The Argument: "The Universe is Fine-tuned to
Produce Life by God!"
Quick answer: Christians cannot accept that for it implies the universe was set up to make life whereas life for a Christian really means the ghostly soul each person has and also the Bible says God intervened to make Adam and Eve. It was a miracle. The Christians do not believe the argument but just pretend they do in order to come across as pro-science. And what if science decides tomorrow that there is no fine-tuning after all? The universe then would become an argument against God!!
Intelligent Design Argument from fine tuning: The
universe is fine-tuned for life. If its properties were even slightly different
- and we are talking about slightly as in unimaginably slight - then human life
would not be possible. Fine-tuning - the life permitting nature of the universe
is extremely improbable suggesting that it was probably not the result of
chance. The universe was fine-tuned for life. Only an intelligence greater than
we can imagine could perform the fine-tuning.
But if you say there is fine-tuning there is also fine-pruning going on. To
tune up one thing means you have to prune another. But to prune all things does
not mean you are doing any tuning. If something is fine-pruned then it can look
fine-tuned and not be fine-tuned at all. Fine-pruning implies that the universe
was not created by God because God should have the power to control what he
creates. He should not need to treat it as something that needed to be fixed. A
God who sets up a universe that allows life to exist is not the same as a God
who sets up a universe that plans life to exist. Allowing shows that he takes
the risk of it not appearing at all!
Also, extremely improbable things do happen by chance. And is man with his
limited knowledge really in a position to be sure he knows that life is
extremely improbable?
And as we do not understand God's ways and he seems to need to make viruses to
torment little babies it follows that God being the designer or fine-tuner does
not help if you want to argue, "The designer is simpler than the universe he
makes." What if God chose to or needed to make a designer who is far more
complex than a billion universes? If we cannot see the designer then we have to
accept that unimaginably complex designer might exist. It is no answer to say
that the ultimate designer is God, the God who has no designer for he does not
need one. It is not an answer for we want to simply have a simple designer
designing the universe but that simply is not available. And science which says
we must use the simplest explanation is deprived of it. Science looks at the
evidence and chooses what explanation fits it best. It cannot assume the
simplest explanation. Only evidence can help you work out the simplest
explanation. Without it what you think may be simplest may not be simplest at
all or there may be an equally good explanation.
Plantinga is one person who uses the fine-tuning argument but he is honest
enough to admit that scientists know that life would still be possible if the
universe was different but it would rule out the emergence of human life. But
read Plantinga carefully. “The universe seems to be fine-tuned for life”. The
seems show that the argument is not a very strong or convincing one. The
argument is popular and even appeared in Flew’s There is a God. But it is
nonsense. Popularity does not make it believable or right.
The universe’s fine tuning produces galaxies not life. The fine tuning that
produces galaxies risks the following. Say a planet appears that can produce
life. The fine tuning will not prevent that planet being destroyed by an
asteroid before it produces life or after.
There are far too many worlds that serve no purpose. Also, there are far too
many particles. Matter is made up of six quarks and six leptons. But "only four
of them - the up and down quarks and the electron and its neutrino - are
necessary for the existence of physical objects, including planets and humans.
The remaining eight "matter particles" decayed away immediately after the Big
Bang. They, as well as the mysterious "dark matter", don't have an obvious
theist explanation" page 163, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are
Incompatible.
The fine-tuning cannot exist just for the sake of life. It could be that life is
a side-effect if the fine-tuning is meant for producing a universe like ours.
We only think the universe is set to produce life because we are here but it
could easily have happened that the earth might have been turned from a planet
with the potential to make life into one without it through some accident.
Whatever killed the dinosaurs could have killed us too. It is only by pure
accident that we not only got here but are still here.
If a planet produces life it does not follow it was intended to make life. If my
paint roller makes specks it does not mean that it was meant for making specks.
The entire universe virtually consists of stars. There is too little of life to
imagine that the universe was made to produce life.
Christians insist that the universe is so unimaginably complex that it must have
had a fine-tuner - a God who is more powerful than it. But if there is a fine
tuning intelligence it does not follow that it is necessarily God or anything
like the God that Jesus proposed.
If all things need a cause, it only follows that the cause must be able to
create something not that it has to control or mould what it creates. Perhaps a
chaotic mess was created and an intelligence developed by pure chance and was
able to do some organising.
A creator who is merely an impersonal intelligence is a simpler concept than the
Christian God who is three persons united in one being. It would take more fine
tuning to make an utterly simple God who is nonetheless three people than it
would to make the whole universe!
Who or what was the fine tuner of the fine tuner? Surely if the universe needs
fine tuning then the fine tuner of the universe would need as much fine tuning
if not more? The Christian answer is that God the fine tuner is spirit - spirit
is an immaterial reality. It is there but it is not material and does not
consist of parts. So they claim God is so simple that he is just there and there
is no need for anything to make God. The error in that is assuming that
something can be so simple that it needs no explanation. If something is there
it needs explanation and its simplicity or otherwise is irrelevant. Another
error is in assuming that if something is so simple that it does not need a
maker to put it together, that nothing put it together. It is sometimes harder
to make something extremely simple than something complicated. Abstract artists
know all about that! The biggest error of all is that it may be that the notion
of a living force with no parts or components might be nonsense. We are prone to
reification - where we mistake an idea for something that is real or could be
real. Our concept of God, God is spirit, could be reification.
Believers say that neither spirit or matter can be understood properly. Our
minds are too small. So if they were humble they would say they do not know if
spirit exists or how matter came to be. They cannot even guess when they cannot
understand matter or spirit. They are in fact arrogant. Their humble ways are an
example of the power of cognitive dissonance.
Calling God a spirit does not help. The fine-tuning argument requires a
fine-tuner yes but not necessary a spirit one. Science sees matter as a big
enough mystery without complicating things by assuming there are spirits.
What about the notion that whatever the fine-tuner is, science cannot assume
that it is a spirit for spirit is a religious and not a scientific concept? It
would mean that science would accept that there is a fine-tuner but feels that
nothing more can be said about the fine-tuner unless evidence turns up or there
is some way of experimentally testing it to see what it is like and how it
works.
Perfection is not a simple concept. Who or what fine-tuned God to make him
perfect? So we see that a fine-tuned universe is thought to call for a
fine-tuner and if God is a fine-tuner then who or what fine-tuned him?
If some material force is the fine-tuning intelligence, then we have to wonder
what designed the fine-tuner. If fine-tuning is true then it is true despite the
problem that it implies that scientifically you must assume that the fine-tuner
of the universe itself has a fine-tuner and this one has too and it could go on
forever. That is endlessly complex. Could it be that it is better to deny the
fine-tuning than to go that far? Yes. Believers in fine-tuning say there is a
minuscule chance that it is incorrect so we could avail then of that tiny bit of
uncertainty. It would certainly mean that we must be reluctant to accept it even
if it is true. If it implies God, which it doesn't, then that amounts to not
wanting to believe in God.
Religion says spirit can be transmuted into matter. So how do they know that it
is not the other way around? Perhaps matter comes first and changes into spirit?
Spirit turning into the universe might not mean that spirit fine-tunes but that
spirit makes a universe that can fine-tune itself. If matter can transform into
spirit, then perhaps somehow matter can contain and be the fine-tuning
experiment.
The fine tuning argument is based on the guess that this is the only universe
and there was only one chance to make it. If anything had gone wrong the
fine-tuner would have missed its chance. This contradicts the notion of an
all-powerful God who makes all things and upon whom all things depend. The fine
tuning argument for God is not really believed by those who propose it. How can
it show their God exists when it contradicts his power?
If we had evidence that there was only one chance with this universe then the
fine-tuning argument would have some force.
Sadly for believers, the fine tuning is nonsense. There is no fine tuning of the
universe. Believers assume that the universe must be as it is now or life is
impossible or life as we know it would be impossible. But that is only a guess
not an argument in favour of fine tuning. They cannot do experiments to show
that a different universe using different rules is unable to produce some form
of life. Fine tuning is put in the guise of science but it is anything but.
The believers in fine-tuning would be like cranks who argue, “If any side of a 1
inch by 1 inch square were a different length, it would no longer be a square.
Therefore, there is only one way to make a square.” Their version of this
bizarre logic is, “If anything was different about the universe, life would not
exist. Life exists therefore the universe was fixed to produce life.”
Fans of the fine-tuning mostly think the fine-tuner is supernatural. What if
there is a supernatural fine-tuner who may tamper with the universe? He can use
his power to turn a loaf into gold or mud into amoebas. There is no point in
arguing or thinking that he is supernatural unless you think he can make life
out of what is not alive. He may turn lead into bacteria. But this would imply
that the universe is not fine-tuned for God has to meddle with it to produce
life. It cannot do it without his interference. The supernaturalist version of
the fine-tuning argument contradicts itself. The whole point of fine-tuning is
that it is the laws of nature without supernatural tampering that produces life
against all odds. But the supernaturalists presuppose a fine-tuner who tampers.
If tampering happens then it is false that the appearance of life is down to
only some being who has been fine-tuning. How can we be sure that this being was
not tampering with his creation in order to produce life? You cannot tell what
was the result of natural fine-tuning or what was interference. Suppose a leaf
grows on a tree. If supernatural interference is possible or happens, you cannot
be sure if the leaf appeared by magic or if it grew in accordance with natural
laws. Supernatural interference can make the universe seem to be set to produce
life when in fact it was not and only produced life because of divine
intervention. The Christian God is not the fine-tuner for the Bible and Jesus
ascribed a lot of magic to him.
The fine-tuning for life argument loses credibility when you consider that both
those who regard life as a miraculous creation by God as outlined in the Bible
and those who regard life as having evolved by a process that acted like pure
chance accept it. The argument really belongs to evolutionists who believe in an
infinite intelligence who ordered all things.
Life cannot be made in the lab yet. Until we show that life can arise by itself
we cannot say the universe is fine-tuned for life. Such a universe would have
the power to produce life as if by itself without any visible or obvious
supernatural meddling.
If the universe is fine-tuned for life, it does not follow that the fine-tuner
cares how long that life survives. It does nothing to ensure that if life
appears for the first time in some primitive form that it will survive. Life in
the universe could so easily just have lasted for a few seconds with the first
seed of life disappearing forever. If the universe is fine-tuned for life, that
does not mean that our existence and survival is not down to pure luck.
The fine tuner does not care what kind of life results. If you father a girl it
does not follow that you meant to father a girl. A lot of life forms are just a
waste of life. And does fine-tuning do a baby any good when he is born with a
terminal disease and dies terribly?
Believers will say that God cares. But this is to deny what science says. It
says that life survived by chance. If God made all things, he left them to
function as if he didn't exist or wasn't involved.
What if God was not free to make a universe that does not need fine-tuning? If
the answer is yes then fine tuning does not leave us with much of a God. If he
wants us to find out about the fine tuning and then reason that he must exist
and be the fine-tuner then he went an odd way about it. The fine-tuning idea is
very recent.
People say there is a God for the universe required fine-tuning so there must be
a fine tuning God. That is arguing in circles. It is a trick disguised as an
argument.
Those who believe that the real you is a spirit that does not need a body do not
believe in human life. The body is just a corpse moved around and controlled and
lived in by the soul. So there is no physical human life. It is odd to argue as
those believers do that the universe is fine-tuned for human life! They should
say that Heaven is what is fine-tuned for that!!!
Remember too that the fine-tuning Christians are lying about how they believe it
is God's plan for the universe to make life. No they think our resurrection to
become creatures with ghost like bodies is the goal. The ghost like bodies thing
is mad because our bodies are built for animal life. What use are sex organs and
digestive systems and lungs and kidneys if that is our destiny? How can they be
rebuilt for a resurrection body when there are no toilets in Heaven? The major
function of our body is to endure damage and try to handle it and keep
rebuilding. The resurrection body is not animal for it does not do that. It is
not a body. The resurrection body is a ghost that is called a body - but its
only a name! Why can't the pet monkey have a similar resurrection? Why say it
cannot for it is an animal when we are animals too? We are treated no
differently than from dogs and cats. We get sick and die and our babies die.
If fine-tuning is true, this is not a problem for atheists. Atheism and the
notion of a fine-tuning intelligence are compatible for the intelligence is no
more a God or a person than a calculator is.