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The Universe and The Existence Of God
How The
Fine-Tuning Of The Universe Points Directly To God
By James Bishop
The Teleological Argument
[TA] is arguably one of the eldest and yet most popular arguments for the
existence of God.
It argues that from evidence
of design within the universe we can infer the likes of an intelligent
designer.
We can do so in the same way
that we warranted in inferring an intelligent designer for any object and
product in which we can identify evidence of purposeful adaptation of means
to some end (telos).
The TA has its roots in some
prominent ancient Greek thinkers and philosophers.
These philosophers were
excited over what they perceived to be the order of the universe, especially
when it concerned the likes of the “heavens” and celestial bodies.
They argued that such order
was the work of an intelligent mind responsible for creating the universe.
The famous ancient
philosopher Plato was particularly impressed.
He
believed that there were two things that “lead men to believe in the gods.”
One reason was from his idea
of the soul and the other concerned teleology.
He
argued that one could infer such “from
the order of the motion of the stars, and of all things under the dominion
of the mind which ordered the universe.”
For Plato there must be a “king,” the “maker and father of all,” who so wonderfully furnished primordial
chaos into the universe that we can observe today.
We also find a concept of
divine teleology in Aristotle’s work, particularly in the form of
a fragment of his lost work On Philosophy within which he was equally
impressed at the universe.
Aristotle argued that behind
the universe there must have been a First Unmoved Mover which was something
intelligent and eternal, and the source of order in the cosmos.
The amazement at the apparent
design of the universe was similarly vitalized in the more contemporary William
Paley (1743-1805).
Paley, a philosopher and
Christian apologist himself, is remembered for his 1804 work on Natural
Theology, and he is particularly pertinent to contemporary philosophy of
religion as his views are often discussed.
He was nonetheless thorough
in his efforts and scrutinized the sciences of his time for any evidence of
design in nature.
He compiled much of his
research, some of which pertained to anatomy including the likes of bones,
muscles, blood vessels, and particular organs as found within the animal and
plant kingdoms.
He is
also known for his famous “watch-maker
argument,” a concept that has made its way into the work of some
contemporary skeptics, particularly Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker, in
which Dawkins describes himself as a neo-Paleyan.
His watch-maker analogy
argued that suppose one was walking and found a watch upon the ground, it would
be absurd to argue that it has always just been there and has no explanation
for its existence.
No,
Paley argued, rather, it cries out for explanation give that it is clearly
designed, “its several parts are framed
and put together for a purpose.”
Such purpose being to show
motion, the time of day, and the parts of different sizes placed in such a
manner as to suggest its purpose.
Paley
concluded that “the inference, we think,
is inevitable; that the watch must have had a maker; that there must have
existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or
artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to
answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.”
Paley argued that we do not
actually need to know how the watch was made to come to the conclusion that it
was in fact designed.
Imagine coming across a
sophisticated communication device in the forest.
Most people wouldn’t know how
exactly it was made, though it would be quite obvious that somebody who knew
how to make it, made it.
Paley further observed that
even if the watch that we found wasn’t working properly it still wouldn’t take
away the purpose of the mechanism.
Further, perhaps we found
some parts of the mechanism that did not seem to have any purpose, it still
wouldn’t take away its purpose and the purposeful design in the other parts.
He deduced
that just as one might infer a watch-maker as the designer of the watch, so we
should also infer an intelligent designer of nature; he wrote thusly, “For every indication of contrivance, every
manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of
nature, of being greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds all
computation. I mean, that the contrivances of nature surpass the
contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtilty, and curiosity of the
mechanism; and still more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number
and variety: yet, in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently contrivances,
not less evidently accommodated to their end, or suited to their office, than
are the most perfect products of human ingenuity.”
A Modern Defense
Though
many are critical of the TA (we will give the criticisms more airtime in future
posts), there are a number of contemporary defenders.
Notable among them are the
likes of William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, Georges Dicker, F.R. Tennant,
Peter Bertocci, Stuart Hackett, and Richard Swinburne.
It is worth observing that
both Craig and Plantinga have been listed within the top 50 living
philosophers.
Craig, for example, argues
that science, though he particularly emphasizes cosmological science, has
revitalized the TA.
He
explains that “the scientific community
has been stunned by its discovery of how complex and sensitive a nexus of
conditions must be given in order for the universe to permit the origin and evolution
of intelligent life on Earth.”
The discoveries within the
fields of cosmology, quantum mechanics, biochemistry, astrophysics, and physics
have revealed the incredibly delicate balance of physical and cosmological
quantities that Craig speaks of.
It is quite clear that if any
one of these quantities were slightly altered to a tiny degree then life would
be impossible.
Thus, discoveries in modern
physics have been argued to produce the appearance of fine-tuning necessary for
the existence of intelligent life.
These include fundamental
constants such as electromagnetic interaction, proton to electron mass ratio,
gravitation, and the weak and strong nuclear force.
When one assigns values to
these constants he discovers that the chances of the universe being able to
support intelligent life is incredibly small.
What might occur should these
constants be altered?
For example, if the force of
the big bang explosion had differed by one part in 10^60 then life would not be
possible.
Rather, the universe would
have expanded to quickly for stars to form or have collapsed on itself meaning
there would be no stars, planets, and no life.
Then there is the density of
the universe.
If the density was any
different then the non-uniformities would condense prematurely into black holes
before the stars could form, hence making the universe life-prohibiting.
Should one increase the
gravitation constant by as little as 1%, all carbon would be burned into
oxygen.
Increase it by a mere 2% and
protons would not form out of quarks.
If the gravitational force
had been a little greater then stars would have been red dwarfs, which are too
cold to support planets capable of supporting life.
If the force was any smaller
then we’d only have blue giants which would burn too briefly for life to
develop.
If the mass and energy of the
early universe were not evenly distributed to one part in 10^10^123 the
universe would again be hostile to all forms of life.
Moreover, more specifically
relating to life on Earth, two prominent scientists Barrow and Tippler, in
their book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, lay out ten steps that the
evolutionary process would need to have gone through in order to bring about
modern man.
However, their calculations
suggested that each of these steps were so improbable that even before it could
ever possibly occur our sun would have ceased to exist and in the process
obliterate Earth.
The number that Barrow and Tippler
calculated for evolution to have produced mankind purely by chance fell between
the values of: 4^-180^110 000 and 4^-380^110 000.
To comprehend the
incredibility of this number, consider that the number of electron particles in
the known universe stands in at 10^87, or that the number of observable stars
is 10^24.
Or the gigantic number of
connections between neurons in our brains, 10^15 (1 quadrillion or
1,000,000,000,000,000).
These are very large numbers
but they nowhere come close to Barrow and Tippler’s calculation which shows how
incredible the odds are stacked against chance.
Craig has thus challenged the
common assumption, one shared by atheists and theists alike, that evolution
supports naturalism.
He
argues that it is actually a challenge to a naturalistic worldview saying
evolution is not “a good argument for
atheism, quite the contrary, I think it provides grounds for thinking that God
superintended the process of biological development.”
Plantinga has probed deeper
in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.
These discoveries have
strongly convinced many scientists and thinkers to conclude that such an
incredible balance cannot be simply dismissed as mere coincidence.
Thus, it is incredibly
tempting to conclude that the probability of a fine-tuned universe is so small
that intelligent design must be the most adequate explanation.
For example, according to
agnostic cosmologist Paul Davies,
“THERE IS FOR ME POWERFUL
EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON BEHIND IT ALL… IT SEEMS AS THOUGH
SOMEBODY HAS FINE-TUNED NATURE’S NUMBERS TO MAKE THE UNIVERSE… THE IMPRESSION
OF DESIGN IS OVERWHELMING.”
The
NASA astronomer John O’Keefe believed similarly saying that “We are, by astronomical standards, a
pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures...
If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting
precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these
circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.”
And where biology in terms of
DNA research is concerned, one of the world’s once most prolific atheists,
Antony Flew, had a dramatic change of mind.
Though
Flew didn’t embrace Christian theism he did come to reject his atheism, “It now seems to me that the findings of
more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and
enormously powerful argument to design.”
What is the Best Explanation?
There
are three options that can explain the apparent fine-tuning of the universe.
One might syllogistically
represent the fine-tuning argument in the following way:
1.
The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or
design.
2. It
is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3.
Therefore, it is due to design.
For premise 1 the fine-tuning
is either due to necessity, chance, or design.
The question then is which of
these three options is most plausible.
It is important to observe
that by saying the universe appears “fine-tuned” for life is not to say that is
“designed.”
Rather, it means that any
tiny deviations from the actual values of the fundamental constants and
quantities of nature would result in a life-prohibiting universe.
The theist argues that the
fine-tuning of the universe is not due to necessity.
What this alternative argues
is that the constants and quantities of nature must have the values that they
do.
There is thus no, or a little
chance, of the universe’s not being life-permitting.
However, this strikes one as
implausible given that it expects us to believe that a life-prohibiting
universe is physically impossible.
However, given the constants
it would actually seem far more possible than its alternative.
If any of the many constants
and values were a fraction out, for example, if the universe did not expand at
the speed it did, then life wouldn’t exist.
Thus, it would seem that a
life-prohibiting universe is itself not only possible but far more probable than
a life-permitting one.
Where it concerns chance, it
is believed that we just got really lucky.
But this is incredibly
unlikely given that the improbabilities involved are so high that one wouldn’t
consider it a viable option.
One theistic apologist,
though I admit his name escapes me, made an analogy that I’ve always somehow
remembered.
He said that believing that
chance explains the fine-tuning of the universe is analogues to winning the
lottery a few thousands times in a row while believing that one was just
getting really lucky the whole time.
I suppose one would surely
consider the option that chance isn’t involved there at all, so why should it
be any different when it comes to fine-tuning of the universe?
Some have, however, tried to
explain these incredible probabilities by appealing to what is known as the
multiverse.
The multiverse alleges that
there are billions of other universes that also exist, and that because there
are so many universes there is bound to be at least one of which is life
supporting.
Ours happens to be the one.
This is problematic for the skeptic in at least two ways.
First, it is problematic
because no scientific evidence supports this speculation.
For example, there is the
level 1 and level 2 multiverse concepts.
The Level 1 multiverse
suggests that there are many more domains like ours within our universe where
the same laws of physics operate.
These other domains are
speculated to exist beyond our cosmic visual horizon which is at 42 billion
light years away, and is thus a promising avenue of research for cosmologists.
However, the Level 2
multiverse is a different beast altogether.
What it speculates is that
there are actually many different types of universes (billions perhaps) that
have different physics, different histories, and that are possibly teeming with
life; a view that has been proposed by the likes of Alexander Vilenkin.
The problem is that a Level 2
concept of the multiverse is at most an exercise in sheer speculation.
Cosmologist George Ellis, one
of the leading thinkers in the field, disputes that such a concept of the
multiverse ought to be considered a scientific theory since a scientific theory
implies something “being mathematically
rigorous and experimentally testable.”
Ellis contends that not only
the existence of other these universes haven’t been proved but that they almost
certainly could never be.
After all, how if these
universes exist beyond our cosmic horizon could they ever be experimentally
testable?
And because of this “none of the claims made by multiverse
enthusiasts can be directly substantiated.” But suppose that the Level 2
multiverse could somehow be scientifically verified.
It still wouldn’t save the
skeptic because he would then need to explain the universe generator that creates
these billions of universes.
He would need to not only
explain its origin, but also the fine-tuning of the universe generator itself.
For the skeptic the truth of
a level 2 multiverse just pushes the fine-tuning back one step.
But what about the third
option, the option of design?
The theist thus argues that
the fine-tuning is best explained by design, and an intelligent Mind behind the
cosmos.
Given that the other two
options are not viable then it follows that it is due to design.
The skeptic is therefore
required to show that the design hypothesis even more implausible than its
competitors or suggest an alternative explanation for the apparent fine-tuning
of the universe.
.
James
Bishop
James is a
graduate from Vega School of Brand Leadership specialising in Multimedia Design
and Brand Communications. He is currently enrolled at Cornerstone Institute
studying Theology and majoring in Psychology. His theological interests
encompass comparative religion and the links between science and religion.
