God Of The Gaps

The phrase God of the gaps refers to a view of God as existing in the "gaps" or aspects of reality that are currently unexplained by scientific knowledge.
The phrase is generally derogatory, and is inherently a direct criticism of a tendency to postulate acts of God to explain phenomena for which science has yet to give a satisfactory account. The term "God of the gaps" is sometimes used in describing the perceived incremental retreat of religious explanations of physical phenomena in the face of increasingly comprehensive scientific explanations for those phenomena. An example of the line of reasoning starts with the position that early religious descriptions of objects and events (such as the Sun, Moon, and stars; thunder and lightning) placed these in the realm of things created or controlled by a god or gods. As scientific explanations were found for observations in the realms of astronomy, meteorology, geology, cosmology and biology, the use of supernatural explanations for phenomena was progressively reduced, occupying smaller and smaller 'gaps' in knowledge.