Victor Reppert On What It Would Take To Convince Me Christianity Was True

Vic links to my original 2007 post so you can see what I said for yourselves. He asks if I'm arguing for the god of the gaps right here: "Isn't [Loftus] just saying here 'Gosh, I wish the gaps were bigger?'" It's an interesting question I'll admit. But we need to see what's going on. In my original post I had said:

But let’s say the Christian faith is true and Jesus did arise from the dead. Let’s say that even though Christianity must punt to mystery and retreat into the realm of mere possibilities to explain itself that it is still true, contrary to what my (God given?) mind leads me to believe. Then what would it take to convince me?

I would need sufficient reasons to overcome my objections, and I would need sufficient evidence to lead me to believe. By “sufficient” here, I mean reasons and evidence that would overcome my skepticism.

Nonetheless, Vic's question is specifically about one thing I had mentioned, the lack of scientific evidence, where I ask why, if God exists, he didn't create a world that could not even remotely be explained by science. I see no reason at all to think an omnipotent God could not have done this. So rather than paint me into the corner of the god of the gaps line of reasoning, my question to Vic is why his God could not have created such a world as I described, and if he could, why he didn't do so? Furthermore, Vic needs to explain why science has explained, and continues to explain so many previous "gaps" in our knowledge with natural explanations requiring no God at all. That would be the "take away" from what I wrote. My point was this:

Gaps in our knowledge that are this big are part of what would/could convince me Christianity was true depending on other factors.

That is my point, gaps this big, gaps which could never be explained by science would/could convince me, in part, depending on other factors. Does this mean I embrace the god of the gaps line of reasoning in principle? Yes. It goes like this: To the degree science cannot offer natural explanations for the phenomena of the world is the same degree that it becomes, in part, reasonable to conclude there is a God, barring any other factors. Notice the wording? In part. Barring other factors. In my original blog post you can see what those other factors are. By admitting this as only a part of what would/could convince me, am I therefore allowing Vic to argue from the gaps to his God? No, not a chance, not by a long shot. Why? Because there are other factors, as I mentioned. AND because science has offered natural explanations for so many of the phenomena of the world it makes our heads spin, and continues to do so. Science explains. Faith does not, never has, never will. Take for instance the results of science represented in this nearly 700 page book:

That's the difference. All Vic has is a mere possibility, that it's possible to reason from the gaps in scientific knowledge to his God, but possibilities do not count. Probabilities do. We must think exclusively in terms of them. When we do so there is no room for faith, much less for his particular sect-specific Christianity. Any questions? Didn't think so. ;-)

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Edit: One way to look at my argument is that if science were not possible, given my scenarios, then there would be no scientific objections to faith. There are other objections though (textual, historical, moral, etc). Whether those other objections would undermine faith when there are no scientific objections would have to be seen, but I suspect those other objections would be enough to undermine Vic's sect-specific Christianity good enough to reject it.