The God of Gaps

We skipped evolution in my high school biology class in Clearfield, Utah. Our teacher, a friendly blond man who dressed like a missionary, said there were “issues” with it. He wouldn’t elaborate on what the issues were, but it was clear to me that they stemmed from his Latter-day Saint beliefs. As a Church member myself, this clash with faith took me off guard; it didn’t come from any of the ungodly sources I’d been warned about, but from the blandly legitimate authority of school. I felt frustrated by the implication that evolution was a threat to faith. It seemed unlikely that science could yield great knowledge about organisms and ecosystems, yet fail when it came to the unifying theory of how they came to exist and adapt over time. I had a strong intuition that evolutionary biology should not be dismissed, but if it had “issues” from a religious angle, then I needed trustworthy guides to point out what was what. So I went to Brigham Young University.

For me, BYU had the distinct advantage of being a university where faculty would teach evolution in the context of our shared religion. My professors taught evolution unapologetically and were clear that it was compatible with faith in God. They didn’t teach from a half-hearted middle ground in which evolution explained some few things but ultimately failed in terms of theory and method. 

In addition to my biology coursework at BYU, I read books about creationism and its history. Creationism is a broad term that often includes Biblical literalism and belief in a young earth. In recent decades, it has taken a more sophisticated form called intelligent design, which quarrels with evolution because of the complexity of life at the cellular and molecular levels. By looking for biological phenomena with complex mechanisms that fail to function if one part is removed, intelligent design argues that species do not arise through an unbroken chain of small adaptations preserved by natural selection, but rather are products of divine design. This line of reasoning employs a god of the gaps, the kind of deity that exists to make up for shortfalls in human understanding. 

“God of the gaps” is a term of disparagement used by some critics who point out the fragility of belief that depends on ever-narrowing areas of scientific ignorance. What happens to faith when science fills a gap? Does it proportionally contract until the very last gap, at which point we become atheists? As I learned about evolution and creationism, it became clear to me that the creationist tendency to hitch faith to failures of science was out of sync with my belief in a God whose creations are built for wonder, who loves me as a child, and whose love has little to do with the natural history of my DNA. 

When Gaps Form and Deepen

To my relief, my faith did not crack when I learned about evolution. It did crack, though, for reasons that had nothing to do with science. Some were personal, others came as I began to notice gaps between my values and some doctrines and practices of the Church. The first major gap appeared for me in my temple endowment as I was shown my place in a cosmic hierarchy that placed me beneath my soon-to-be husband. I was shaken, as prior to that day I had only imagined women and men as inherently equal. I avoided looking at that gap for a while, but like a small crack in a sidewalk, it grew and split into additional branches. To deal with what felt like the ground crumbling beneath me, I tried to be a voice (in a chorus of many voices) asking for change in the Church. I thought I had something useful to say because I believed that changing the institution from the inside was possible. But instead of filling my gaps, my advocacy deepened them. 

Many friends and people I admire are now disaffiliated from the Church. I understand their reasons and I support them in that difficult position. I still attend my ward in spite of the gaps I see in the Church: gaps between the ways women could contribute and what they’re allowed to do, between the wide tent I think the Church should be and the exclusions that are repeatedly reinforced, between behavior I’d expect of founding prophets and some of the things they actually did. Growing up, of all the “stumbling blocks” I was warned about, the flaws of the Church itself was not one of them. 

Finding God in the Gaps

A friend of mine shared this story: Years ago she felt desperate for change in her marriage. She prayed to know how to help her husband stop his substance use and a thought came to her clearly, Just love him. She was incredulous and said aloud, “Are you kidding me? I need him to change!” She wept because this was not the answer she had expected. For some, this would not have been enough of an answer, but for her, and in this situation, those words provided the perspective she needed to redirect her focus. Currently, she and her husband still deal with many of the same problems they’ve always had, including his substance use. But they love each other very much. This is not a story about whether to stay in a marriage or about their specific problems; it is a story about how love can fill the gap between what we need and what we have. 

Staying in a church with gaps between what I need and what is actually on offer is a little like being in an imperfect marriage. Sometimes the gaps have felt like too much, but so far I keep choosing to stay in spite of them. The constellation of cracks that began to form for me over twenty years ago has remained pretty much the same as it ever was, just like the points of friction in my friend’s marriage remain pretty much the same. I’m not saying that absolutely nothing has changed in the Church or that advocacy is useless. I’m saying that at this point in my life, I’m not really expecting the gaps to disappear; I’m looking for God’s love to fill them.

The way that works in practice is for me to be the one who loves. Loving the people in my ward makes me feel God’s presence, and, most importantly, reaching out to them makes me look up and around; it lifts my focus from the cracked path beneath me to the people on the path with me. So I pray to be able to love them. I ask myself who needs a friend, a text, a birthday card, or for me to walk up to the stand on a Fast Sunday. I’ve received love and care from members of my ward many times as well. None of this makes the gaps go away, but it makes it so I can keep going on rough pavement. I fail at loving others frequently, I still spend time looking down in frustration, and it still hurts when gaps deepen due to a fresh disappointment, but I’m convinced that trying to love others is the best way to feel God’s love and continue forward.

A God of Gaps: There and Back Again

The creationists I read in college cherished gaps in scientific explanations for the origins of biological complexity. For them, gaps bolstered faith in the divine. I rejected this kind of thinking and while I still don’t agree with it, I’m sympathetic with their yearning for something divine to appear in the unknown. I’ve also read work by scientists who take the view that gaps in scientific knowledge are temporary because further research will eventually fill them. I’m not so sure. I think some things, like the opening conditions of the universe and a detailed recapitulation of the development of life are probably beyond the scope of science. 

I never thought I would apply a god of the gaps mentality to my own faith, but I find I am doing just that. As a college student, it had not yet occurred to me that gaps could open between certain doctrines and practices of the Church and my understanding of Christlike values. As gaps formed and deepened, it became a struggle to accept them as spaces where God’s love can be manifest. Yet when I look up, I realize that God is there with me in those spaces. Perhaps God is not of the gaps but in the gaps, experiencing them with me. I would prefer that the Church evolve in ways that make our collective path smooth and free of cracks, but in the absence of that, there is God’s eternally abundant love and our love for each other to fill the gaps. 

Emily Updegraff lives in Wilmette, IL with her family and works at Northwestern University. As a writer, she has published essays and poems in Exponent II, Dialogue, Irreantum, and other journals.

Art by Halee Roth (haleejroth@gmail.com).