“God of the Gaps” Equals “Aliens Did It”

Recently, I listened to a podcast (“Robinson’s Podcast”) in which the host, Robinson Erhardt interviewed a professor of astronomy at Columbia University named Dr. David Kipping about the possibility of life in the universe. Here is the link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/252-david-kipping-alien-civilizations-megastructures/id1636469402?i=1000712000588

It’s a good listen. Early on, they discuss natural phenomena that are often described as being due to aliens….when in fact they are natural or likely natural. Weird sky sightings, objects in space, etc. often end up being found to have a non-“alien”, natural cause. Sometimes the cause of unusual observations cannot be determined immediately, but they have the capacity to be tested later. So far, we are finding natural causes or probable natural causes to unusual events in the sky when it is easier to not think about it and just say “Aliens did it!”. Natural causes are probably batting around 0.900 (as not all phenomena can be explained…yet) while alien causes are batting a dreadful 0.000. Send aliens to the minors!

In my opinion, this problem gets worse when folks look at the human-built wonders of our ancient civilizations and believe that aliens from outer space assisted in their construction. I’ve never understood how such people cannot comprehend the plasticity of the human brain when it comes to creativity. Also, there is a risk of sounding a bit racist when stating that it would be impossible for a non-white race to build massive structures. See here and here for good resources.

The Ohio Serpent Mound built by ancient Native Americans — not Greeks, Romans, giants, or aliens.

So, it is terrible heuristics to see an unexplained natural phenomena and immediately think “Aliens.” Or always think “Aliens.”

The same goes when defining God in nature, specifically when using the faulty theology of “God of the Gaps.” Some people use this term to also mean the pseudo-science term of “Intelligent Design.” If you can’t figure out a natural process, then “God did it” and “Case is closed.” How utterly ridiculous.

Can you imagine if we stopped all scientific investigation at points where a major leap in natural understanding, science, or engineering was needed? There would be no need to pursue fields of evolutionary biology, genetics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, medicine immunology, geology, and on and on.

When I was young, I was told there is no way that bacterial flagella could arise from evolution. It was a mystery. God did it. Of course, it is now known that flagella structures probably evolved out of ancient bacteria with core genes that made initial structures in and through the cell cytoplasm. The same argument goes for the eye. The human eye with all of its complexity did not form miracously. It was not “God of the gaps” or “intelligent design.” It has a well-known evolutionary history. Caveat: As you probably are aware, I am not discounting God’s presence in evolutionary processes. I believe in God’s desire for creativity in nature. God is not causing events or change through spontaneous miracles. God is simply desiring creativity or novelty.

Bacterial flagellum (image from NIH)

I’m going to be “mathematical” in my explanation below as how to think about the possibility of the presence of aliens as well as the possibility of the presence of God interacting in real-time observations. My premise is that mathematics can be perceived subjectively at times. The same idea goes to statistics (ex. Bayes’ theorem).

I will define “1” metaphorically as a single potential cause for a natural occurence, and infinity (or less than infinity) as the potential number of ways “1” can be explained. One can think of ideas such as aliens causing Oumuamua or causing the telescope findings of the Trappist-1 star system. I would propose the following “equation.”

Let’s make “1” as “Aliens.”

Let me explain what I have done here. Sure, a visual event (light in the sky) could be aliens, but there could be many, many other ways in which it could be explained — meteorological, cosmological, visual issue, etc. There could be 10, 100, 1000, or 1 million causes that could explain what happended. The single possiblity of “aliens” used metaphorically as the numerator makes aliens as a probable cause quite low as the number of possible causes (denominator) is quite high.

We can do the same thing with a natural event and God. A difficult area of evolution to explain, determining what exists behind the cosmic microwave background, the weather, and the singular events or joy or sorrow in life could be explained via the “God of the gaps” as simply “God did it.” Using these examples above, simply saying that one explanation is that God just did it (with no futher questioning) implies that “God” as a cause is just as equal to a natural phenomenon of which that are hundreds or thousands of potential causes. Even “no God” could be considered an equally valid cause as “God did it.” I would be consistent and insist on observational or experimental data instead of just saying “no God” or “God did it.” Regardless, the denominator gets quite large; the numerator of God as the sole cause becomes very, very small. “Intelligent design” is not science, and “God of the gaps” is terrible theology.

I want to end this post with one thought. If I propose God’s presence in one / multiple / all events but not God’s action, then the ratio gets tilted somewhat. I am not talking about God directly affecting natural actions. I am talking about God simply being present and specifically being present with every entity. As a Christian, I would describe this presence as love. This love is a creative love that gives us biological evolution, star formation, science, literature, art, birth, and death. This love desires the each entity, from quark to quasar, be eternally creative through time. Each entity has the ability to be creative whether during electron spin or galactic spin.

Entropy progresses in time and will likely always increase, but even in the presence of entropy, creativity is still possible.

So:

1. Aliens directly acting on our planet and with our species? Sorry. No. I am fine thinking that life might exist elsewhere if our universe if infinite, but this life is not visiting or planet.
2. God of the gaps / Intelligent design? A terrible idea that needs to move on.
3. God simply being present and wanting creativity? It is possible even in the setting of naturalism.

I took this picture at Utah Pride last weekend while marching with my wife in support of our friends and family who are LGBTQ+. Using the fraction ideas above, I think this shirt makes quite a bit of sense.

image created by Google Gemini