September 16th, 2007 Fred McVittie
The ‘God of the Gaps’ argument critiques certain approaches to theism on the grounds that, if we use God as an explanation for all those phenomena that we do not understand, then as our understanding increases, inevitably God decreases. Presumably then, the hypothetical end point to such inevitable progression of knowledge would be an epistemological universe in which no space was left in which God might hide. Even if knowledge is never total, as it surely will never be, this understanding of God is still problematic as it presents an image of a deity which is in a state of progressive decline. Every new article of information, from the most robust and powerful scientific theory to the simplest new fact acquired through routine acts of perception constitutes an amputation of the limb of God. For this reason the ‘God of the Gaps’ description of a deity has been roundly criticised as both a failure of the scientific imagination and an insult to the Almighty.
Having said that, a case could be made for a different kind of God of the Gaps, if we understand these gaps not to be in knowledge, but in our ability to conceptual this knowledge in a way was directly embodied.
The extensive work done in the field of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Embodied Cognition points to the importance of our embodiment in our ability to make sense of ideas and to structure concepts. The outcome of such research suggests that whilst we are easily able to conceptualise concepts which have direct sensory impact (medium sized objects, forces, substances, schema etc) when we wish to think about anything which is beyond the horizon of our bodily experience we have to use indirect methods. Chief among these methods is the systematic and consistent use of metaphor, such that we think of concepts which are abstract in terms of others which are concrete. We commonly think of love for example, as a journey, or of anger as heat in a sealed container. (These examples are from Lakoff and Johnson’s excellent introduction to these ideas ‘Metaphors We Live By’). Outside the relatively narrow domain of direct embodied experience is all the really interesting stuff of science, philosophy, politics, culture, and religion. Most of these practices, it can be demonstrated, are concerned with abstractions, and therefore the currency of their debates is metaphor and imagination.
In terms of science, As Stephen Jones points out in ‘Physics and Metaphor’ many of the most robust and elegant theories of science are understood only through acts of imagination. The concept of the origin of the universe in a Big Bang is one such example of this. Whatever event took place that triggered the subsequent creation of all that we see around us today clearly was not Big and did not go Bang. Yet this image of a kind of explosion is a useful image around which to structure our understanding of something that we simply are not adaptively equipped to understand literally. This does not mean that something that we call the Big Bang didn’t happen, it simply means that we are too stupid to understand it without drawing a picture of it, rather like the scene in Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, where a bunch of post-apocalyptic children try to tell each other what television was using only cargo-cult materials of sticks and leaves. The big difference that makes a difference between Mad Max and Georges Lemaître (an early proponent of the BBT) is that Lemaitre tested his imaginary explosion against the data of other ideas and theories.
This example, of the organised application of imagination to fill a significant gap in embodied knowledge, is typical of the way that science works, and indeed is also typical of the way that non-scientific gaps are filled. When I talk to my kids about what they will do in the future, the question a career often comes up, but if I am honest I have absolutely no idea what a career is. It has no smell, taste, or visible substance, and I can’t hear it or touch it. In fact I have to admit that there is a huge gap in my ability to think literally about their career. This doesn’t seem to stop me thinking about it though, and I do, and the way I do it is through the (largely unconscious) use of metaphor. If I look closely at how I am thinking I would say that I imagine their careers as something like the flight of an arrow, curving gently upward to arrive at a desired target, and I try not to imagine them as careering out of control, like a driverless vehicle, a danger to themselves and passers-by alike. Without some kind of image like this I don’t see how I could conceive of something like ‘a career’ at all.
Which brings me, finally, to the God of the Gaps. Given that much of what we say and think is outside embodiable range, and is therefore in this realm of the metaphorical and the imaginary (up to 90% by some estimates), this means that our thoughts are entirely dominated by the imagination and it is not some freaky little playground in the corner of our brains where only fairies and artists hang out. It also means, at noted earlier, that any idea which is even remotely interesting is probably suffused with imagination, if not constructed of it entirely. If I was a theist, which I am not thank Richard, I would definitely want my God to be at least as wild as the Big Bang, if not more so, which would definitely put Him in imagination territory.
The bottom line with any conceptual metaphor and any imaginary entity yielded by that metaphor is how well it functions. The Big Bang metaphor works really well to cohere data and observations into a single big picture. The flight path of the arrow that (I hope) traces my kids’ career also helps them organise and plan their actions. I am quite happy to believe in an imaginary God; at least to the extent that I believe in the Big Bang or a Career Plan. I can see some potential value in this kind of God of the Gaps, a complex, coherent anthropomorphic metaphor which helps to give form to certain aspects of the universe that are beyond my embodiment. If someone can show me what the function of this particular imaginary entity is, ideally someone who does not misunderstand science and the imagination to such an extent that they insist that God is real, .I’d be happy to consider believing in it, (although I would probably draw the line at worship).
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