Why the fine tuning of the universe points to God

The Universe is Fine-Tuned for Life

Does the fine-tuning of the universe point to God?

Opening Prayer:

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Scripture Reading: Colossians 2:1-8

“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

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Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”

Ladies and gentlemen, today, I will attempt to show you some of the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge, and my goal is to help free you from the empty, deceitful philosophies of this world; things like humanism, materialism, hedonism, and evolution. All of these ideas sound good on the surface, but are hostile to the knowledge of Christ, and seek to rid mankind of his dependence on God and elevate him above his station.

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In part one of this series, I talked about how the existence of evil proves that good exists. Evil cannot exist on its own; it is merely the lack of a good thing. If good exists, then it points to God.

In part two, I talked about how objective morality points to God. Objective morals require a standard, and this points to God, since the standard for morality comes from His nature.

In part three, I showed how free will and rationality points to God. Materialism alone cannot explain free will and rationality.

In part four, I talked about how the beginning of the universe points to God. The first cause of universe had to be eternal, uncreated, immaterial, personal, powerful, and intelligent. These are all characteristics of the God of the Bible.

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Today, I’m going to talk about the fine-tuning argument, and how it points to God.

As I mentioned last time, these things in of themselves, do not prove that God exists, let alone prove that Christianity is true, but they are strong evidence of God's existence, and they demonstrate how, through our God given reasoning, we can clearly see Gods invisible attributes, divine nature and eternal power, as it says in Romans 1:20.

Let’s look at what the fine-tuning argument is.

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By “fine-tuning” we mean that in order for the life to exist in the universe, the ingredients (fundamental constants) that cooked up our universe had to be measured out in just the right proportion. Too much of one or too little of another would have rendered life to be impossible.

The fine-tuning argument says that God is the best explanation for such precision.

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Imagine walking along the beach of a lake, and you come across an Inuksuk, a pile of stones carefully balanced on each other. An inuksuk is used by the Inu people as hunting and navigation aids, coordination points and message centres. Even though these stones are natural objects, what would be the most reasonable conclusion respecting their arrangement?

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Maybe it was: Necessity – Maybe some kind of a yet-to-be discovered force of nature compelled these stones to arrange themselves exactly in that way.

Chance – Maybe the lake flooded and in the aftermath of rising water and waves, the stones were arranged like this by chance.

Design – Maybe someone had a purpose in mind. That could be why the stones were arranged like this.

How might we tell?

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Think of it this way: If you wanted to bake a cake, you would need to pay attention to a couple of important elements of cake baking.

First, you would need all the right ingredients. And you would need to have the right amount of each ingredient. Too much or too little flour and the cake would be ruined. The same goes for the salt, sugar, baking powder and eggs.

Then, in order to turn these ingredients into this,

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you would need to combine your ingredients in the right way, at just the right temperature, for just the right amount of time. Too much or too little time in the oven, and everything could be ruined.

The same goes for cooking up a life-permitting universe. You need both the right ingredients and the right procedure to end up with a habitable environment.

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The four fundamental constants of the universe are:

Gravitational force – This is the attraction between two objects with mass or energy.

Weak Nuclear Force – It’s responsible for particle decay and how one type of subatomic particle changes into another.

Electromagnetic Force – This acts between charged particles, like negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons.

Strong Nuclear Force – This binds the fundamental particles of matter together to form larger particles.

These, plus 22 additional fundamental constants, play an important part in “cooking up” our universe.

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Let’s take a closer look at one of these fundamental forces, gravity.

Here is a quote from the biologos web site:

“If we change gravity by even a tiny fraction of a percent – enough so that you would be, say, a billionth of a gram heavier or lighter – the universe becomes so different that there are no stars, galaxies, or planets. And with no planets, there would be no life.”

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How tiny is the tiny fraction that the biologos web site is talking about? Well, let’s imagine a cosmic tape measure. Now, let’s say this tape measure represents the possible variables of gravitational force. If that tape measure stretched across the entire universe, the force of gravity couldn’t be off more than an inch one way or the other… if it was more than than, life could not exist!

That level of precision is almost incomprehensible for us, but it’s not too hard for God!

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Jeremiah 10:12 says:

“It is he who made the earth by his power,

who established the world by his wisdom,

and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.”

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Let’s look at another ingredient:

Weak nuclear force, one of the fundamental forces of nature. A change of only one part out of 10100 at the time of the initial formation of the universe would have prevented a life-permitting universe from forming.

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How precise is that? You would have better odds of shooting a bullet across the universe and hitting a postage stamp, than calibrating the weak nuclear force by chance!

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Jeremiah 51:15 says:

“It is he who made the earth by his power,

who established the world by his wisdom,

and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.”

I find it interesting that this verse is exactly the same as Jeremiah 10:12. I was taught, and I think it’s true, that any time God says something in his Word twice, you better pay attention.

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Let’s look at yet another ingredient: the initial entropy in the universe. Last time, I spoke about entropy, which is defined as the irreversible tendency, in a closed system, toward disorder. The universe is becoming more disorganized over time.

This means that at the beginning of the universe, it was extremely ordered. A professor at Oxford University, Roger Penrose, calculated the probability of this highly-ordered state of the universe spontaneously coming into existence by chance to be one in 1010^123!

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What are the chances of this? Well, they aren’t very good odds!

If you represented every particle in the universe – every atom, neutron, proton, electron, and every other particle – with a white ping-pong ball – that’s a lot of ping pong balls – except one, let’s say you had one orange one – and then you blindfolded someone, and let them go amongst this sea of ping pong balls, they would have a better chance of picking up the one orange ball than this low-entropic state of the universe happening by chance!

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Proverbs 3:19 says,

“The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;

by understanding he established the heavens;”

Wow… God’s knowledge and wisdom displayed in creation, makes every one of us look like an idiot!

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The physicist, Freeman John Dyson said, “The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe is some sense must have known we were coming.”

Well, the universe didn’t know we were coming…it’s an inanimate object! God was the one who perfectly crafted the creation for us to live in.

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Coming back to the fine-tuning argument, it has three parts.

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.

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Let’s look at the first point of the argument:

The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

Necessity, chance & design exhaust the possibilities.

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Is the fine-tuning due to physical necessity?

William Lane Craig, a famous christian apologist, said this:

“The person who maintains that the universe must be life-permitting is taking a radical line which requires strong proof. But there is none; this alternative is simply put forward as a bare possibility.”

Last time, when I talked about the beginning of the universe, I showed how it is contingent, which means it didn’t have to be the way it is. So, if this is true, then it eliminates physical necessity as a reason for the fundamental constants to be the way they are.

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Is the fine-tuning of the universe due to chance?

We’ve already seen the astronomical odds (no pun intended) of some of the various cosmological constants having precisely the values they do. Still, some will say, “The fact that we’re here to observe our universe proves that we beat the odds. It all arose by chance.”

This is question begging. The extreme improbability of all these constants having the precise values that they do cries for an explanation other than “chance.”

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Imagine being put before a firing squad with dozens of expert marksmen. You hear the orders, “Ready! Aim! Fire!”

Then the shots ring out. But to your surprise, every single bullet misses its mark! While you could say it was just a matter of dumb luck that you survived, after all, had you not survived, you wouldn’t be around to contemplate anything. Or, given the enormous improbability that all the marksmen missed, would you be justified in wondering if they missed by design?

The extreme precision of all the constants of the universe is even more remarkable than all these marksmen missing their target.

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Anthony Flew, a former atheist wrote in his book, “There is a God,” “I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite intelligence. I believe that this universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source. Why do I believe this, given I expounded and defended atheism for more than half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science.”

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In step two of the fine-tuning argument, we can rule out necessity and chance.

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Therefore the fine-tuning of the universe is due to design. We can reasonably conclude that the universe was expertly designed, by an intelligence far beyond our own.

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But, someone might say, who designed the designer? This question makes a fundamental logical mistake, called a category error. Once we reach the ultimate explanation for the universe, there’s no need to look any further. Otherwise we end up on a fool’s errand of infinite regress.

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When we look at the physical constants and conditions of our universe, we wee evidence of fine-tuning. Things are perfectly balanced for life on earth. Scientists of all worldviews agree on this.

The question that remains, is how do we account for this? Is it physical necessity, chance or design?

The best explanation is that the universe is designed. An enormously powerful mind balanced things in such a way not only to make life possible in the universe, but also to give us a clue of His existence.

Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” It is my hope that I’ve piqued your interest, and teased your mind so that you will seek out the

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So, in summary, God is the best explanation for:

The existence of good and evil, objective morality and duties, free will and rationality, the beginning of the universe, and, as we’ve discussed today, the fine-tuning of the universe.

Next time, I will speak on the resurrection.

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The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Closing Prayer:

Benediction: