Using God to Fill in the Gaps

Recently an interesting picture showed up in my Facebook news feed. If you do a Google search for "two bodies of water meet but don't mix" you'll find a lot of pages that discuss this picture, but here's just one. I haven't taken the time to delve too much into the scientific explanation, but it sounds like what's happening is that glaciers are melting and the water is flowing into the Gulf of Alaska, and because of the difference in density between the meltwater and the salty ocean water, a surface tension forms between them and prevents them from mixing (although they do eventually mix). Pretty cool, huh?

Unfortunately, this is not the description that was given with the picture on Facebook. On Facebook, the claim was that this is a place in the ocean where the water flows in opposite directions and never mixes, and scientists have been completely unable to explain why it happens. The post claimed that there are many phenomena such as this in the world that can't be explained by science and they all serve as proof that God exists because nothing else could explain them.

Interestingly, this Facebook post I described actually strengthened the boundary between two opposing groups. Glancing through the comments (I know, bad idea) I saw that people who knew the science and were already disenchanted with religion saw this post and concluded that people who believe in God are not interested in the truth, but instead are being blind and foolish. And the unkind comments they made resulted in religious people feeling attacked and thus feeling even less willing to interact constructively with those who are not religious. So just like the two bodies of water weren't mixing because they were so different, these two groups were refusing to mix or interact constructively and intelligently with each other. I don't think it was helpful for this picture to be shared with a dishonest caption claiming that God was the only explanation for the phenomenon, because it created rifts between religion and science that don't need to be there. Just like the two bodies of water eventually mix, the religious and the scientific can exist together.

Soon after this, my husband pointed something out to me that had never occurred to me before. Sometimes Christians use God to fill in the gaps for the things we don't understand. If some phenomenon in the world happens and they don't know why, they claim that God did it. The trouble with this philosophy is that it becomes problematic when scientific explanations do come. What do you do with those scientific explanations? If you accept them, that's one less gap for God to fill. It can feel like accepting the scientific explanation makes the gaps smaller, and if the gaps are smaller does that mean you're making God smaller? I think this may be why some people are reluctant to accept scientific explanations, especially claims about evolution or the age of the earth, and this may partly explain why in church we sometimes equate knowledge with wickedness. As Christians it is easy to feel that if you believe in an old earth or evolution your faith in God is somehow decreasing. (And I should add here that I have at times experienced these feelings too, so I'm not trying to be critical of anyone--as a person who believes in God it can be difficult sometimes when we're not sure how scientific explanations fit in with our faith.)

I don't know how it all fits together. Personally I'm okay with the idea that the earth is a few billion years old while simultaneously believing that it was created by Jesus Christ under God's direction. I'm also for the most part okay with the theory of evolution and I believe that it happens, although as I've mentioned before on this blog, it does bring up some confusing implications about Adam and Eve. I really enjoy learning more about how the world works, and the more I learn, the more I feel inspired by my Heavenly Father's wisdom and grateful to Him for the opportunity to live my mortal life.

I think the important thing is to remember what God's purpose is. He told Moses: "For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39) For me, God's purpose isn't to serve as an explanation for things I don't understand. He's not here to give us a magic show. God's entire work is salvation. And if we make salvation the center of our relationship with Him, then our faith is much stronger. If my faith in God rested on the mysteries in nature I think it would have broken down several years ago when I started studying geology. But instead the basis of my faith in Him has become the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Each time I use the Atonement I have more evidence that God and Jesus Christ are real because by repenting and receiving forgiveness I feel their presence in my life.

>>Converting Knowledge Into Wisdom