for God receives assurance that it does work. Many, many, many Christians started exactly there.
As for "therefore God", first all, we reach that conclusion because of what he has done for us personally, not because we are clueless.
Exactly. We are not clueless, so we are not operating on the basis of "we don't know, therefore God."
What does the gap teach? That the boundary between science and God is artificial. That is a distinct point.
Why do you need a gap to teach that?
If you can demonstrate that man really knows less and less, not more and more,
And that has not been demonstrated. What you are actually seeing here is what led Einstein to comment: "The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of mystery." If we know of more mysteries, it is because we know more, not less.
then we have no basis to exclude a fact (God) demonstrated to us on grounds other than scientific grounds.
No, of course we don't. But since it is demonstrated on other than scientific grounds, it is not a point to raise in science class, but in a more appropriate context.
Yes. Thinking we do know will compel that conclusion.
How do you figure that? I see no compulsion here, but understanding that you do, I can see why you resist scientific understanding. However, I consider this a fault in your logic. Nothing I have seen in science compels me to adopt an atheist position. Nor do I expect a fuller understanding of the universe to lead to such a conclusion. Why would it?
Many have reached that conclusion.
And many have not.
But, for those of us who do know God, the question is whether there is any reasonable prospect that we will get to that point of knowing all the secrets or even the most basic ones, as opposed to being deluded in thinking so.
I think half the problem is that you confound scientific mysteries with other sorts of mysteries. Scientific mysteries are, for the most part, problems, not genuine mysteries. Problems are, in principle, solvable with the right information and the right technology.
Mysteries, like the mystery of God's grace to fallen sinners, remain mysteries even when they are revealed.
I expect that somewhere on the far frontiers of science, there may be some overlap between scientific problems and theological mysteries. But that doesn't warrant an outright denial of problems science has already solved---such as the age of the earth and common descent. Importing our ignorance of what is in the gap and applying it to current knowledge is like saying that a person who never studied trigonometry has a basis for doubting the multiplication table.
All of which are perfectly compatible with the essence of ID.
In that case, somebody better explain the essence of ID to the folk at Discovery Institute. Because that is not what I am hearing from their spokespersons.
Does anyone ever cry out to God from a position of really knowing the answer for which they cry out?
The principle in reverse worked for Abraham.
How so? We are not told that Abraham cried out to God, but that God called Abraham.
Rom 4:19
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb:
Rom 4:20
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
No, he didn't know how this could be---and we still don't know how this could be. But he did know God and knew God was worthy of his trust and could be relied on to keep his promises.
But trusting in God's promise for the future is a far cry from denying God's record of the past as presented in God's creation.
Hope, as the writer to the Hebrews tells us earlier is always related to what is unseen, to what is not yet.
Scientific evidence is always related to what is seen, to what has happened. A different kettle of fish entirely and therefore to be treated differently.
Just as Abraham's knowledge of God assured him of the trustworthiness of God's promise, should not our experience with science assure us that the current gaps in scientific understanding will be solved much as they have been in the past?
How does that make the gaps any more informative about God than what we already know?
