I agree with you that ordinary providence is and should be the “default explanation” for observable cause and effect. Also agree that something can take the form of a formal “fallacy”, but not necessarily be fallacious. That’s why I said several times, that Gordon “may be right” about the assumption; yet, to take a hard conclusion that all things must be a certain way based on induction from examples would be taking it too far.

My objection expressed above was not that naturalistic explanations shouldn’t be hypothesized in general, but against 1) the suggestion that God’s “tinkering” (so-called) with creation somehow weighs against His creative abilities in the first instance, and 2) that we can rule out the possibility of miracle by deduction from God’s presumed “ability” to front-load into creation all that was necessary for ordinary providence to succeed. I agree that He’s able, but I don’t think we have enough evidence yet to say that creation was accomplished purely through front-loading and natural cause-and-effect.

You make a good point about what in the realm of nature do we expect miracles today. I could give many modern day examples that would echo those of the Bible; for instance, Jesus calming the sea by His command, or healing a leper by His touch. These will surely be said to fail as examples, because they are dealing with God’s redemptive history with mankind, not purely nature.
Perhaps, but maybe it’s partly a false distinction. Why shouldn’t God’s ordinary providence be expected to cause the sea to calm, without need for a miracle? Did God’s “tinkering” and “intervention” with the storm take away from His power and ability as Creator? Wouldn’t God’s power have been sufficient to save the disciples on the boat by making the sea calm naturally, without Jesus walking out on the water to save them? Surely, yet the Bible indicates that a miracle occurred through His direct intervention, acting on what would ordinarily be a natural chain of cause and effect. It also uses the same sort of language to describe purely natural things (like how God feeds the birds of the air). I am willing to take many of these as allegories for ordinary providence, but I see no reason or means by which we can rule out special providence in nature as matter of principle. Nor any means to distinguish those natural occurrences that involve humans from those where no humans were present.

Regarding point 1, “…you are assuming that God only governs nature through ordinary providence, and not through special providence (i.e. miracle),” I am inclined to ask, what exactly in the realm of nature in the present day do we (including special creationists) not chalk up to ordinary providence? The weather? Photosynthesis? Gestation? Even unknowns like gravity are typically assumed to be ordinary providence. I don’t think Gordon’s assumption is one not shared by most special creationists. Is it an assumption? Yes, but an assumption mostly common to both camps in the debate, and therefore not invalid for Gordon’s argument.

Re: answer 2, of course it’s a philosophical assumption on both sides, but Gordon’s is the only one that is compatible with the aims and methods of science. Science is the search for natural (”ordinary”) causes, with an open admission that anything else is outside of science.

This is devastating for creation science, but I admit that this doesn’t say as much against ID, since “design” can actually be quite natural (e.g., humans, aliens) and not supernatural at all. The problem I have with ID is that people with a front loaded conclusion approach nature — which, again, is by all Christians assumed to be generally functioning on “auto-pilot” in the present day and throughout history except by recorded, exceptional miracles — and treat our efforts to understand nature as though we have reason to expect that God saw it necessary to tweak this or that or the other. It’s a philosophical motivation that admits no defeat until it finds presupposed exceptions to nature as understood today. More unfathomable is the fact that some like Behe accept common descent, which is surely giving away the farm — it is nothing short of irrational for him to go looking for little Easter eggs of design hidden amongst the evidence of naturalism.

Science is based upon induction, no doubt about it, and induction sounds a lot like the “fallacy of generalization”. But the principle of parsimony is a quintessential aspect of science: given that natural causes explain the aspects of nature we know much of anything about, we have no good reason to proceed in researching other aspects of nature by assuming anything but natural causes for the remaining uncertainties. It’s like a detective looking for a murder suspect by asking witnesses where he’s not rather than where he is.

2. He is also right for the same reason, this is a fallacy of generalization. You might be right, but your statement goes further than just hesitancy. As you say, we can’t necessarily rule out miracle, but in Howard van Till style, you seem to still be saying that God performing miracles in the formation of the universe would somehow take away from God’s absolute power or creativity. You may be right that “miracles are for human history…not for natural history,” but how do you prove it? It’s a philosophical assumption.

4. I agree that insufficient evidence for evolution can’t necessarily be taken as evidence for creation. But neither can it be taken as evidence for evolution either. Where the rubber meets the road is where we DO have sufficient evidence for or against certain hypotheses.

I believe it’s a better argument to simply say, there is much evidence to support the hypothesis of evolution, which gives scientists strong reasons to believe the remaining gaps may eventually be filled with naturalistic explanations. Until then, naturalistic paradigms are the only ones which provide scientifically testable theories, which will remain until creationism or some other alternative theory can demonstrate testable and verifiable explanations. I think this response, though more tentative than your “God won’t cheat the system” answer, is actually stronger because it’s more closely tied to objective evidence than to philosophical supposition.