Presuppositional Apologetics and the God of the gaps

I’ve heard that “God of the gaps” is a pejorative quite often lately.  I suspect this is because it points out flaws that many would rather not deal with.  It is a variant of an argument from ignorance fallacy that simply states that gaps in knowledge are never evidence for a preferred claim, specifically God in this case.  Of course, people don’t like being told they’re using fallacies. But when a logical argument or syllogism is built on fallacy, it should be pointed out. And I suppose I do disapprove. The counter is often “well you’re using science of the gaps”, is that really a fair comparison?  I don’t prefer to speak in absolutes concerning things I don’t know, or that no one knows, and there is a lot that we don’t know… so I can’t rule out the supernatural, it’s just that there is absolutely no reason to rule it in either. 

So, if a God of the gaps argument is invalid, why is it used so often?  Why is it, that many of our fine apologists on this site, fill their entire apologetic repertoire with arguments attempting to misuse and disprove science?  Open those gaps wider so to speak.  I think the answer to why this fallacy is used, often lies in presuppositional apologetics.  

Presuppositional Apologetics makes us think of trained asshats like Eric Hovind, but he’s just a manipulator of semantics.  We could definitely get into that guy, but it’s beside the point. I think presupposition is engrained in the very core of most religion. For Christianity it starts with the Bible which presupposes Gods existence to be true and not something to be proven.  And then the believer starts with the assumption that the Bible is the word of God, presupposing both (2 Timothy 3:16 and others) That is the Axiom, not susceptible to proof or disproof, it is assumed truth.

Now, if we understand that a person is starting with these assumptions, we can easily see how gaps in scientific knowledge are appealing.  There is already a prepared explanation incase the answer ends up being “I don’t know”.  Many on this site would raise their hand and say, “I do”. But that isn’t logical, that isn’t how it works.

It is still undeniably true, that not knowing an answer, is not evidence for a different preferred answer.  I was talking to J.P. Bunny who believes that the universe was created by pink pixies that take the shape of invisible bunnies that poop three flavors of sherbert outside of time and space.  The fact that I don’t know how the universe began doesn’t make his claim credible.  It’s a pixie of the gaps argument, nothing more.  Oddly enough the three flavors of shurbert coincide with Hawking’s no boundary proposal… “probability amplitudes to three-metrics on a three-surface Σ bounding a Euclidean spacetime M.” Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear the three flavors he’s talking about.  Anyways, you’ll have to ask Bunny about the details. One of the pixie bunnies comes to earth and defeats Santa Claus or something. It’s all in the book or audible read by Richard Kiley… spared no expense.               

This leads us unexpectedly to the compatibility of Religion and Science.  Not in a lame way like “tell me where science disagrees with the bible, and I’ll give arguments that the bible didn’t really mean it that way”.  It seems to be more about fundamental differences in methodology.

Didn’t intend to hit that last part but it makes sense as the next step… is Religion and Science compatible despite irreconcilable differences in methodology used to form a conclusion?

Is “science of the gaps” a fair counter to “god of the gaps”, does it even make sense?

I went past this part quick, but I honestly don’t understand why theists think “god of the gasps” is an illegitimate critique? 

For the theists, does that help explain why an argument that seems logical to a person who shares the same presuppositions, falls completely flat to someone who doesn’t?