Probabilities and Reasonableness

As a “proof,” the Fine-Tuning Argument is nonetheless rationally avoidable. However, as a clue, Fine-Tuning has force, it is reasonable. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing and thus serves as a clue to there being a creator.  It is an explanation that makes sense of our existence.  It makes at least as much sense as “it just happened” when science concludes that the probabilities of that "happening" are far less than zero.

To bring this point home, consider two analogies.

Picture going into the Tamarack casino and stopping by the poker table. While hanging out there, you witness a man deal twenty straight hands of poker and then go on to win each hand, each time with four aces. It is technically possible that the man just happened to deal himself twenty straight hands of four aces.  Though you could not prove he had cheated, it would be unreasonable to conclude that he hadn’t.

Now imagine a man sentenced to be executed by a firing squad of fifty expert marksmen.  They all fire from six feet away. Yet not one bullet hits him.  Since it is possible that even an expert could miss from close range it is technically possible that all fifty just happened to miss at the same moment. Though you could not prove they had conspired to miss, it would be unreasonable to draw the conclusion that they hadn’t.

With the odds against the universe just “happening” and the odds against an earth bringing forth beings like us, it is similarly unreasonable to conclude that all of this is mere happenstance.

Next time: Clues to a Creator.  In Christ…

More on Fine-Tuning

The way in which the universe expanded after the Big Bang depended critically on how much total mass and energy the universe had, and on the strength of the gravitational constant. Professor Steven Hawking asks: “Why did the universe start out with so nearly the critical rate of expansion that even now, 10 thousand million years later, it is still expanding at nearly the critical rate? If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in 100 thousand million-million, the universe would have re-collapsed before it ever reached its present size.” [A Brief History of Time, 210. ]

In 1966 the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were just two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Sagan went on to speculate that with roughly 1 octillion—24 zeroes—planets in the universe, there should have been about a septillion—21 zeroes—planets capable of supporting life.

However, as knowledge of the universe increased, two criteria grew to 10 then 20, then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly: to a few thousand planets until the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. The odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability says that even we shouldn’t be here.  Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart.

Still more on Fine-Tuning next time.  In Christ...

First Cause and the Big Bang

There are many clues to the existence of a creator.  I have chosen to examine these four:

·      First Cause

·      Fine Tuning

·      Regularity of Nature

·      Love and Beauty

Everything we know in this world is “contingent,” has a cause outside of itself. Therefore, the universe, would itself have to be dependent on some cause outside of itself.

Atheists previously dismissed the first cause clue by asserting that the universe has always existed. Ironically, science demolished that rationalization (which is all it was) by showing it is far more likely that the universe originated with the Big Bang. Consequently, something had to initiate the Big Bang. The distinguished scientist, Francis Collins writes, “Fifteen billion years ago, the universe began with an unimaginably bright flash of energy from an infinitesimally small point.  That implies that before that, there was nothing.  I can’t imagine how nature, in this case the universe, could have created itself.  And the very fact that the universe had a beginning implies that someone was able to begin it. And it seems to me that had to be outside of nature.” 

This is the same point Thomas Aquinas made in his presentation of The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes.

Our second clue that there is a creator God is referred to as the Anthropic Principle or Fine-tuning.

More on Fine-Tuning next time.  In Christ…