No god of the gaps. Unamuno, Life 8.5
God,
for Unamuno, is not a matter for explanation. Not a means to material
ends. Not a locus of human control to be sought in the realm of the
physical universe. Knowledge of divinity is not power in the way that
knowledge of gravity is. Recognizing gravity better, with greater
precision, does not make divinity less or worse or worthless to us.
Era
yo un mozo que empezaba a inquietarme de estos eternos problemas,
cuando en cierto libro, de cuyo autor no quiero acordarme, leí esto:
«Dios es una gran equis sobre la barrera última de los
conocimientos humanos; a medida que la ciencia avanza, la barrera se
retira». Y escribí al margen: «De la barrera acá, todo se explica
sin Él; de la barrera allá, ni con Él ni sin Él; Dios, por lo
tanto, sobra». Y en respecto al Dios-Idea, al de las pruebas, sigo
en la misma sentencia. Atribúyese a Laplace la frase de que no había
necesitado de la hipótesis de Dios para construir su sistema del
origen del Universo, y así es muy cierto. La idea de Dios en nada
nos ayuda para comprender mejor la existencia, la esencia y la
finalidad del Universo.
No
es más concebible el que haya un Ser Supremo infinito, absoluto y
eterno, cuya esencia desconocemos, y que haya creado el Universo, que
el que la base material del Universo mismo, su materia, sea eterna e
infinita y absoluta. En nada comprendemos mejor la existencia del
mundo con decirnos que lo crió Dios. Es una petición de principio o
una solución meramente verbal para encubrir nuestra ignorancia. En
rigor, deducimos la existencia del Creador del hecho de que lo creado
existe, y no se justifica racionalmente la existencia de Aquél; de
un hecho no se saca una necesidad, o es necesario todo.
I
was a youth just beginning to worry about these eternal problems,
when in some book—I don't want to remember its author—I read
this: “God is a great mark upon the final frontier of human
knowledge; as science advances, that frontier retreats.” I wrote
something in the margin: “On this side of the frontier, everything
makes sense without him; on the far side, there is no sense with or
without him. God therefore abides, above and beyond this limit.”
When it comes to God the idea, the God of proofs, I remain of this
same mind. Laplace (†) is supposed to have remarked that the
hypothesis of God was unnecessary to the construction of his system
illustrating the origin of the Universe, and this is quite correct.
The idea of God in no way helps us better understand the existence,
essence, and end of the Universe as such.
That
there exists a Supreme Being at once infinite, absolute, and eternal, with
essence we don't know, and that this being has created the Universe:
this idea is no easier to conceive than the idea that the material
foundation of the Universe exists eternal, and infinite, and absolute
on its own. We understand the world no better merely by affirming
that God created it. This affirmation, in itself, is begging the
question, offering a purely verbal patch to cover our ignorance of
any real answer. In truth, we deduce the existence of the Creator
from the fact that creation exists, and there is no rational
justification for his own existence. Necessity does not arise from
facts; otherwise, all things would be necessary.
---
(†)
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827), is remembered as the
French Newton: a scientific genius who extended and developed
Newton's view of the heavens, and pioneered the Bayesian approach to
probability. Born to a family of relatively wealthy farmers &
merchants, his early commitment to a clerical career led him to
university, where he remained in service to learning, without
formally renouncing religion.