God of the gaps

Many theists are worried by an increasingly widespread perception that God is in headlong retreat from an advancing science, with the diminished function of simply filling in the explanatory gaps science has – so far – left open. As people have been quick to point out, invoking God in this sort of ad hoc role has obvious dangers. Apart from relegating him to a sort of faute de mieux status, and endowing that past bearer of grand titles (Lord of Hosts, King of Kings, Almighty God, etc.) with the less imposing sobriquet ‘God of the Gaps’, it makes him a hostage to fortune, never knowing when he is to be ejected from yet another piece of territory, and wondering if his shrinking fiefdom will soon cease to exist altogether. It may well have been with this apprehension that Stephen Jay Gould pre-emptively retired God altogether from an explanatory role. Science is still in its infancy (assuming – a big assumption – that the human race doesn't succeed in its apparent quest of prematurely wiping itself out), acquiring the technology to probe into conditions ever closer to the initial Big Bang and to unlock the brain's secrets, and one might well think that anyone with the temerity to claim that any of the current explanatory gaps will not at some point vanish should beware of putting their money where their mouth is.