Bible Students

Some Thoughts on “On Guard” by William Lane Craig (chapter 5)

This week’s chapter on On Guard asked “Why is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life?” Many thinkers through the ages have followed Aristotle in arguing that the source for order in the universe is God. In fact, Paul even builds on this age-old concept in the New Testament by claiming that God’s deity and power have been made clear through the universe. I believe this is a clear follow-up from the previous two chapters, which argued that God must be the beginning of the universe. If one believes the universe was not started by God, they may be able to genuinely not see the attributes of God in nature as proof for His existence. In other words, I find it difficult to use nature to demonstrate the existence for God. I believe the teleological argument is most strongly supported by scientific discoveries, and I find it difficult to come to the conclusion that God made everything because it appears designed. I find the scientific appeal of the unlikelihood of the constants of the universe to be a better defense of the teleological argument. However, once one has seen that the universe must come from a Mind outside the universe, the attributes of this Mind are made clear through what He has created. I believe the order is important, and I appreciate Craig’s order of reasoning in his chapter lay-out. 

In support of the argument for intelligent design, Craig discusses the major cosmological constants that must be just right at the initial point of the Big Bang in order for anything to get as far as it has. These four constants are the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, gravity, and electromagnetism. The values of these constants must be incredibly precise for life to arise in the first place. One could argue that these constants must have the value they do, but this would raise an even more alarming question for the atheist: Why are all four constants interrelated in a way that necessitates them to permit life? What mechanism causes these necessary values? 

The term fine tuning does not imply design by a creator, but rather the very specific values of the constants needed to permit life. Fine tuning can not really be argued against, since this is not a theistic-leaning argument. The argument of intelligent design, on the other hand, does lean toward some sort of intelligent designer as the explanation for fine tuning. 

There are two other major explanations for fine tuning that do not require an intelligent designer: necessity and chance. Some argue that the value of the constants which allow the existence of intelligent life must be what they are necessarily. The Theory of Everything seeks to explain the underlying constant which would necessitate the values of the four cosmological constants. Unfortunately for the ToE advocate, this only complicates the issue and leans further in favor for the explanation of the intelligent deisgner. This is because the necessity of the constants means the universe must be life-permitting, and this seems incredibly strange apart from a divine Creator. 

The third explanative option is chance. In the multiple-world hypothesis there are a potentially infinite amount of worlds which have essentially random cosmological constants. Eventually there would be a range of values that led to a life-permitting universe (LPU). However, the evidence of the multiple-world hypothesis is severely lacking. Unfortunately, in order for the multiple-world hypothesis to be viable, there would likely need to be no observable connection between our universe and another univere, due to the nature of their independence relative to other universes. If there was not independence, their constants could not be random, but in some sense would depend one on another. 

Neither of the previous two theories have much basis apart from speculation. An atheist may object that it is meaningless to speak of probability since we can only observe things which allow for our existence. A lottery-ticket winner, after winning the lottery, could look back and ask what the reason for his winning was, when in fact it was just random chance. He could only observe the positive chance he had already experienced, and so looked for a force behind the randomness when there was none. However, the question posed by theistic advocates is more a question of why this universe, which is the only one that has evidence of existing, would be life permitting. As far as one could tell, this is the only universe to exist, and so the only set of cosmological constants to ever occur. The existence of another universe before the Big Bang is not something someone could make concrete hypotheses about. This technically could be a way out for the atheist, but in light of the evidence for theism and the evidence for a set of preliminary universes, the evidence for theism greatly outweighs the latter. 

Another critique of the many-worlds hypothesis is that the mechanism for creating universes is especially peculiar. What would cause a mechanism that spews out a near-infinite amount of universes, all with random values for cosmological constants? That seems much more like a program or a mind than a real, natural mechanism. One more critique of the cosmological argument that I see often brought up, however foolishly, is the question, “why designed the designer?” This is not a fit question, and commits a category error. An undesigned and eternal mind makes much more sense than an undesigned and eternal universe, even if the concept of atemporality is difficult to understand. The only thing that makes sense to be atemporal is the Creator describes in all Its qualities by the cosmological argument. There is no better substitute. In short, I believe the two alternative explanations for the fine-tuning of the universe are an excuse to avoid the inevitable conclusion that there is a Creator, and that the Creator commands creatures to follow Him, rather than themselves.  This constant avoidance of the obvious conclusion is denotive of a serious heart condition on the part of the atheist. I believe many atheists are not looking for a logical argument for the existence for God, since they are looking every way except toward Him. I believe this is one of the biggest reasons to not take atheists seriously in what they believe. Everyone should want God and eternal life to be real, even if they do not believe those two things are. Everyone should desire that they could live forever with God in eternal bliss. However, if they do not want this, and curse God in their hearts, this is condusive of a heart condition which plagues the entirety of their philosophical work, and in this case their philosophy of science and everything that flows from that.