Arguments for the existance of God that don't fall into the "God of the Gaps."

[Koldo]

I don't think almost every scientist accepts the ToE, but I do think many scientists are afraid of the consequences to their career if they express their doubts publicly. And with good reason, I think.

Section 5: Evolution, Climate Change and Other Issues | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

According to this research, the vast majority of scientists do hold the ToE to be true. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I won't address your doubt that DNA has intelligent programming, except to say look at what the code produces.
Soooo, a person coming upon an extraordinarily clever computer program is ignorant to deduce there must be a clever programmer who caused it, since one cannot think of any natural process that could result in it? I see. No, I don't.

Sounds you might not be familiar with my terminology:

Argument from ignorance - RationalWiki

Another form that this fallacy can take is the form that of an argument from incredulity (also known as argument from personal belief or argument from personal conviction) which is that one's personal incredulity or credulity towards a premise is a logical reason for acceptance or rejection. This incredulity can stem from ignorance (defined as a lack of knowledge and experience) or from willful ignorance (defined as a flat out refusal to gain the knowledge). The concept of irreducible complexity is based entirely around this idea of personal incredulity. One person (Michael Behe) cannot see how something evolved naturally, therefore it can't possibly evolve naturally.

As to Antony Flew, he followed the evidence. That is all.

If you really believe this, then present the evidence. Don't just tell me about how someone who you think I should be impressed by was convinced.

 

[rusra02]

Section 5: Evolution, Climate Change and Other Issues | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

According to this research, the vast majority of scientists do hold the ToE to be true. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

I understand most scientists accept the ToE in some fashion. As I said, this is not surprising to me based on the decades of propaganda and suppression of any opposing views. I did find it interesting that 8% attributed evolution to God's direction rather than natural selection.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I understand most scientists accept the ToE in some fashion. As I said, this is not surprising to me based on the decades of propaganda and suppression of any opposing views. I did find it interesting that 8% attributed evolution to God's direction rather than natural selection.

By propaganda do you mean facts and information and by suppression do you mean having a standard requirement of evidence?

 

[Koldo]

I understand most scientists accept the ToE in some fashion. As I said, this is not surprising to me based on the decades of propaganda and suppression of any opposing views. I did find it interesting that 8% attributed evolution to God's direction rather than natural selection.

Don't you think the scenario you propose is too far-fetched to give any merit to it?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Don't you think the scenario you propose is too far-fetched to give any merit to it?

I can't think of any natural mechanism that could have reasonably allowed for this sort of conspiracy to suppress creationism... so God must be behind it.

 

[Sapiens]

I understand most scientists accept the ToE in some fashion. As I said, this is not surprising to me based on the decades of propaganda and suppression of any opposing views. I did find it interesting that 8% attributed evolution to God's direction rather than natural selection.

I suspect that if you drop the engineers, physicians, dentists, physical therapists, etc. your down to almost zero, with few creationists left except some unbalanced physicists and mathematicians.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

I understand most scientists accept the ToE in some fashion. As I said, this is not surprising to me based on the decades of propaganda and suppression of any opposing views. I did find it interesting that 8% attributed evolution to God's direction rather than natural selection.

The suppression is plainly true, just take a look at the wiki on free will. There you can see evolution scientists / intellectuals have destroyed understanding of the basic mechanism of creation / intelligent design, which is choosing. There is no practical knowledge about how choosing works to be found on the wiki.

First destroy the fundamental concept of creation, then pretend there is no scientific alternative to evolution theory, it is all just a dirty trick of evolution scientists.

 

[Kirran]

It may well be that there isn't a logical argument to be found for the existence of God which doesn't fall into 'God of the Gaps', but as this doesn't disprove God's existence, it still leaves the matter open, leaving it as a matter of faith and personal belief.

EDIT: I'm referring to the more Abrahamic understandings of God here. The God which I ascribe to it is equivalent to existence, and so is very likely to exist.

 

[Sapiens]

Here we go again, this is getting awful boring.

The suppression is plainly true, just take a look at the wiki on free will. There you can see evolution scientists / intellectuals have destroyed understanding of the basic mechanism of creation / intelligent design, which is choosing. There is no practical knowledge about how choosing works to be found on the wiki.

Unsupported claim.

First destroy the fundamental concept of creation, then pretend there is no scientific alternative to evolution theory, it is all just a dirty trick of evolution scientists.

Unsupported claim.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

In terms of the OP I don't think such arguments exist.

They clearly do (in fact, one mentioned still holds an dates from the scholastic period). It's just whether or not they are any good. For example, the various proofs of god do not depend upon any gaps, they depend upon assumptions of various sorts that I find both unconvincing and meaningless. Nonetheless, they are arguments for god that do not depend upon gaps.

Apart from medieval/early modern "proofs" and any of their modern variants, we have:
1) NDEs (for a review that doesn't take much of a position rather than describe various ones, see
Engmann, B. (2014). Near-death Experiences: Heavenly Insight Or Human Illusion?. Springer.)
2) Certain anthropic cosmologies and their corresponding fine-tuning/design arguments (this is not to be confused with the argument that evolutionary theory can't explain the complexity of life, or that the origin of life requires god, etc.; such arguments are god in the gaps arguments). An interesting back-and-forth volume of arguments that include this type of argument along with the design arguments that are god-in-the-gaps type as well as counters to both may be found in
Manson, N. A. (Ed.). (2003). God and design: The teleological argument and modern science. Routledge.
Barrow & Tipler's The Cosmological Anthropic Principle is outdated, but nothing I know of exists that is an equivalent but up-to-date survey. There are certainly detailed cosmologies that are theistic, including e.g.,
Amoroso, R., & Rauscher, E. (2009). The Holographic Anthropic Multiverse: Formalizing the Complex Geometry of Reality (Series on Knots and Everything). World Scientific.

A weird volume from the Cambridge Astrobiology series that touches on both god-in-the-gaps design-type arguments and those that don't rely on gaps whilst simultaneously covering purely scientific research that has no bearing on religion whatsoever, there's
Barrow, J. D., Morris, S. C., Freeland, S. J., & Harper Jr, C. L. (Eds.). (2008). Fitness of the Cosmos for Life: Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning (Cambridge Astrobiology). Cambridge University Press.
Both of the following volumes contain fine-tuning/design arguments:
Clayton, P., & Davies, P. C. W. (Eds.) (2006). The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion. Oxford University Press.
Gregersen, N. H. (Ed.). (2003). From Complexity to Life: On the Emergence of Life and Meaning. Oxford University Press.

3) The argument from consciousness. Depending on how this one is made, it can be either a gaps argument or not. Unsurprisingly, I haven't come across many good works, still less good books, but one decent enough treatment can be found in
Moreland, J. P. (2008). Consciousness and the existence of God: A theistic argument. Routledge.

4) Experiences of God apart from NDEs
An interesting (sort of) work that brings us from 3 to 4 is
Beauregard, M., & O’Leary, D. (2007). The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul. HarperCollins.

For a review of more classical arguments and older versions of some of the above (and covering some of the above) see e.g.,
Mackie, J. L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God. Clarendon.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

unbalanced physicists and mathematicians.

Are there any other kind?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

For example, the various proofs of god do not depend upon any gaps, they depend upon assumptions of various sorts that I find both unconvincing and meaningless.

Fair enough. Unconvincing and meaningless is how the assumptions look to me.

 

[rusra02]

Don't you think the scenario you propose is too far-fetched to give any merit to it?

Those interested should check the facts for themselves.

 

[rusra02]

I suspect that if you drop the engineers, physicians, dentists, physical therapists, etc. your down to almost zero, with few creationists left except some unbalanced physicists and mathematicians.

So those who do not accept the ToE are "unbalanced ", in your opinion?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So those who do not accept the ToE are "unbalanced ", in your opinion?

... or uninformed, though people working in a scientific field usually don't have that excuse available.

 

[McBell]

So those who do not accept the ToE are "unbalanced ", in your opinion?

Interesting how you completely ignore the meat of his post to single out an assumption.

Rather revealing, don't you think, that you refuse to address the fact he is right in order to protect your box?

 

[jtartar]

It seems so obvious to me that science hasn't come anywhere close to figuring out all of the answers, but it is the best method of doing so. It is alright to say, I don't know, as long as you keep on trying to find the answer.

Leibowde84,
If you had a scale a million miles high, man's amount of knowledge would not even make a mark on the bottom, when you compare God's knowledge to man's. If you want to know the truth about anything, go to God's word, John 17:17. God has the answers to everything we need to know about, and has written these things into His Holy Bible, Matt 5:8, Gen 40:8, Dan 2:22,28.
Let's reason a minute. Open your eyes and contemplate nature. There are several branches of science that is trying to copy things in nature for the benefit of mankind. But who designed the original??? When one of these scientists succeeds in making a design, even though very inferior, he is hailed as a great designer, but what about the designer that made the original??? Do you really believe that the things that men strive to copy had no designer, but the inferior one was a great designer. Preposterous!!! Everything we see is a miracle to us but to God they are as nothing. As much as we see and understand, we are seeing only the fringes of His creation, Job 26:14. Many of the things that God has made we are not able to know or understand, job 37:5.
You mentioned Ontology. Well let's consider another branch of science, Teleology, which shows a purpose in design, which could never be though Mechanism or Evolution.
What about Cosmological Argument, many say, Cosmological Proof, because this branch of science studies the harmony of the Cosmos, something absolutely impossible from a Big Bang. The Big Bang Theory goes against the basic laws of science; An explosion causes chaos, the greater the explosion the greater the chaos. Why then is there complete ORDER in the universe???
Of course there are many, many other things that prove that there is a God, a Great Creator, and Designer of all things, Acts 17:24-28. God had this written to impress on all men His great wisdom and power, Rom 1:18-25.
The very existence of The Bible, to any reasonable person, who has taken the time to peruse it, can come to only one conclusion; there is a Supreme Mind, a Divine Being, God, who has a Personal, Proper Name, Jehovah. Why??? Because contained within The Holy Scriptures are meany things written, that no human knew, at the time of writing. Things such as the earth being a globe, Isa 40:22, the earth being hung on nothing, Job 26:7, and not on the back of a giant, standing on a turtle, as some thought. Also God gave the Jews sanitary, and hygiene laws that no person knew about for thousands of years.
God has also had recorded the reason that many would not be able to understand His word, Dan 12:10, says that no wicked can understand, Isa 26:10, which says, even if the wicked are shown favor they cannot understand righteousness.
Jesus gave several reasons that many cannot understand. The reason is their hearts are not right, Matt 13:10-15. Mark 7:6-9, 13, 15-23.
Maybe people have not sincerely prayed to God for His Holy Spirit to help them understand His word, 1Cor 2:10-14.

 

[Looncall]

Leibowde84,
If you had a scale a million miles high, man's amount of knowledge would not even make a mark on the bottom, when you compare God's knowledge to man's. If you want to know the truth about anything, go to God's word, John 17:17. God has the answers to everything we need to know about, and has written these things into His Holy Bible, Matt 5:8, Gen 40:8, Dan 2:22,28.
Let's reason a minute. Open your eyes and contemplate nature. There are several branches of science that is trying to copy things in nature for the benefit of mankind. But who designed the original??? When one of these scientists succeeds in making a design, even though very inferior, he is hailed as a great designer, but what about the designer that made the original??? Do you really believe that the things that men strive to copy had no designer, but the inferior one was a great designer. Preposterous!!! Everything we see is a miracle to us but to God they are as nothing. As much as we see and understand, we are seeing only the fringes of His creation, Job 26:14. Many of the things that God has made we are not able to know or understand, job 37:5.
You mentioned Ontology. Well let's consider another branch of science, Teleology, which shows a purpose in design, which could never be though Mechanism or Evolution.
What about Cosmological Argument, many say, Cosmological Proof, because this branch of science studies the harmony of the Cosmos, something absolutely impossible from a Big Bang. The Big Bang Theory goes against the basic laws of science; An explosion causes chaos, the greater the explosion the greater the chaos. Why then is there complete ORDER in the universe???
Of course there are many, many other things that prove that there is a God, a Great Creator, and Designer of all things, Acts 17:24-28. God had this written to impress on all men His great wisdom and power, Rom 1:18-25.
The very existence of The Bible, to any reasonable person, who has taken the time to peruse it, can come to only one conclusion; there is a Supreme Mind, a Divine Being, God, who has a Personal, Proper Name, Jehovah. Why??? Because contained within The Holy Scriptures are meany things written, that no human knew, at the time of writing. Things such as the earth being a globe, Isa 40:22, the earth being hung on nothing, Job 26:7, and not on the back of a giant, standing on a turtle, as some thought. Also God gave the Jews sanitary, and hygiene laws that no person knew about for thousands of years.
God has also had recorded the reason that many would not be able to understand His word, Dan 12:10, says that no wicked can understand, Isa 26:10, which says, even if the wicked are shown favor they cannot understand righteousness.
Jesus gave several reasons that many cannot understand. The reason is their hearts are not right, Matt 13:10-15. Mark 7:6-9, 13, 15-23.
Maybe people have not sincerely prayed to God for His Holy Spirit to help them understand His word, 1Cor 2:10-14.

Mere argument from ignorance, plus, for good measure, made-up stuff to fill the holes.

 

[leibowde84]

Leibowde84,
If you had a scale a million miles high, man's amount of knowledge would not even make a mark on the bottom, when you compare God's knowledge to man's. If you want to know the truth about anything, go to God's word, John 17:17. God has the answers to everything we need to know about, and has written these things into His Holy Bible, Matt 5:8, Gen 40:8, Dan 2:22,28.
Let's reason a minute. Open your eyes and contemplate nature. There are several branches of science that is trying to copy things in nature for the benefit of mankind. But who designed the original??? When one of these scientists succeeds in making a design, even though very inferior, he is hailed as a great designer, but what about the designer that made the original??? Do you really believe that the things that men strive to copy had no designer, but the inferior one was a great designer. Preposterous!!! Everything we see is a miracle to us but to God they are as nothing. As much as we see and understand, we are seeing only the fringes of His creation, Job 26:14. Many of the things that God has made we are not able to know or understand, job 37:5.
You mentioned Ontology. Well let's consider another branch of science, Teleology, which shows a purpose in design, which could never be though Mechanism or Evolution.
What about Cosmological Argument, many say, Cosmological Proof, because this branch of science studies the harmony of the Cosmos, something absolutely impossible from a Big Bang. The Big Bang Theory goes against the basic laws of science; An explosion causes chaos, the greater the explosion the greater the chaos. Why then is there complete ORDER in the universe???
Of course there are many, many other things that prove that there is a God, a Great Creator, and Designer of all things, Acts 17:24-28. God had this written to impress on all men His great wisdom and power, Rom 1:18-25.
The very existence of The Bible, to any reasonable person, who has taken the time to peruse it, can come to only one conclusion; there is a Supreme Mind, a Divine Being, God, who has a Personal, Proper Name, Jehovah. Why??? Because contained within The Holy Scriptures are meany things written, that no human knew, at the time of writing. Things such as the earth being a globe, Isa 40:22, the earth being hung on nothing, Job 26:7, and not on the back of a giant, standing on a turtle, as some thought. Also God gave the Jews sanitary, and hygiene laws that no person knew about for thousands of years.
God has also had recorded the reason that many would not be able to understand His word, Dan 12:10, says that no wicked can understand, Isa 26:10, which says, even if the wicked are shown favor they cannot understand righteousness.
Jesus gave several reasons that many cannot understand. The reason is their hearts are not right, Matt 13:10-15. Mark 7:6-9, 13, 15-23.
Maybe people have not sincerely prayed to God for His Holy Spirit to help them understand His word, 1Cor 2:10-14.

I don't have any reason to believe (haven't been convinced yet) that God designed everything in nature. I am a theist, but I believe that God merely set things in motion and nature itself took the reigns after that. So, I find it "proposterous" to asssume that God designed the things you claim scientists are copying. The Bible, while it is full of valuable lessons, is not as reliable to me as you see it. I don't take any book written by the hands of many imperfect men who may or may not have ever even met Jesus on face value. I don't have it in me. I'm not saying its impossible that the Bible might be accurate front to back, but I have not been presented with nearly sufficient evidence to put my faith in this concept.

So, I would ask that you try to look at this issue from another perspective. One that does not take the Bible as being 100% reliable in an attempt to understand where I am coming from. I have studied the Bible since I learned how to read, and theology is still a very serious hobby of mine. So, please do not think that I do not put the work into understanding it and having faith. I, personally, just demand more. And, I have a great relationship with God, who I speak with every day through prayer. And, I constantly feel recognition that my method of understanding God is right on.

So, take a look at my comment and keep in mind that I merely said that the most reliable source of objective information is the scientific method. It is certainly not the only one.