“The problem of God is the key problem in modern thought and makes faith extremely problematical for so many of our people,” Father James J. DiGiancomo, S.J., said in a talk to 100 Religion teachers and parents at the Cathedral Center.

Father DiGiacomo, instructor at Brooklyn Prep and Fordham University, said in the past man was willing to use God to fill gaps in his knowledge and ability.

“With the advances in knowledge and technology, the God of the gaps becomes more superfluous as men find they can do for themselves things they used to want God to do for them.” He added that in the past 100 years some men have discovered that either God was a mistake or “we were mistaken about God.”

However, the priest pointed out that man in his most important areas of life bears witness to the fact that he believes in another kind of knowledge besides scientific knowledge. He pointed to faith as a personal relationship which cannot be defined.

Father DiGiacomo said, “In teaching religion we stress the virtues of obedience and dependence which are proper to children, but we leave out the virtues of creativity, independence, initiative, and a healthy skepticism which are adult virtues.”