Neil deGrasse Tyson, an American astrophysicist, is quoted as saying, “If that’s where you’re going to put your God. God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
According to Wikipedia, 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.
I believe this perspective has the timeline all wrong. Ancient prophetic knowledge could only be given figuratively; a way the people of the time could relate. If Moses had taught them about the theory of general relativity, no one would have had the ability to understand or verbally retain the information for future generations. Sometimes we more fully understand the connection of scriptural symbolism after science has presented a theory.
Tyson used Genesis to explain God of the gaps perspective. He referred to the Bible universe created in six days. He said when science overcame the gap and proved that was not possible, religionists claimed the scriptures were symbolically meaning six periods of time, not days, or thousands of years but frame of reference. I would suggest Genesis’ six days creation was prophecy of relative space-time long before Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Another example is Abraham’s centuries old prophecy revealed in 1830’s that recognized the union of space and time. Abraham 3:4, “Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.”
There are lots of examples. It wasn’t until the early 18th century AD science began to have an understanding of chemistry and elements. That we are made of the same elements as found in dust of the ground. That is a very long time after Genesis was written in the 13th century BC. Genesis 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
God knows the beginning of our universe to the end without gaps and has revealed much of this in literal and symbolic ways. Tyson is right, the gaps are where science is still ignorant . Perhaps science is catching up with prophecy. So maybe it should be called The Science of the Gaps. SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT. M. Kasey
M. Kasey 