Is God of the gaps a fallacy?

As a Christian I believe God made the watch but I don't believe he moves the machinery. I do think if you believe God moves the machinery you won't look for explanations but Christians who believe God made the watch don't seem to be stuck by this.

Does the god of the gaps reply still apply? Is it a formal fallacy?

The God of the Gaps Fallacy is a variation of the
Argument from Ignorance as Dr Bo explains:

ad ignorantiam

(also known as: appeal to ignorance)

Description: The assumption of a conclusion or fact based primarily on lack of evidence to the contrary. Usually best described by, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Logical Forms:

X is true because you cannot prove that X is false.
X is false because you cannot prove that X is true.

Example #1:

Although we have proven that the moon is not made of spare ribs, we have not proven that its core cannot be filled with them; therefore, the moon’s core is filled with spare ribs.

Explanation: There is an infinity of things we cannot prove -- the moon being filled with spare ribs is one of them. Now you might expect that any “reasonable” person would know that the moon can’t be filled with spare ribs, but you would be expecting too much. People make wild claims, and get away with them, simply on the fact that the converse cannot otherwise be proven.

What you believe isn't as relevant as why you believe it. As Micheal points out, "God of the gaps" is the argument from ignorance fallacy.

As a Christian I believe God made the watch...

The question is why do you believe this? If your lack of knowledge of the natural sciences or the natural science's lack of a highly probable answer leads you to believe this, then this is the fallacy. The problem is, no God can ever be proven to exist that can warrant being the most probable explanation. For something to be an explanation for something, it has to exist (and be demonstrated to exist). One cannot rule out a God, gods, or even magic for any explanation, but one cannot reasonable suggest these explanations without first demonstrated their existence. Don't fear "I don't know" as an answer.

{date-time stamp}Friday, Aug 02, 2019 02:25 PM{/date-time stamp}

I should make clear that reason why is not technically the fallacy; it is the reason GIVEN. Very few of us know why we believe what we do. If you gave the reason "As a Christian I believe God made the watch because science has yet to come up with a better answer," then this would be fallacious. If you simply say "It just seems like the best answer" then there is no direct fallacy.

The headline question is:
Is The God of the Gaps argument a fallacy?

The answer is yes. It’s a variant of the Argument from Ignorance. See Dr. Bo’s explanation and references.

It depends a lot on what the structure of the argument is. An argument of the God of the gaps commonly has this form:

1. Or x has an explanation that is natural/physical/scientific or has an explanation in God.
2. x cannot be explained by natural/physical/scientific means.
3. Therefore, the explanation of x is God.

Does this argument commit any fallacy? It seems to me not, neither formal or informal. The detractor can simply point out that the conclusion does not commit us ontologically with the entities that it postulates, even if it turns out that x can be perfectly explained by God. In other words, that x can be perfectly explained by A does not imply that A exists. Independent reasons are needed to accept the existence of A .