Related Terms
Argumentum ad ignoratiam; Deus ex machina; Intelligent design
“God of the gaps” refers to the argument that gaps in scientific knowledge are evidence for God’s existence and direct intervention. One example of the God of the gaps argument is the argument from ignorance or argumentum ad ignoratiam. The argument goes as follows: If a proposition has not been disproven, then it cannot be considered false and must therefore be considered true. If a proposition has not been proven, then it cannot be considered true and must therefore be considered false. However, this argument is a fallacy, because it says that true things can never be disproven and false things can never be proven but this implies that true things can never be proven and false things can never be disproven.
Today, the God of the gaps argument comes in two variants, namely, an epistemological and an ontological one. The former represents a lack of scientific explanatory power; in other words, more scientific...
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Albright, J.R. (2013). God of the Gaps. In: Runehov, A.L.C., Oviedo, L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_592
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