The “God of the Gaps” fallacy and the Koran
REGARDING THE METHOD and VERSES SELECTED
This paper is written for the purpose of demonstrating that the “God of the Gaps” fallacy is not fallen in the Koran. Well, what method shall be followed in demonstrating this? For this purpose, the verses in the Koran in which necessity/chance and design are distinguished shall be reviewed and it shall be tried to demonstrate that a distinction is made in attribution of events and phenomena to God in such type of verses. However, it must be accepted that it would be irrational to expect that the God does not mention the creation and/or design of anything we know as “necessity” in a holy book such as Koran. (Here, what we intend with the word “necessity” is the things which can be explained by a law of nature). Because, the Creator will surely say “I created” and the designer will certainly mention that “I designed”. The issue that something is a necessity, i.e. can be explained by a law of nature, does not change the fact it is created by God. Therefore, the existence of such type of verses in the Koran does not mean that the “God of the Gaps” fallacy exists.
Therefore, our purpose is to demonstrate with examples that the occurrences are explained according to these 3 types of explanations in the Koran. These examples are sufficient from the point of demonstrating that the author of the Koran is clearly aware of what is chance and what is design. Strict attention to such categorization in the Koran is the indication of the fact that the author of the Koran obviously knows the attribution of what type of occurrences to the God would cause the “God of the Gaps” fallacy.
However, it is useful to remind again: We do not expect that such type of categorization is strictly followed throughout the Koran, since the true creator of the events, which are necessities, is also God. What is important is to be able to demonstrate sufficient amount of examples regarding the fact that the author of Koran is aware of such type of categorization.
Well, what kind of things do we expect God would attribute to himself and what kind of things would rescue the Koran from falling into the “God of the Gaps” fallacy? The reason of these questions is hidden in the ways of explaining existence of anything... As explained in the previous sections, existence of something can only be explained by the following three ways: Necessity, Chance and Design... So, we expect that the events God attributed to himself in the Koran can only be the events which can be explained by “chance” (chaotic systems) or “design”.
For this purpose, the verses we will review are those in which God presents physical events to human beings (human mind) as sign, evidence, lesson, reminder, warning, etc. and/or invites us to think on these events.
Let us try to explain our topic with an example, 57th verse of the sura Araf.
Araf-57 And He it is Who sends forth the winds bearing good news before His mercy, until, when they bring up a laden cloud, We drive it to a dead land, then We send down water on it, then bring forth with it of fruits of all kinds; thus shall We bring forth the dead that you may be mindful.
This verse is one of the verses suitable for our review from the point that God presents some examples to the human mind as lessons to be drawn. The verse begins by denoting “And He it is Who sends forth the winds bearing good news before His mercy”. Immediately we ask: Is “sending of winds” a necessity? Of course, not! Blowing of the winds is a chaotic process completely based upon chance. The verse continues by denoting “until, when they bring up a laden cloud”. Here, this is a necessity. “Lifting and loading of clouds by the winds” and the fact that clouds are lighter than the air can easily be explained by a law of nature. The interesting aspect is the fact that the Koran also expresses this exactly the same way, i.e. as a necessity. Pay attention, the Koran does not present this as evidence to the mind by saying “God does it”. On the contrary, it emphasizes that this is a necessity! The verse continues “We drive it to a dead land, then We send down water on it”. Sending the clouds to a dead land and bringing down of water there is a chaotic process completely depends on chance. Here, it will be appropriate to cite an important method in order to determine the chance. If an event may happen “in another way”, it means it depends on chance. “The sending of the cloud to a dead land” here is an event which may happen in another way, as well as “raining” there... Clouds may have never gone to that country or may have gone there but there may have never been rain. We will also elaborate on the wording of “sending down water” on this part of the verse, soon. The verse continues by “then bring forth with it of fruits of all kinds”. This occurrence is neither necessity nor chance. So, what is it? Certainly, “design”... The God’s re-growth of the plants from the stems of those dead plants by way of rain is related to its design, i.e. putting the plant’s genetic program into the stems. The verse ends by denoting “thus shall We bring forth the dead that you may be mindful”. The section of the verse ““we will take out the dead like this” is not an example from which a lesson is to be drawn but a herald from the future.
We see in this single verse of the Koran that “chance, necessity and design” are used exactly the way they should be and the “God of the Gaps” fallacy is painstakingly avoided.
In the remaining part of this paper, we will review the similar verses within the context of this rationale and try to prove that the “God of the Gaps” fallacy is never fallen. However, we will not repeatedly explain in every verse the already interpreted expressions during this review.
Additionally, we should stress another point: it is not important how events we can explain with “chance” or “design” are explained when they are attributed to God in the Koran. In other words, there is no difference for us between “We send the clouds to a dead land” and “Clouds go to a dead land” in the Koran. What is important for us is to demonstrate that the necessity of the things are known by not directly saying that “This is done by the God” for a thing which is a necessity.