"God of the gaps" is a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence. The "gaps" usage was made by Christian theologians not to discredit theism but rather to point out the fallacy of relying on teleological arguments for God's existence.
Some use the phrase as a criticism of theology, to mean that the
existence of a creator is almost always proposed for anything not
currently explained by science.
Origins of the term
From the 1880s, Friedrick Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part Two, "On Priests", said "... into every gap they put their delusion, their stopgap, which they called God."
The concept, although not the exact wording, goes back to Henry Drummond, a 19th-century evangelist lecturer, from his Lowell Lectures on The Ascent of Man. He chastises those Christians
who point to the things that science can not yet explain—"gaps which
they will fill up with God"—and urges them to embrace all nature as
God's, as the work of "an immanent
God, which is the God of Evolution, is infinitely grander than the
occasional wonder-worker, who is the God of an old theology."
In 1933, Ernest Barnes, the Bishop of Birmingham, used the phrase in a discussion of general relativity's implication of a Big Bang:
Must we then postulate Divine
intervention? Are we to bring in God to create the first current of
Laplace's nebula or to let off the cosmic firework of Lemaître's
imagination? I confess an unwillingness to bring God in this way upon
the scene. The circumstances with thus seem to demand his presence are
too remote and too obscure to afford me any true satisfaction. Men have
thought to find God at the special creation of their own species, or
active when mind or life first appeared on earth. They have made him God
of the gaps in human knowledge. To me the God of the trigger is as
little satisfying as the God of the gaps. It is because throughout the
physical Universe I find thought and plan and power that behind it I see
God as the creator.
During World War II the German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer expressed the concept in similar terms in letters he wrote while in a Nazi prison. Bonhoeffer wrote, for example
how wrong it is to use God as a
stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the
frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and
that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them,
and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we
know, not in what we don't know.
There is no 'God of the gaps' to
take over at those strategic places where science fails; and the reason
is that gaps of this sort have the unpreventable habit of shrinking.
and
Either God is in the whole of Nature, with no gaps, or He's not there at all.
Coulson was a mathematics professor at Oxford University as well as a Methodist church leader, often appearing in the religious programs of British Broadcasting Corporation. His book got national attention, was reissued as a paperback, and was reprinted several times, most recently in 1971.
It is claimed that the actual phrase 'God of the gaps' was invented by Coulson.
The term was then used in a 1971 book and a 1978 article, by Richard Bube. He articulated the concept in greater detail in Man come of Age: Bonhoeffer’s Response to the God-of-the-Gaps
(1978). Bube attributed modern crises in religious faith in part to the
inexorable shrinking of the God-of-the-gaps as scientific knowledge
progressed. As humans progressively increased their understanding of
nature, the previous "realm" of God seemed to many persons and religions
to be getting smaller and smaller by comparison. Bube maintained that Darwin's Origin of Species
was the "death knell" of the God-of-the-gaps. Bube also maintained that
the God-of-the-gaps was not the same as the God of the Bible (that is,
he was not making an argument
against God per se, but rather asserting there was a fundamental
problem with the perception of God as existing in the gaps of
present-day knowledge).
General usage
The term "God of the gaps" is sometimes used in describing the incremental retreat of religious explanations of physical phenomena in the face of increasingly comprehensive scientific explanations for those phenomena. Dorothy Dinnerstein includes psychological explanations for a person believing in a deity, particularly a male deity.
R. Laird Harris writes of the physical science aspect of this:
The expression, "God of the Gaps," contains a real truth.
It is erroneous if it is taken to mean that God is not immanent in
natural law but is only to be observed in mysteries unexplained by law.
No significant Christian group has believed this view. It is true,
however, if it be taken to emphasize that God is not only immanent in
natural law but also is active in the numerous phenomena associated with
the supernatural and the spiritual. There are gaps in a
physical-chemical explanation of this world, and there always will be.
Because science has learned many marvelous secrets of nature, it cannot
be concluded that it can explain all phenomena. Meaning, soul, spirits,
and life are subjects incapable of physical-chemical explanation or
formation.
Usage in referring to a type of argument
The term God-of-the-gaps fallacy can refer to a position that assumes an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon, which is a variant of an argument from ignorance fallacy. Such an argument is sometimes reduced to the following form:
There is a gap in understanding of some aspect of the natural world.
Therefore the cause must be supernatural.
One example of such an argument, which uses God as an explanation of
one of the current gaps in biological science, is as follows:
"Because current science can't figure out exactly how life started, it
must be God who caused life to start." Critics of intelligent design creationism, for example, have accused proponents of using this basic type of argument.
It is important to note that while "God-of-the-gaps" refers to an
argument from ignorance regarding natural phenomena (e.g., That volcano
is erupting because the god of the earth is angry"), intelligent design
arguments (e.g., A mousetrap is irreducibly complex and did not evolve
by natural selection causes) are not necessary identical to the
"God-of-the-gaps" fallacy. Irreducible complexity is an argument from
knowledge, not ignorance.
God-of-the-gaps arguments have been discouraged by some
theologians who assert that such arguments tend to relegate God to the
leftovers of science: as scientific knowledge increases, the dominion of
God decreases.
Criticism
The
term was invented as a criticism of people who perceive that God only
acts in the gaps, and who restrict God's activity to such "gaps".
It has also been argued that the God-of-the-gaps view is predicated on
the assumption that any event which can be explained by science
automatically excludes God; that if God did not do something via direct
action, that he had no role in it at all.
The "God of the gaps" argument, as traditionally advanced by
scholarly Christians, was intended as a criticism against weak or
tenuous faith, not as a statement against theism or belief in God.
According to John Habgood in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology,
the phrase is generally derogatory, and is inherently a direct
criticism of a tendency to postulate acts of God to explain phenomena
for which science has yet to give a satisfactory account. Habgood also states:
It is theologically more satisfactory to look for
evidence of God's actions within natural processes rather than apart
from them, in much the same way that the meaning of a book transcends,
but is not independent of, the paper and ink of which it is comprised.
Both many theologians and scientists believe that it is a logical
fallacy to base belief in God on gaps in scientific knowledge. In this
vein, Richard Dawkins, an atheist, dedicates a chapter of his book The God Delusion to criticism of the God-of-the-gaps fallacy. Other scientists holding religious beliefs, such as Francis Collins, reject a God-of-the-gaps while embracing the idea of a God who fine tuned the universe precisely so human life could exist.
The problem of Hell is an ethical problem in religion in which the existence of Hell for the punishment of souls is regarded as inconsistent with the notion of a just, moral, and omnibenevolentGod. It derives from four key propositions: that Hell exists; that it is for the punishment of people whose lives on Earth are judged to have sinned against God; that some people go there; and there is no escape.
Issues
There
are several major issues to the problem of Hell. The first is its
definition, as there are several words in the original languages of the
Bible that are translated into the word "hell" in English. A second
issue is whether the existence of Hell is compatible with justice. A
third is whether Hell is compatible with God's mercy, especially as
articulated in Christianity. An issue particular to Christianity is
whether Hell is actually populated forever or they perish, or if God
will ultimately restore all immortal souls (universal reconciliation) in the World to Come.
In some aspects, the problem of Hell is similar to the problem of evil, assuming the suffering of Hell is caused by free will
and something God could have prevented. The discussion regarding the
problem of evil may thus also be of interest for the problem of Hell.
The problem of Hell can be viewed as the worst and most intractable
instance of the problem of evil.
Criticisms of the doctrines of Hell
Criticisms
of the doctrines of Hell can focus on the intensity or eternity of its
torments, and arguments surrounding all these issues can invoke appeals
to the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence of God.
If one believes in the idea of eternal Hell, unending suffering,
or the idea that some souls will perish (whether destroyed by God or
otherwise), author Thomas Talbott
says that one has to either let go of the idea that God wishes to save
all beings, or accept the idea that God wants to save all, but will not
"successfully accomplish his will and satisfy his own desire in this
matter."
Judaism
Almost no forms of Judaism share the traditional majority Christian belief in the immortality of the soul, therefore Sheol (Hades in the Septuagint, "the grave" in many instances in the King James Bible) is simply the destination for all the dead, and no "problem of Sheol" exists. Gehenna, found in the Mishnah, is the Lake of fire or destination of the living sinners and raised wicked at Judgment Day, and the place of either destruction, in the Mishnah or, in some rabbinical texts, eternal torment, which would potentially create a "problem of Gehenna."
Jewish religious thinking has traditionally held, even among different schools ranging from Jewish Orthodox teachings to Reform Jewish thinking to Conservative Jewish thinking and more, that "The righteous of all peoples have a place in the World-To-Come", in the words of the Talmud, with humanity as a whole being "saved". Thus, rabbinical scholars have broadly held the inclusive view that the vast majority of people in existence, both Jewish and gentile, will be reconciled with God in the afterlife given the power of his grace and the fundamental goodness of humanity.
Christianity
In Christianity, Hell has traditionally been regarded as a place of punishment for wrongdoing or sin
in the mortal life, as a manifestation of divine justice. Nonetheless,
the extreme severity and/or infinite duration of the punishment might be
seen as incompatible with justice. However, Hell is not seen as strictly a matter of retributive justice even by the more traditionalist churches. For example, the Eastern Orthodox see it as a condition brought about by, and the natural consequence of, free rejection of God's love.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Hell is a place of punishment brought about by a person's self-exclusion from communion with God. The Catholic Church believes that hell is the free and continual rejection of God's forgiveness of sins. The church believes that this rejection is by committing and refusing to repent of a mortal sin. The church believes that those who die only in original sin are not predestined to hell, since God is not bound by baptism.
The church believes that hell is eternal because the sinner refuses to
turn away from his mortal sin to God's forgiveness of sins. The church believes that hell is its own chief punishment.
In some ancient Eastern Christian traditions, Hell and Heaven are distinguished not spatially, but by the relation of a person to God's love.
I also maintain that those who are
punished in Gehenna, are scourged by the scourge of love. Nay, what is
so bitter and vehement as the torment of love?...It would be improper
for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of
God...it torments sinners...Thus I say that this is the torment of
Gehenna: bitter regret.
In terms of the Bible itself, issues of salvation and access to heaven or to hell are mentioned frequently. Examples include John 3:16
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." which tends to show the wicked perish and the saints have
everlasting life or John 3:36 (NIV),
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the
Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them", and 2 Thessalonians 1:8–9 (NIV),
"Those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord
Jesus, they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out
from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might."
The minority Christian doctrine that sinners perish and are destroyed rather than punished eternally such as is found in John 3:16 "That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.", is referred to as Christian mortalism; annihilation for those not awarded immortal life, conditional immortality for those who are.
This Christian view is found in very early Christianity, resurfaced in
the Reformation, and since 1800 has found increasing support among
Protestant theologians.
Justice
Some
opponents of the traditional doctrine of Hell claim that the punishment
is disproportionate to any crimes that could be committed. Because human
beings have a finite lifespan, they can commit only a finite number of
sins, yet Hell is an infinite punishment. In this vein, Jorge Luis Borges suggests in his essay La duración del Infierno
that no transgression can warrant an infinite punishment on the grounds
that there is no such thing as an "infinite transgression". Philosopher
Immanuel Kant argued in 1793 in Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason
that since morality lies ultimately in a person's disposition, and as
disposition is concerned with the adoption of universal principles, or
as he called them: "maxims", every human being is guilty of, in one
sense, an infinite amount of violations of the law, and so consequently
an infinite punishment is not unjustified.
Divine mercy
Another
issue is the problem of harmonizing the existence of Hell with God's
infinite mercy or omnibenevolence which is found in scripture.
Some modern critics of the doctrine of Hell (such as Marilyn McCord Adams)
claim that, even if Hell is seen as a choice rather than as punishment,
it would be unreasonable for God to give such flawed and ignorant
creatures as ourselves the responsibility of our eternal destinies. Jonathan Kvanvig, in The Problem of Hell (1993), agrees that God would not allow one to be eternally damned by a decision made under the wrong circumstances.
One should not always honor the choices of human beings, even when they
are full adults, if, for instance, the choice is made while depressed
or careless. On Kvanvig's view, God will abandon no person until they
have made a settled, final decision, under favorable circumstances, to
reject God, but God will respect a choice made under the right
circumstances. Once a person finally and competently chooses to reject
God, out of respect for the person's autonomy, God allows them to be
annihilated.
Islam
In Islam, Jahannam is the final destiny of evildoers and is regarded as necessary for God's
divine justice. God's punishments are by definition considered to be
justified, since God holds absolute sovereignty. Furthermore, with
regard to predestination, one of six articles of faith in Islam, the question of how creatures be punished for their deeds arises.
The inhabitants of Hell
The inhabitants of afterlife places are not dogmatically determined in Islam, thus it is up to individual and critical interpretation of the Qur'an as to who enters Hell. A common concern is the fate of non-Muslims and if they will be punished for not belonging to the right religion. An often-recited quranic verse implies that righteous non-Muslims will be saved on Judgement Day:
Indeed, those who believed and those who were Jews or
Christians or Sabeans—those who believed in Allah and the Last Day and
did righteousness—will have their reward with their Lord, and no fear
will there be concerning them, nor will they grieve. 2:62
However some scholars hold this verse may be set aside as only applying before the arrival of Muhammad.
Some non-pluralist scholars like Ibn Arabi
state that every human will receive a proper message and will not be
doomed for ignorance, while others claim non-Muslims are judged by their
own moral standards, because of God's all-embracing mercy.
Another criteria to determine the justice of Hell's punishment
derives from its duration, on which Islamic scholars disagree. Some
scholars state that Hell is eternal, others hold that Hell exists to
purify rather than inflict pain, and others state that Hell itself will cease to exist.
With the increasing urgency of pluralism, modern writers such as Edip Yüksel and Mouhanad Khorchide
hold Hell to be finite rather than eternal: Yüksel argues that
evildoers will be punished in Hell for an appropriate period then cease
to exist, so that their suffering (which is described in the Quran and is balanced with descriptions of heaven) will be only a just amount. Other universalist-leaning scholars include Tariq Ramadan, Sayyid Qutb and possibly Ibn Qayyim who some argue, like his teacher Ibn Taymiyya, was not a universalist.
Concerning predestination
The degree of free will differs in Islamic thought. Based on Sunni traditions, God wrote everything that will happen on a tablet before creating the world, therefore human free will
is not beyond God's influence. This results in the problem: how
punishment is justified since God made humans the way they will sin. In
this tradition, in Ashari
thought, God created good and evil deeds, which humans decide
upon—humans have their own possibility to choose, but God retains
sovereignty of all possibilities. This still leaves the question of why
God set out those people's lives (or the negative choice of deeds) which
result in Hell, and why God created the possibility to become evil. In
Islamic thought, evil is considered to be movement away from good, and
God created this possibility so that humans are able to recognize good. (In contrast, angels
are unable to move away from good, therefore angels generally rank
lower than humans as they have reached heaven because they lack the
ability to perceive the world as humans do.)
Proposed answers
Annihilationism
As with other Jewish writings of the Second Temple period, the New Testament text distinguishes two words, both translated "Hell" in older English Bibles: Hades, "the grave", and Gehenna where God "can destroy both body and soul". A minority of Christians read this to mean that neither Hades nor Gehenna are eternal but refer to the ultimate destruction of the wicked in the Lake of Fire
in a consuming fire, but which because of the Greek words used in
translating from the Hebrew text has become confused with Greek myths
and ideas. From the sixth century BC onward, the Greeks developed pagan
ideas for the dead, and of reincarnation and even transmigration of
souls. Christians picked up these pagan beliefs inferred by the Greek of
immortality of the soul, or spirit being of a mortal individual, which
survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, which is
at odds and in contrast to the scriptural teaching that the dead go to
the grave and know nothing and then at the end, an eternal oblivion of
the wicked and an eternal life for the saints. Scripture makes clear
that the dead are awaiting resurrection at the last judgment, when
Christ comes and also when each person will receive his reward or are
part of those lost with the wicked.
The Greek words used for those Bibles written in Greek, came
loaded with ideas not in line with the original Hebrew, but since at the
time, Greek was used as basically English is used today to communicate
between people across the world, it was translated into these Greek
words, and giving an incorrect understanding of the penalty of sin. In
the Hebrew text when people died they went to Sheol,
the grave and the wicked ultimately went to Gehenna which is the
consuming by fire. So when the grave or the eternal oblivion of the
wicked was translated into Greek, the word Hades was sometimes used,
which is a Greek term for the realm of the dead. Nevertheless, the
meaning depending on context was the grave, death, or the end of the
wicked in which they are ultimately destroyed or perish. So we see where
the grave or death or eventual destruction of the wicked, was
translated using Greek words that since they had no exact ones to use,
became a mix of mistranslation, pagan influence, and Greek myth
associated with the word, but its original meaning was simple death or
the destruction of the wicked at the end.
Christian mortalism
is the doctrine that all men and women, including Christians, must die,
and do not continue and are not conscious after death. Therefore, annihilationism includes the doctrine that "the wicked" are also destroyed rather than tormentedforever in traditional "Hell" or the lake of fire. Christian mortalism and annihilationism are directly related to the doctrine of conditional immortality, the idea that a human soul is not immortal unless it is given eternal life at the Second Coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. Such a belief is based on the many texts which state that the wicked perish:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." John 3:16 (KJV).
"For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast
done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own
head. For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the
heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow
down, and they shall be as though they had not been." Obadiah 1:15–16 (KJV).
Annihilationism asserts that God will eventually destroy or annihilate the wicked when they are consumed in the Lake of Fire at the end, leaving only the righteous to live on in immortality.
Conditional immortality
asserts that souls are naturally mortal, and those who reject Christ
are separated from the sustaining power of God, thus dying off on their
own.
This is seen in the texts making clear the alternatives at the end are to perish or to have eternal, everlasting life:
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23 (KJV)
And that the consequence for sin at the day of judgment when God will
judge both the living and the dead when He appears is death, not
burning forever. God's gift is eternal life, very different from the
penalty of sin:
"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations,
and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." 2 Peter 2:9. (KJV).
"As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world." Matthew 13:40 (KJV).
"So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come
forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them
into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 13:49–50 (KJV).
The mortality of the soul has been held throughout the history of both Judaism and Christianity, with many biblical scholars looking at the issue through the Hebrew text, have denied the teaching of innate immortality. Rejection of the immortality of the soul, and advocacy of Christian mortalism, was a feature of Protestantism since the early days of the Reformation with Martin Luther himself rejecting the traditional idea, though his view did not carry into orthodox Lutheranism. One of the most notable English opponents of the immortality of the soul was Thomas Hobbes who describes the idea as a Greek "contagion" in Christian doctrine. Modern proponents of conditional immortality include as denominations the Seventh-day Adventists, Bible Students, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, and some other ProtestantChristians.
Free will
Some
apologists argue that Hell exists because of free will, and that Hell
is a choice rather than an imposed punishment. Jonathan L. Kvanvig
writes:
[C.S.] Lewis
believes that the doors of hell are locked from the inside rather than
from the outside. Thus, according to Lewis, if escape from hell never
happens, it is not because God is not willing that it should happen.
Instead, residence in hell is eternal because that is just what persons
in hell have chosen for themselves.
We may rest assured that no one
will suffer in hell who could by any means have been won to Christ in
this life. God leaves no stone unturned to rescue all who would respond
to the convicting and wooing of the Holy Spirit.
An example from popular culture can be found in the graphic novel series The Sandman. In it, souls go to Hell because they believe that they deserve to, rather than being condemned to it by God or Satan.
Universal reconciliation
Universal reconciliation is the doctrine or belief of some Christians that all will receive salvation
because of the love and mercy of God. Universal reconciliation does not
commit one to the position that one can be saved apart from Christ. It
only commits one to the position that all will eventually be saved
through Christ. Neither does universal reconciliation commit one to the
position that there is no Hell or damnation—Hell can well be the
consuming fire through which Christ refines those who turn from him.
Universal reconciliation only claims that one day Death and Hades
themselves will be destroyed and all immortal souls will be reconciled
to Him.
It was traditionally claimed by some western scholars such as the Universalist historian George T. Knight (1911) and Pierre Batiffol (English translation 1914) that a form of universal salvation could be found among some theologians in early Christianity. Origen interpreted the New Testament's reference (Acts 3:21) to a "restoration of all things", (Greek: apocatastasis of all things), as meaning that sinners might be restored to God and released from Hell, returning the universe to a state identical to its pure beginnings. This theory of apocatastasis could be easily interpreted to imply that even devils would be saved, as was the case during the later Origenist controversies. Greek orthodox scholars do not count Gregory of Nyssa (AD 331–395) as a believer in Universal Salvation.
In the 17th century, a belief in Christian universalism appeared in England and traveled over to what has become the present-day US Christian Universalists such as Hosea Ballou
argued that Jesus taught Universalist principles including universal
reconciliation and the divine origin and destiny of all souls. Ballou
also argued that some Universalist principles were taught or
foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Critics of universalism maintain that the Bible does not teach universal salvation, while proponents insist that it does.
Recent examples of advocates for the position are Kallistos Ware, a Greek Orthodox bishop and retired University of Oxfordtheologian who states that many of the 'Fathers of Church' postulated the idea of salvation for all, and Saint Silouan of Mt. Athos,
who argued that the compassion and love of those in heaven and on earth
will extend to eliminating suffering even in hell. In terms of Biblical
citations, Father David A. Fisher, Pastor of St. Anthony of Padua
Maronite Church and professor of philosophy at Ohio Central State University, has argued that total reconciliation seems to arise from the First Epistle to the Corinthians such as 1 Corinthians 15:22, "As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ", and 1 Corinthians 15:28, "God will be all in all." Verses that seem to contradict the tradition of complete damnation and come up in arguments also include Lamentations 3:31–33
(NIV), "For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings
grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love", and 1 Timothy 4:10 (NIV), "We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe."
Theodicy
With
regards to the problem of hell, as one that can be traced to the more
fundamental theological dilemma of God and the existence of good and
evil, theodicy
offers its own answers. The main issue holds that if God is all good,
powerful, and perfect, then how can he allow evil and, by extension,
hell to exist? For some thinkers, the existence of evil and hell could
mean that God is not perfectly good and powerful or that there is no God
at all.
Theodicy tries to address this dilemma by reconciling an all-knowing,
all-powerful, and omnibenevelont God with the existence of evil and
suffering, outlining the possibility that God and evil can coexist.
There are several thoughts or theodicies such as biblical theodicy, the
theodicy attributed to Gottfried Leibniz,
Plotinian, Irenean, and Augustinian, among others. These differ in
their respective arguments but, overall, these theodicies - as opposed
to a defense that demonstrates the existence of God and evil or hell -
seek to demonstrate a framework where God's existence is plausible. It
is, therefore, a logical instead of evidential answer to the problem. A
theodicy explains God's reason for allowing evil, that there is a
greater good that justifies such permission.
Empty Hell theory
Some Catholic theologians such as Karl Rahner, Gisbert Greshake, and Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar
have at length discussed the possibility that any man may be led by a
final grace to freely willed repentance if necessary at least at some
point in the process of dying. This possible process is described thus
by the late Munich dogmatic Prof. Michael Schmaus:
"If in terms of theology death is a meeting of a man with God in so far
as God calls man and he answers obedience, readiness and love, it would
be surprising if in the moment of dying the chances of taking position
never were given, even contrary to the outward look. [...] One cannot
apply to experience as counter-argument, because [...] what happens then
in the interior and behind the physiological processes is only known by
someone who experiences dying itself, and this unto its very end. We
may assume that in the dissolving process of the earthly union of body
and soul and with the progressing breakaway from earthly entanglements, a
special awakeness accrues to man [...] in which he can say yea or nay
to God."
Balthasar was careful to describe his opinion that Hell might be
empty as merely a hope, but even this claim was rejected by most
conservative Catholics, including Cardinal Avery Dulles. The Syllabus says in no. 17 that we may not (even) hope for the salvation of all non-Catholics; this seems to mean conversely that there is at least one non-Catholic in all history who will not be saved. Matthew 7:21–23 seems to say that "many" will be reproved, which may imply hell (not some lesser purgatory).
On the other hand, error no. 17 in question only speaks of those "in
the true Church of Christ," which need not imply the visible Church. Roman Catholicism allows for the possibility that non-Catholics can be saved, and rejected the view known as Feeneyism, which held that only people in visible communion with the Catholic Church could be saved.
An intelligent designer, also referred to as an intelligent agent, is the hypotheticalwilled and self-aware entity that the intelligent design movement argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life. The term "intelligent cause" is also used, implying their teleological supposition of direction and purpose in features of the universe and of living things.
History
The popularly termed intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist campaign that arose out of the Christian fundamentalistcreation science movement. Proponents of intelligent design
argue to the public that their concept does not posit the identity of
the designer as part of this effort, but in statements to their
constituency, which consists largely of Christian conservatives, they identify the designer as God.
The Discovery Institute has claimed that university criticism of
intelligent design is tantamount to "endorsement of an anti-religious
view"
Identity
William Dembski states in his book Design Inference that the nature of the intelligent designer cannot be inferred from intelligent design and suggests that the designer, if one is even necessary for design inference, may or may not be "the God of Scripture." In December 2007 Dembski told Focus on the Family, "I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God."
Some leading intelligent design proponents have stated
identifying or characterizing the designer is beyond the scope of
intelligent design as a line of inquiry. Proponents had hoped that, by
avoiding invoking creation by a specific supernatural entity, (such as that employed by creation science), intelligent design would be considered scientific and not violate the establishment clause of the US constitution.
Proponents feared that were intelligent design identified as a
restatement of previous forms of creationism, it would be precluded from
being taught in public schools after the 1987 Supreme Court of the United States decision in Edwards vs Aguillard.
This line of reasoning was not particularly persuasive to most in the
scientific community, which overwhelmingly rejected intelligent design
as both a line of scientific inquiry and as a basis for a sound
education in science.
On December 20, 2005 federal district court ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
that intelligent design was not science and was essentially religious
in nature. The ruling not only rendered that public school district's
endorsement of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in
science classes unconstitutional
on the grounds that its inclusion violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, but validated the objections of critics who discounted proponents' claim that the identity was not God.
Highlighting these mutually exclusive claims about the designer,
Dembski, despite having said that the intelligent designer or designers
could be any god or gods, or even space aliens,
has also said that "intelligent design should be understood as the
evidence that God has placed in nature to show that the physical world
is the product of intelligence and not simply the result of mindless
material forces" and that "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory."
At various times, leading proponents in the intelligent design movement have clearly expressed that they consider the Abrahamic God "Elohim" in his role as a creator God,
to be the intelligent designer and denied that intelligent designer is
God, depending on which audience they are addressing. One example is
William Dembski, who on his blog in response to the question "Is the
designer responsible for biological complexity God?" said "not
necessarily" and "To ask who or what is the designer of a particular
object is to ask for the immediate intelligent agent responsible for its
design. The point is that God is able to work through derived or
surrogate intelligences, which can be anything from angels to organizing
principles embedded in nature."
Yet to the intelligent design movement's conservative Christian
constituents Dembski has said "intelligent design should be understood
as the evidence that God has placed in nature to show that the physical
world is the product of intelligence and not simply the result of
mindless material forces. This evidence is available to all apart from
the special revelation of God in salvation history as recounted in
Scripture. ... Intelligent design makes it impossible to be an
intellectually fulfilled atheist. This gives intelligent design
incredible traction as a tool for apologetics, opening up the
God-question to individuals who think that science has buried God"
and "Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should
be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the
intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from
receiving serious consideration." Stephen C. Meyer,
founder and leader of the intelligent design program of the Discovery
Institute admitted on national television he believes that the designer
is God.
Phillip E. Johnson, considered the father of the ID movement has stated the goal of the intelligent design movement:
"Our strategy has been to change
the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design,
which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and
into the schools." -- Phillip E. Johnson, American Family Radio, January 10, 2003
"To replace materialistic
explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human
beings are created by God." . . . "Design theory promises to reverse
the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it
with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." -- The Wedge Document, a 1999 Discovery Institute pamphlet
The amount of creation that the intelligent designer did has also been criticised by Young Earth Creationists as not being specific enough, and particularly contradicting their beliefs of Biblical inerrancy and a young earth. Some intelligent design proponents say the intelligent designer fine-tuned the universe'sphysical constants
in such a way that life is the result of the universe's physical
constants being related to one another in a fashion that permits life to
exist. The fine-tuned universe argument
is a central premise or presented as a given in many of the published
works of prominent intelligent design proponents, such as William A. Dembski and Michael Behe.
Criticism
Intelligent
design has been presented by its proponents as a "big tent" strategy
into which several accounts of creation can fit. Were a "scientific"
version of intelligent design approved for inclusion in public school
science curricula, then a path would be opened for discussion of
alternatives to not only natural selection but naturalism as well, and eventually religious accounts on the origin of life.
The vast majority of scientists reject the concept of intelligent
design and an intelligent designer. Instead, the most widely accepted
explanation is that physical processes such as natural selection can
account for the complexity of life and other phenomena and features of
the universe. Attempts to insert theories of intelligent design into
public school science curricula fits in with the intelligent design
movement's social aims, via the overturning of Western secularism as
detailed in the Wedge strategy. The concept of the intelligent designer has been criticised as a God-of-the-gaps
argument. Introducing the hypothesis of an intelligent designer
introduces the unsolved problem of accounting for the origin of such a
designer (first cause).
By raising the question of the need for a designer for objects
with irreducible complexity, intelligent design also raises the
question, "what designed the designer?" Richard Dawkins
has argued that "If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a
complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea
that God (or the intelligent designer) is simply immune to the normal
demands of scientific explanation,"
since such an answer would be unscientific. With religious
creationism, the question "what created God?" can be answered with
theological arguments, but in intelligent design, the chain of designers
can be followed back indefinitely in an infinite regression,
leaving the question of the creation of the first designer dangling. As
a result, intelligent design does not explain how the complexity
happened in the first place; it just moves it.
Elliott Sober
says that by intelligent design's own arguments, a designer capable of
creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex: "Any
mind in nature that designs and builds an irreducibly complex system is
itself irreducibly complex" Sober says that this an argument that intelligent design proponents still need to respond to.
If intelligent design proponents invoke an uncaused causer or deity to resolve this problem, they contradict a fundamental assumption of intelligent design that design requires a designer and reduce intelligent design to religious creationism. Another possible counter-argument might be an infinite regression of designers. However, admitting infinite numbers of objects also allows any arbitrarily improbable event to occur,
such as an object with "specific" complexity assembling itself by
chance. Again, this contradicts a fundamental assumption of intelligent
design that a designer is needed for every specifically complex object,
producing a logical contradiction.
Critics contend the claim that positing a designer which explains
gaps in our understanding yet does not need to be itself explained as
not a contribution to knowledge but as a thought-terminating cliché.
The Dover trial
In
2005, intelligent design proponents arguments regarding the identity of
a designer became an issue considered by the court in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District,
the "Dover trial," where plaintiffs successfully argued that
intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board
policy requiring the presentation of intelligent design as an
alternative to evolution as an "explanation of the origin of life" thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In his ruling, the judge, John E. Jones III, stated
"However, as Dr. Haught testified,
anyone familiar with Western religious thought would immediately make
the association that the tactically unnamed designer is God..." -- Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, page 25
Jones also commented that the appearance of design is subjective:
"It is readily apparent to the
Court that the only attribute of design that biological systems appear
to share with human artifacts is their complex appearance, i.e. if it
looks complex or designed, it must have been designed. (23:73 (Behe)).
This inference to design based upon the appearance of a "purposeful
arrangement of parts" is a completely subjective proposition, determined
in the eye of each beholder and his/her viewpoint concerning the
complexity of a system." -- Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, page 81
"For human artifacts, we know the
designer's identity, human, and the mechanism of design, as we have
experience based upon empirical evidence that humans can make such
things, as well as many other attributes including the designer's
abilities, needs, and desires. With ID, proponents assert that they
refuse to propose hypotheses on the designer's identity, do not propose a
mechanism, and the designer, he/she/it/they, has never been seen. In
that vein, defense expert Professor Minnich agreed that in the case of
human artifacts and objects, we know the identity and capacities of the
human designer, but we do not know any of those attributes for the
designer of biological life. In addition, Professor Behe agreed that for
the design of human artifacts, we know the designer and its attributes
and we have a baseline for human design that does not exist for design
of biological systems. Professor Behe's only response to these seemingly
insurmountable points of disanalogy was that the inference still works
in science fiction movies. -- Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, page 81
The judge ruled that "ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents" and "that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science."
A creator deity or creator god (often called the Creator) is a deity or god responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatristic traditions separate a secondary creator from a primary transcendent being, identified as a primary creator.
Monotheism
Atenism
Initiated by Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti around 1330 BCE, during the New Kingdom period in ancient Egyptian history. They built an entirely new capital city (Akhetaten) for themselves and worshippers of their sole creator god on a wilderness. His father used to worship Aten
alongside other gods of their polytheistic religion. Aten, for a long
time before his father's time, was revered as a god among the many gods
and goddesses in Egypt. Atenism faded away after the death of the
pharaoh. Despite different views, Atenism is considered by some scholars
to be one of the frontiers of monotheism in human history.
Abrahamic religions
The Abrahamic creation narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the two first chapters of the Book of Genesis.
The first account (1:1 through 2:3) employs a repetitious structure of
divine fiat and fulfillment, then the statement "And there was evening
and there was morning, the [xth] day," for each of the
six days of creation. In each of the first three days there is an act
of division: day one divides the darkness from light, day two the
"waters above" from the "waters below", and day three the sea from the
land. In each of the next three days these divisions are populated: day
four populates the darkness and light with sun, moon, and stars; day
five populates seas and skies with fish and fowl; and finally,
land-based creatures and mankind populate the land.
The first (the Priestly story) was concerned with the cosmic plan of creation, while the second (the Yahwist story) focuses on man as cultivator of his environment and as a moral agent.
The second account, in contrast to the regimented seven-day scheme of
Genesis 1, uses a simple flowing narrative style that proceeds from
God's forming the first man through the Garden of Eden to the creation of the first woman and the institution of marriage. In contrast to the omnipotent
God of Genesis 1 creating a god-like humanity, the God of Genesis 2 can
fail as well as succeed. The humanity he creates is not god-like, but
is punished for acts which would lead to their becoming god-like
(Genesis 3:1-24) and the order and method of creation itself differs.
"Together, this combination of parallel character and contrasting
profile point to the different origin of materials in Genesis 1:1 and
Gen 2:4, however elegantly they have now been combined."
A similar theoretical proposition was demonstrated by Thomas Aquinas,
who linked Aristotelian philosophy with the Christian faith, followed
by the statement that God is the First Being, the First Mover, and is
Pure Act.
The deuterocanonical2 Maccabees has two relevant passages. At chapter 7, it narrows about the mother of a Jewish proto-martyr
telling to her son: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and
earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of
nothing, and mankind also"; at chapter 1, it refers a solemn prayer hymned by Jonathan, Nehemiah and the Priest of Israel,
while making sacrifices in honour of God: "O Lord, Lord God, Creator of
all things, who art fearefull, and strong, and righteous, and
mercifull, and the onely, and gracious king".
The Prologue to Gospel of John
begins with: "In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. / 2 The same was in the beginning with God. /
3 All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made
that was made."
Christianity affirms the creation by God since its early time in the Apostles' Creed ("I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.", 1st century AD), that is symmetrical to the Nicene Creed (4th century AD).
Nowadays, theologians debate whether the Bible itself teaches if this creation by God is a creation ex nihilo. Traditional interpreters argue on grammatical and syntactical grounds that this is the meaning of Genesis 1:1, which is commonly rendered: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." However, other interpreters understand creation ex nihilo as a 2nd-century theological development. According to this view, church fathers opposed notions appearing in pre-Christian creation myths and in Gnosticism—notions of creation by a demiurge out of a primordial state of matter (known in religious studies as chaos after the Greek term used by Hesiod in his Theogony).
Jewish thinkers took up the idea, which became important to Judaism.
According to Islam, God, known in Arabic as Allah,
is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator, Sustainer, Ordainer, and
Judge of the universe. Creation is seen as an act of divine choice and
mercy, one with a grand purpose: "And We (Royal we) did not create the heaven and earth and that between them in play."
Rather, the purpose of humanity is to be tested: "Who has created death
and life, that He may test you which of you is best in deed. And He is
the All-Mighty, the Oft-Forgiving;"
Those who pass the test are rewarded with Paradise: "Verily for the
Righteous there will be a fulfilment of (the heart's) desires;"
According to the Islamic teachings, God exists above the heavens and the creation itself. The Quran
mentions, "He it is Who created for you all that is on earth. Then He
Istawa (rose over) towards the heaven and made them seven heavens and He
is the All-Knower of everything." At the same time, God is unlike anything in creation: "There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing."
and nobody can perceive God in totality: "Vision perceives Him not, but
He perceives [all] vision; and He is the Subtle, the Acquainted."
God in Islam is not only majestic and sovereign, but also a personal
God: "And indeed We have created man, and We know what his ownself
whispers to him. And We are nearer to him than his jugular vein (by Our
Knowledge)." Allah commands the believers to constantly remember Him ("O you who have believed, remember Allah with much remembrance")
and to invoke Him alone ("And whoever invokes besides Allah another
deity for which he has no proof - then his account is only with his
Lord. Indeed, the disbelievers will not succeed.").
Islam teaches that God as referenced in the Quran is the only god and the same God worshipped by members of other Abrahamic religions such as Christianity and Judaism.
Sikhism
One of the biggest responsibilities in the faith of Sikhism is to worship God as "The Creator", termed Waheguru, who is shapeless, timeless, and sightless, i.e., Nirankar, Akal, and Alakh Niranjan. The religion only takes after the belief in "One God for All" or Ik Onkar.
Bahá'í
In the Bahá'í Faith God is the imperishable, uncreated being who is the source of all existence. He is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty". Although transcendent
and inaccessible directly, his image is reflected in his creation. The
purpose of creation is for the created to have the capacity to know and
love its creator.
Monolatrism
Monolatristic traditions would separate a secondary creator from the primary transcendent being, identified as a primary creator. According to Gaudiya Vaishnavas, Brahma is the secondary creator and not the supreme. Vishnu is the primary creator. According to Vaishnava
belief Vishnu creates the basic universal shell and provides all the
raw materials and also places the living entities within the material
world, fulfilling their own independent will. Brahma works with the
materials provided by Vishnu to actually create what are believed to be
planets in Puranic terminology, and he supervises the population of
them.
Monism
Monism is the philosophy that asserts oneness as its fundamental
premise, and it contradicts the dualism-based theistic premise that
there is a creator God that is eternal and separate from the rest of
existence. There are two types of monism, namely spiritual monism which
holds that all spiritual reality is one, and material monism which holds
that everything including all material reality is one and the same
thing.
Non-creationism
Buddhism
Buddhism denies a creator deity and posits that mundane deities such as Mahabrahma are misperceived to be a creator.
Jainism
Jainism does not support belief in a creator deity. According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its constituents - soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion have always existed (a static universe similar to that of Epicureanism and steady state cosmological model). All the constituents and actions are governed by universalnatural laws.
It is not possible to create matter out of nothing and hence the sum
total of matter in the universe remains the same (similar to law of conservation of mass). Similarly, the soul of each living being is unique and uncreated and has existed since beginningless time.
The Jain theory of causation
holds that a cause and its effect are always identical in nature and
therefore a conscious and immaterial entity like God cannot create a
material entity like the universe. Furthermore, according to the Jain
concept of divinity, any soul who destroys its karmas and desires
achieves liberation. A soul who destroys all its passions and desires
has no desire to interfere in the working of the universe. Moral rewards
and sufferings are not the work of a divine being, but a result of an
innate moral order in the cosmos; a self-regulating mechanism whereby the individual reaps the fruits of his own actions through the workings of the karmas.
Through the ages, Jain philosophers
have adamantly rejected and opposed the concept of creator and
omnipotent God and this has resulted in Jainism being labeled as nāstika darsana or atheist philosophy by the rival religious philosophies.
The theme of non-creationism and absence of omnipotent God and divine
grace runs strongly in all the philosophical dimensions of Jainism,
including its cosmology, karma, moksa and its moral code of conduct. Jainism asserts a religious and virtuous life is possible without the idea of a creator god.
Polytheism
In polytheistic creation, the world often comes into being organically, e.g. sprouting from a primal seed, sexually, by miraculous birth (sometimes by parthenogenesis), by hieros gamos, violently, by the slaying of a primeval monster, or artificially, by a divine demiurge or "craftsman". Sometimes, a god is involved, wittingly or unwittingly, in bringing about creation. Examples include:
Sub Saharan African contexts:
Mbombo of Bakuba mythology, who vomited out the world upon feeling a stomach
In Hinduism, its Vedic scriptures call the unchanging eternal reality as Brahman. The Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig Veda
expresses doubt whether there is or is not any creator deity, and
whether even gods know who or what created the universe. In later Puranic period, equate the Brahman to Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva or Devi, and each major sub-tradition of Hinduism calls them respectively as the creator deity.
Plato, in his dialogue Timaeus, describes a creation myth involving a being called the demiurge (δημιουργός "craftsman"). Neoplatonism and Gnosticism continued and developed this concept. In Neoplatonism, the demiurge represents the second cause or dyad, after the monad. In Gnostic dualism, the demiurge is an imperfect spirit and possibly an evil being, transcended by divine Fullness (Pleroma). Unlike the Abrahamic God, Plato's demiurge is unable to create ex-nihilo.
Hinduism
Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, and atheism among others;
and its concept of creator deity is complex and depends upon each
individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. Hinduism is
sometimes referred to as henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others), but any such term is an overgeneralization.
The Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) of the Rig Veda is one of the earliest texts
which "demonstrates a sense of metaphysical speculation" about what
created the universe, the concept of god(s) and The One, and whether
even The One knows how the universe came into being. The Rig Veda praises various deities, none superior nor inferior, in a henotheistic manner.
The hymns repeatedly refer to One Truth and Reality. The "One Truth" of
Vedic literature, in modern era scholarship, has been interpreted as
monotheism, monism, as well as a deified Hidden Principles behind the
great happenings and processes of nature.
The post-Vedic texts of Hinduism offer multiple theories of cosmogony, many involving Brahma. These include Sarga (primary creation of universe) and Visarga
(secondary creation), ideas related to the Indian thought that there
are two levels of reality, one primary that is unchanging (metaphysical) and other secondary that is always changing (empirical),
and that all observed reality of the latter is in an endless repeating
cycle of existence, that cosmos and life we experience is continually
created, evolved, dissolved and then re-created. The primary creator is extensively discussed in Vedic cosmogonies with Brahman or Purusha or Devi among the terms used for the primary creator,
while the Vedic and post-Vedic texts name different gods and goddesses
as secondary creators (often Brahma in post-Vedic texts), and in some
cases a different god or goddess is the secondary creator at the start
of each cosmic cycle (kalpa, aeon).
Brahma is a "secondary creator" as described in the Mahabharata and Puranas, and among the most studied and described. Born from a lotus emerging from the navel of Vishnu, Brahma creates all the forms in the universe, but not the primordial universe itself. In contrast, the Shiva-focussed Puranas describe Brahma and Vishnu to have been created by Ardhanarishvara, that is half Shiva and half Parvati; or alternatively, Brahma was born from Rudra, or Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma creating each other cyclically in different aeons (kalpa). Thus in most Puranic texts, Brahma's creative activity depends on the presence and power of a higher god.
In other versions of creation, the creator deity is the one who is equivalent to the Brahman, the metaphysical reality in Hinduism. In Vaishnavism, Vishnu creates Brahma and orders him to order the rest of universe. In Shaivism, Shiva may be treated as the creator. In Shaktism, the Great Goddess creates the Trimurti.
Other
Chinese traditional cosmology
Pangu can be interpreted as another creator deity. In the beginning there was nothing in the universe except a formless chaos. However this chaos began to coalesce into a cosmic egg for eighteen thousand years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of yin and yang became balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head (like the Greek Pan)
and clad in furs. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he
separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the Earth (murky Yin) and the Sky (clear Yang).
To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the Sky.
This task took eighteen thousand years, with each day the sky grew ten
feet higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. In
some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the four most
prominent beasts, namely the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon.
After eighteen thousand years had elapsed, Pangu was laid to rest. His breath became the wind; his voice the thunder; left eye the sun and right eye the moon; his body became the mountains
and extremes of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles the
fertile lands; his facial hair the stars and milky way; his fur the
bushes and forests; his bones the valuable minerals; his bone marrows
sacred diamonds; his sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur
carried by the wind became human beings all over the world.
The first writer to record the myth of Pangu was Xu Zheng during the Three Kingdoms period.
Shangdi is another creator deity, possibly prior to Pangu; sharing concepts similar to Abrahamic faiths.
Kazakh
According to Kazakh folk tales, Jasagnan is the creator of the world.
