A Brief Commentary on the God of the gaps and Design: for high school students
- DEACON DOUGLAS MCMANAMAN
The claim that seems to be at the heart of today's popular atheism is that one does not need the God Hypothesis in order to explain the universe; the idea of God was nothing more than a way to fill in the gaps in our scientific knowledge of the universe.
The following
is a simple analogy that might help illustrate the contrary.
Let's give Rado, who is a jack-of-all-trades, a machine to study and
eventually figure out. He opens it and sees the order. He
slowly figures out how the thing works, the purpose of each of its
parts, how they work together to consistently produce a determinate
effect, etc. He begins to explain this and that, but there is
much more that is left unexplained. He continues, nonetheless, to
penetrate into its intelligible order. What he did not understand
previously, he eventually came to understand, and he assumes that this
process will continue. Let's call this process "machine science".
Now, we know that someone designed the machine and had it built for a definite purpose, but Rado does not know that; he was simply given the machine without any information
about its origin. As Rado progresses in his understanding of the
workings of this machine, he is more able to explain the "reasons" it
does what it does. In other words, he discovers that there are
reasons or causes for this and that motion, action, or effect, etc.
The engineer is on the other side of the wall observing Rado from a
two-way mirror; he is impressed by how much Rado is coming to
understand his work. Rado, however, is so immersed in his
"machine science" that he does not notice the engineer, but it does not
matter; Rado can still make progress in his "science".
Samantha walks into the room. She looks at the machine and
immediately recognizes that it is the work of her father (the
engineer). "I know who made that", she says.
"No, you don't need to posit a cause to explain it," says Rado. I
can explain much of it now." He begins to explain the inner
workings of the machine, and his explanation is very thorough.
"You see," says Rado, "there is no need to believe in an external
cause. I can explain it without that idea. Before we
understood how the minute hand moved, people posited an external cause,
such as some imaginary engineer, but we now know what causes the minute
hand to move, as well as the second hand, the hour hand, the ticking
sounds, etc., and it is not some engineer. It is this spring,
this gear, and this pendulum, etc."
Samantha says "The watch is indeed intelligible (knowable and
explainable) from within. But that's precisely what needs
explaining. What is the reason for the knowability or
intelligibility of the machine in the first place? You can't say
"because this spring unwinds, causing this gear to move, or that
battery supplies a charge in order to cause this...etc." What I'm
saying is, just as the action of this part of the machine is explained
by the action of that part, or this gear turns because that smaller
gear turns, and has teeth that fit exactly into the notches of the
larger gear, and vice versa, etc, the thing as a whole requires an
explanation as well. What is the principle of its entire
order? You cannot appeal to this and that part in order to call
attention to its order. I already know the parts are ordered and
work in harmony with one another to produce determinate effects.
My question is "why?" What is the cause of its intelligibility
and order in the first place? For it is that order that makes
your "machine science" possible. So when we ask: "What explains
the whole machine?" we are asking for the sufficient reason for the
intrinsic order that you behold in the thing and that makes it possible
for you to explain it internally. To answer the question by
appealing to the order and harmony of the parts is to argue in
circles. It assumes the point that needs to be
explained."
Commentary
Natural selection, whatever its role is as a cause, is insufficient to account for order because it presupposes that organisms possess order (a nature) in the first place, that is, an order or inclination towards self-preservation or unity. |
As for the question of the machine's origin or first cause, there are
two possible answers: a) an intelligent cause, or b) a non-intelligent
cause. Rado claims that there is no need to posit an intelligent
first cause, for the machine simply came to be over time (i.e., through
a process of random variation and market selection). It first
came to be as a simpler machine, but it gradually increased in
complexity.
Samantha says yes, it did begin as a simpler machine, and it did
gradually increase in complexity (via a process of variation and market
selection), but it did so only because there was an intelligent cause
from the very beginning that made the watch for a specific purpose (the
engineer), a watch that could vary or change in very specific and
meaningful ways (stronger casing, waterproofing, etc).
Rado disagrees. He says that we can explain the thing's order
through the "science of machines". Science explains it, he
argues, so we no longer need to appeal to an external cause. Rado
claims that the only reason Samantha is appealing to an external cause
is that she does not understand the inner workings of the machine, that
she is not learned in the "science of machines" – and it is true, she
does not understand how this machine works. But she also insists
she does not need to. Her point is that just as Rado can come to
understand the inner workings of the machine without knowing anything
about who designed it or who is watching him behind the two-way mirror,
conversely, she argues that she does not have to understand the inner
workings of the thing in order to know that the order that exists in it
does not explain itself.
Samantha argues that the origin or first cause of the machine is an
intelligent cause. Why? Because a thing cannot give what it
does not have. In other words, the effect cannot be greater than
the cause. Intelligibility does not arise from unintelligibility,
that is, order does not arise from that which lacks order. To
deny this would be to argue that being arises from what lacks being
(nothing). Order and disorder differ in that the former (order)
possesses something, while the latter (disorder) lacks something.
We do not say that order "lacks" disorder, but rather disorder lacks
order. The greater does not arise from the lesser. An
intelligent cause produces an intelligible effect, and that is why the
machine (i.e., a watch, a computer, a refrigerator, etc.) is
intelligible – the engineer is intelligent. The engineer sees
order, and so he can impose it on what lacks order. Rado's
argument merely amounts to saying that the machine is intelligible
because it is intelligible, that is, it is ordered because it is
ordered. But that is a tautology (an unnecessary repetition of
meaning, using different words that effectively say the same thing
twice).
To argue that God is a "hypothesis" that has become outdated and that
science will eventually explain the universe without an appeal to a
first cause that is outside of it is analogous to Rado's claim that the
machine is ordered and intelligible because it is ordered and intelligible. Such an explanation fails to account for the intelligibility of the universe. What renders the universe
intelligible in the first place? The answer is an intelligent
cause that is not part of the universe (not one of its ordered parts),
because "from nothing comes nothing", which also means from disorder
comes disorder, not order.
Natural selection, whatever its role is as a cause, is insufficient to
account for order because it presupposes that organisms possess order
(a nature) in the first place, that is, an order or inclination towards
self-preservation or unity. Things have an innate tendency to
preserve themselves, that is, an innate tendency towards stability and
unity. Things tend to fullness of being, that is, they resist
disintegration as much as they are able. That intrinsic tendency
to being, to unity, intelligibility and order, requires explanation – it
is far too easy to take it for granted.
To act with intelligence is to act with order, and to act with order is
to act for a purpose, for an end, and thus with intention (to tend to
an end). The engineer acts for an end. To act without
intelligence is to act without intention, or without a purpose or
end. The effect of such an act would be unintelligible, or
unknowable. One could not make any sense out of it, because it
lacks order or intelligibility (knowability). But science is
possible only because the universe is knowable or intelligible.
It is a cosmos (a harmony), not a chaos. What is the cause of its
intelligibility or knowability? The First Cause can only be
intelligent.
This is Meaghen Gonzalez, Editor of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.
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Acknowledgement
Deacon Douglas McManaman. "A Brief Commentary on the "God of the gaps" and Design: for high school students." CERC (March 25, 2011).
Printed with permission of Deacon Douglas McManaman.
The Author
Doug McManaman is a Deacon and a Religion and Philosophy teacher at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario, Canada. He is the past president of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. Deacon Douglas studied Philosophy at St. Jerome's College in Waterloo, and Theology at the University of Montreal. He is the author of Christ Lives!, The Logic of Anger, Why Be Afraid?, Basic Catholicism, Introduction to Philosophy for Young People, and A Treatise on the Four Cardinal Virtues. Deacon McManaman is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center. Visit his website here.
Copyright © 2011 Deacon Douglas McManaman