Why the BEST Argument for God Fails

The Atheist thinker Christopher Hitchens used to say that there was one argument for God that made him stop and think and that was the fine-tuning argument the argument is simple if there is no God why is it that the Universe seems so well suited to support and stabilize life doesn't this finely tuned nature of the universe imply that there is some kind of Creator and moreover an intelligent one and when they're asked an awful lot of atheists say that this is the strongest argument for belief in God but why is this what about this argument

seems so persuasive and more importantly where might it go wrong to lay my own cards on the table I am an agnostic atheist so I obviously have a bit of bias here but I will attempt to fully steal man the theist position as much as I possibly can of course I'll also be unable to cover the whole literature on this topic but by the end of this video you should have a good grounding to dive into the wider writings around the argument for yourself which is far more helpful than anything I could tell you but

let's start with an overview of the fine-tuning arguments just so we're all clear on its structure before going into our analysis one a whole lot of tuning going on there are more possible chess positions than there are atoms in the universe this may seem irrelevant but stick with me here imagine that you are watching a game of chess and you're trying to figure out whether the moves are randomly generated or whether there are actual players behind the board you then watch as white enacts a complicated strategy on black relying on multiple interdependent pieces to pull

it off which eventually culminates in a Checkmate is it more likely that this game was randomly generated or that it is the result of an expert chess player deciding just where they need to lay the pieces to achieve their ultimate aim the fine tuning argument is a little bit similar to our chess analogy it claims that the way the universe is constructed is so unlikely so reflective of intention that it is positive evidence for a designer the proposed examples of fine tuning are numerous and varied but luckily Simon Friedrich has compiled many of them on

the Stanford encyclopedia philosophy which is a fantastic resource if you don't already know about it first there are the fundamental forces of the universe If gravity was just a little bit weaker then Stars would never grow hot enough to sustain life if the strong nuclear force had been slightly stronger or weaker then no elements other than hydrogen would have existed the density of energy just after the big bang had to be just right or else the universe would have immediately imploded or expanded far too quickly for things like solar systems to form and stabilize and

as a result none of us would ever exist importantly all of this and more needs to be the case to give even the tiniest chance of life's formation if we take all the possible universes that could have existed and all the possible ways these fundamental constants and forces could have been we realize just just how improbable it is that the Universe would come to support life or even endure in the long term we are in a tiny goldilock Zone in a sea of possible worlds that either imploded were lifeless or consisted entirely of a few

simple elements the theist thus claims either that it is much more probable that this is the result of an intelligent God than not or that God is the best way to explain the specific way the universe is tuned importantly this is not just an argument about the mere likelihood of this universe coming into being but a universe with these specific predefined properties in theory our universe is no more or less likely than any other possible one the theist infers design because the properties that allow for life in particular are seen as special of course this

is an assumption that we very well might call into question later an example might help to illustrate this point William demsky Compares it to seeing the word Constantinople written down to quote directly from his book where he in turn is quoting llas we judge that this Arrangement is not the result of chance not because it is less possible than the others for if this word were not employed in any language we should not suspect that it came from any particular cause but this word being in use Among Us it is incomparably more probable that some

person has thus arranged the afores said letters than that this Arrangement is due to chart he calls this sort of event a specified event the philosopher Graham wood Compares a specified event to shuffling a deck of cards and then having them come out all in order we then suspect the shuffle is a trick not because it is more unlikely that that particular order would occur because every order of cards after a shuffle is equally unlikely but an ordered deck of cards has prior significance it latches onto a pre-existing concept and can be described independently of

this particular event in a way that almost every other combination of 52 playing cards simply canot or does not dempy contends that the fine-tuning of the universe is a specified event and thus we are justified in then inferring a designer we'll be addressing this particular assumption later as there is a real question as to where the demsky is correct the additional idea of a specified event is important because it marks our particular situation out as special in a way that's very helpful to theism without it the improbability of our universe existing is not by itself

a problem it would be like accusing a dealer of a trick Shuffle when the cards truly were just in a random order the case becomes much more tenuous the chess example can also be helpful here we infer that an agent is playing chess rather than just random moves because it is converging upon a specified outcome namely Checkmate the moves seem to be building towards this situation or at least they reflect an intention to build towards it if chess had no wind condition and any move was just a sign significant as any other it would be

pretty much impossible to separate Randomness from this intention these are the two key ideas that the fine tuning arguments rest upon the first is a claim about probability and the second is a claim about the relative significance of a universe that stably supports life and as we shall see both of these can be called into question in different ways but before moving on to critiques I want to note just how persuasive this argument can seem if we do accept all of its premises there's a reason why so many atheists find that this argument in particular

gives them pause for thought it seems to suggest that the atheist asserts an absurdity they are saying that if a dealer shuffles their cards and they all come out in perfect order it is more likely that this was due to chance than due to some trick Shuffle they are saying that if a chess game converges to a white Checkmate that is still no evidence that there is anyone actually playing the game they are saying that even though the universe could have been an infinite number of other ways it just so happened that it's able to

support life the theist claims that without God we must accept that this absurdly unlikely thing simply happened by chance it is sometimes referred to as the atheists one big miracle because what could be a greater Miracle than this the chances of someone rising from the dead or turning water into wine seem astronomically large compared with the chances of the universal constants Just Happening to be the way they are this is also importantly different to Classic Arguments for design like ones from biological complexity whereas with biological complexity we can appeal to an evolutionary theory to build

up complex organisms gradually over millions of years from more simple Parts There is almost by definition no observable incremental process that will give us the fundamental Constance of the universe and its forces and how they came to be as opposed to how they came to be any other way they're just too ground level to do this sort of thing they had to have been there from the start but of course there have been numerous responses to the fine tuning argument and together they helped to build a case against it so let's start with one of

the most famous and intuitive ones the anthropic argument but we've been talking a lot about physics in this video which is why I recommend you check out our very kind sponsor brilliant everyone knows that learn maths or science can be incredibly difficult these subjects can get abstract and dense and sometimes make you want to tear your hair out but this is where brilliant comes into play they have interactive courses on everything from learning to program with python to classical mechanics to understanding how large language models work and each one is crafted by award-winning research teams

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in the room after one of the UK's classic bouts of miserable weather the puddle is immediately shocked by the situation it wonders how it is that this hole in the ground is perfectly designed for it to fit it comes up with all kinds of theories as to how the hole came to be in this remarkable shape eventually concluding that the hole must have been designed for it of course the implication is that the puddle is mistaken in its assessment the hole in the road is not the shape it is because it is designed for the

puddle the puddle fits into the shape that was already there in the form of the hul and some of the critics of the fine-tuning argument say that it makes a similar mistake this is known as the anthropic objection and it corresponds to a general intuition some have when they're discussing the fine-tuning argument that if the universal constants were not the way they were we just wouldn't be having this discussion by itself this intuition isn't that persuasive the theist might say that many of us also wouldn't be unless antibiotics existed but that doesn't mean that someone

can't ask where the antibiotics came from if they happen to have saved his life but the puzzle analogy helps clarify what exactly the intuition is getting at it is attacking the assumption that the universe's support for human life is some special predefined state that requires particular explanation it suggests that the particular significance of a life supporting Universe only makes sense in hindsight from the perspective of us cuz we're living beings we are like the puddle which only treats the hole in the ground as special because it happens to have fallen into it the philosopher Elliot

sober also used the anthropic arguments to undermine the idea that our universe is unlikely He suggests that since our existence is a necessary precursor to us making observations about the relative likelihood of our universe we must make that a background assumption when evaluating the probability of Life supporting universes he uses the analogy of catching fish say you and I went on a fishing trip and only caught fish that were 10 in or longer we then might conclude that that Lake had mostly or only fish longer than 10 in this does seem like a great inference

until I tell you that our Nets only had holes that were 10 in or larger then the sensible inference changes all the smaller fish probably just got through the holes in our nets for sober the same is true for f unic since no universes without observers in them can be observed we must evaluate the likelihood of Observer supporting universes given the existence of observers this is sometimes called the cosmological Observer selection effect this then makes the fine- tuning arguments trivial since the likelihood of us observing a finely tuned Universe always becomes one essentially sober accuses

the fine tuning argument of not incorporating the Assumption of observers into its premises but once they are Incorporated the argument just falls apart in other words any universe that we observe will seem finally tuned much like any puddle that contemplates the hole it falls into will perfectly fit that hole so's argument has in turn faced a lot of criticism in particular swinburn has accused sober of misconstruing the fine-tuning argument the question is not How likely is the universe to support life given the existence of Observer the question is given the existence of observers How likely

is it that our universe is designed rather than emerged by chance another example might help and I'll use the same one swim bur did because it's very good imagine that you are sentenced to die by firing squad with 12 brilliant marksmen assigned to the task they each fire their entire rifle's worth of bullets meaning 144 shots have now been fired but to your astonishment you are still alive you have beaten the odds and survived the execution the question is then why why are you still alive given how unlikely it is that all the marksmen missed

by chance a natural inference is that they missed on purpose that there was some intention to save your life it would seem very strange to say it may have been by chance or it may have been intentional because either way when I make my evaluation now I am implicitly assuming that I survived the fact is is given that you survived it is much more likely that the Marksman deliberately missed we can present this argument as follows one if I survive it is more likely that the firing squad deliberately missed than that they missed by chance

two I survived three thus it is more likely that the firing squad deliberately missed but then the question is why can't the theist use the same structure one if the fundamental constants of the universe are such that they can support life it is more likely that it was designed than that it came about by chance two there is in fact life in the universe three thus it is more likely that it was designed well according to sober the first premise then becomes unjustified after all how do we justify the idea that a prisoner surviving by

firing squad is more likely to be deliberate than by chance it is because collectively we have observed many occurrences of prisoners dying to firing squads that's the implicit reasoning behind the first premise but no such situation holds for fine-tuning we would need to observe the creation of many different universes to see how many supported life and were in fact designed and how many supported life purely by chance but sadly we are stuck to this universe and so cannot make such observations thus sober now thinks that the theist just has an unjustified premise he rejects premise

one and the argument no longer follows put a pin in this idea as will be coming back to it later when we consider the fine-tuning arguments use of probability and probability Theory much more generally another response to sober comes from Jonathan viberg who says that sober is wrong about which proposition we must implicitly assume when we make judgments about the relative likelihood of our universe sober says we must assume that observing beings exist but Vice BG counters that we must merely observe that if I do observe a universe then observing beings exist and thus the

universe will seem finely tuned this may seem like a pedantic point it's just shuffling the same proposition into a conditional but it means that we no longer evaluate the likelihood of a finely tuned Universe already assuming that we exist but merely saying that any universe that has observers in it will seem finely tuned to those observers it reopens the idea of universes that contain no observers and adds those to our analysis thus viberg thinks the theist can reassert their original claim that a finely tuned universe is very unlikely while still saying that any Universe containing

observers will inevitably think that their world seems finally tuned to them unlike sober he doesn't think that we need to assume the definite existence of observers at the beginning of any analysis moreover Vice BG raises the possibility of observers in a non-f finely tuned Universe imagine that we were not physical bodies but were instead disembodied Souls that could still observe a physical world but that that physical world simply consisted of baffling chaos that was completely incomprehensible to us as observers in such a case the universe would not be finely tuned but observers would still exist

and possibly be able to note the lack of fine-tuning ultimately there are versions of sober arguments that I think can potentially survive this critique but they're all pretty Massy so I don't want to go into them here if the presentations in this sections seem a little bit long-winded it's because I've translated them all out of the language of probability Theory and it turns out that explaining probability judgments without using any symbols is surprisingly difficult but whether or not the anthropic objection works I want to move on to what I think is a far more fundamental

issue with the fine-tuning argument that it relies on a Highly Questionable view of both possibility and probability three the art of the possible at the beginning of the video we said that the fine- shuning argument rests on two assumptions the first is that our world is very unlikely to exist and the second is that it is special in some way that demands specific explaining the first of these assumptions is pretty intuitive it seems if it is conceivable that the fundamental constants of the universe could have been different and there is no way to differentiate between

them in advance of the universe's creation then it would just be random chance which one is selected so to speak it treats the possible values of these constants like balls we are blindly picking out of a bag and so aign each value an equal chance of being picked thus it seems incredibly unlikely that a life allowing ball was taken out of the back one classic atheist response has been to posit the existence of multiple parallel universes each with their own different fundamental laws and constants and to say that we just occupy one of these infinite

universes I can see why this response has been so influential because it is quite cool but I personally don't find it that appealing it makes the plausibility of atheism contingent on an infinite number of parallel universes existing and that's still a very controversial Theory one of the strengths of atheism is that the non-existence of deities is a very simple and elegant proposition and is also compatible with almost every other set of ideas if we commit every atheist to believing in multiple parallel universes then we lose this really quite helpful property I also think that the

parallel world's response allows the argument to get away with an unjustified inference it accepts the idea that because we can conceive of the fundamental constants of the universe being different that means there is a definite probability that they would be different the philosopher Mark civen has pointed out that if there are an infinite number of possible Arrangements of the universal constants then the probability of a life supporting universe is not merely very low but tends towards zero but if something has a probability of zero there is just no way to make it more likely since

ways of updating probability all rely on the orig event already having a probability that's above zero essentially if something has a zero probability of happening then there's no way to make it more likely to happen since anything multiplied by zero is going to be zero so counterintuitively our universe would be no more probable with intelligent design than without it this completely trivializes the fine-tuning argument since it bizarrely means that God is no help in explaining the fundamental constants and laws of the universe civen also uses this argument to show that there is no special question

about how this particular Universe came about as opposed to any other if the universal constants could have been at any point on the real number line then the probability of any universe or any finite set of universes coming into existence would also approach zero so our own universe is no less likely than any other universe or finite set of universes the set of universes with life is going to be vanishingly improbable but so will all finite sets of universes in fact they would hold the probability value of zero so in some sense they would be

impossible life supporting universes in particular then do not require some special explanation but if you don't accept that kind of response we don't even need to invoke it to challenge the base assumptions of the fine-tuning argument another angle is simply to ask how do you know that the universal constants could have been different sure there is no contradiction in them being different but that's a very minimal notion of possibility the fine-tuning argument wouldn't seem so persuasive if we phrased it as it is not contradictory for the universal consant to be different so it is unlikely

they would be this way without god what the theist needs is that the fundamental constants could have been different in roughly the same sort of way that I could have had another career or that Napoleon could have won the Battle of waterl there almost needs to be a metaphysical fork in the road where the constant could have gone one way or the other for the sake of argument I will call this real possibility just to mark out as specifically the type that would support the fine tuning argument but the reason we know that me taking

a different job or Napoleon winning the Battle of watero were real possibilities is that we have observed how similar circumstances have led to vastly different outcomes we have seen people take up different jobs and we have observed battles where reinforcements did not arrive in time leading to an underdog Victory these situations are analogous to observations we have made in the past but this is very different to establishing the fine of the universe we have never observed anything even remotely analogous to a universe's creation and so our assumption that the universal constants could have gone another

way just doesn't seem that justified it's just so far outside the scope of anything we have seen before it is like I had lived my entire life in a video game and then assumed that since I could reload a save within that setting I could also reload a save in the world outside of the game inferring from observations very much inside the universe to what is possible between universes is at the very least in need of much more justification this is pretty similar to the point that David Hume made against the causal argument for God's

existence observing that everything has a cause inside the universe does not in itself mean that the universe as a whole have a cause in a similar way our judgments about these real possibilities which are perfectly justifiable inside of our universe break down when we step outside the universe additionally even if we accept accept that all of these different coordinations of constants are real possibilities we can then reverse the fine-tuning argument and ask if God exists why is it that only a tiny amount of possible fundamental constants can support life if God grounds all things including

which real possibilities exist and under what circumstances Consciousness can arise then why is it that only a very specific combination of these factors leads to life the fine-tuning at one level also reflects a complete lack of mind tuning at another level God would have had to First deliberately make it very unlikely that life would exist and then choose to create it anyway this sort of suggests contradictory motives on the one hand life is made almost impossible and then it's made anyway and this moves us handily onto our next point because even if we accept the

idea that the fundamental constants that allow for life are vanishingly unlikely the theist needs to show one further thing that they are more likely with the Assumption of God and this gets us into some really fun recent literature on fine tuning known as Divine psychology if you want to help me make more videos like this then please consider supporting the channel on patreon the link is in the description four psychoanalyzing God for the fine-tuning argument to follow we need to accept that if God existed he would be at least somewhat likely to make a life-

supporting Universe the reason for this is simple if if it is just not that probable for God to create a lifeup supporting Universe then theism gives no better an explanation than atheism for fine tuning if the likelihood of God choosing our universe is no greater than random chance then the theist has gained no ground the naturalist philosopher Graham Opie has argued that even if we assume that an intelligent Creator exists we could not reliably know what kind of universe he is likely to make after all he would be so much greater than us so much

more intelligent so much more more powerful surely his whim would be completely inscrutable and as a result we have no way of saying whether he would create a life supporting universe or not or indeed what he is likely to create at all perhaps he would prefer the peace and quiet of solitude perhaps he would rather create nothing at all dwelling in his own Perfection perhaps he would keep life out of the physical plane altogether and make a world consisting only of spiritual non-physical things op's point is just that we have no way of telling God

would want and so the fine-tuning argument by itself doesn't give us a prevailing reason to believe in God to look at it another way since we have no way of knowing what world God would want to create the fine-tuning argument could be made in any universe and as a result is equally Irrelevant in all of them we can also view this as making an attack on the second pillar of fine-tuning it rejects the premise that this world needs any special explaining it's a response of many angles I think this is an interesting argument because most

theists would point to scripture to justify inferences about the psychology of God but this then leaves both sides at an Impulse if the atheists accepted what scripture said about Gods then they just wouldn't be an atheist the disagreement now evolves into one about the relative reliability of scripture and the extent to which this allows us to know Divine psychology and that's almost a whole another field but there have also been various non-scriptural responses to the Divine psychology argument some have claimed that this commits the a to rejecting clear evidence of God's existence if it ever

did arise Neil Manson has argued that viewing the will of God as totally inscrutable would mean that we would not count the Stars spelling out a Christian prayer in the night sky as evidence for God if we cannot know anything about his mind then we would have no way of telling How likely it is that God would do such a thing or whether the likelihood is better than chance and this just seems like an absurd conclusion clearly the nyine Creed spelled out in Stars would be evidence for God the atheists can then respond by saying

that an event like this would directly back up a particular piece of scripture that emerged independently from this event in the night sky which makes it much stronger evidence for particular facts about God's mind and thus much stronger evidence for God's existence in other words spelling out a Christian prayer from Stars would let us know more about God and this would make it stronger evidence both for him and for his intentions but for the fundamental constants of the the universe there is no such coherence with any independent revealed text The Atheist can also admit that

we could in principle understand parts of the mind of God but just say that we do not have any positive reason to think he would favor a world with life in it than without in turn miles Donahue has responded to this argument by saying that life is one of the only things that is plausibly objectively valuable and so we have one good reason to think that God would favor a universe that supports life over one that does now we could challenge Donahue's premise about life's subjective value or its obviousness if God defines value as he

often does in many theist Traditions then appealing to Life's value independent from God to motivate him puts the theist in somewhat of a logical Circle but his argument also potentially proves too much it raises further questions about God's psychology for example if life truly is objectively good why would God not create a lot more life than he has most of the obser able universe is totally uninhabitable if God is motivated to create and sustain life then why is there so little of it we can broaden this critique to a more General counter to the fine

tuning argument why is the universe so finely tuned for life in some ways but also so obviously untuned in others why is it that the fundamental constants are specified to support life but most of the universe is arranged not to support life as we said before if God defines real possibil abilities then why is it that life is almost impossible and yet somehow still happens on reflection it can seem like God's position on the value of life is borderline contradictory if you've been around the channel before then you'll know I think the strongest theist response

when confronted with questions like this is to say something like God works in mysterious ways how could we possibly comprehend his motives when he is so much greater than us in many situations like the problem of evil or the problem of divine hiddenness I think this is a pretty good reply even if it is totally unpersuasive to those who do not already believe but here it fails because the thing the theist needed to do was make definite claims about God's psychology an atheist like gram opy can then accept the theist response but restate his original

problem if God's mind is so inscrutable then how can we know that the universe is more likely to be finally tuned with a god than without one if we cannot know God's motives then how can we know that theistic fine-tuning is any better than chance thus the theist is presented with a pretty difficult task they need a motivation for God to create a life- sustaining universe but without raising questions as to why God has not created far more life than currently exists and remember this is even if we have granted all of the theists already

questionable premises about possibility and probability of course theists often already have a particular characterization of God from their religious text but as we said this is going to be entirely unpersuasive to The Atheist the trouble is it now looks as if you already need to accept a certain idea of what God is like before the fine-tuning argument holds but there aren't that many atheists who say I don't think God exists but I do know exactly what God would be like if he did thus fine tuning begins to lose its sting it is ultimately the problems

with the relevant Notions of possibility and probability that mean I don't find this argument personally persuasive but I really like this Divine psychology objection because it opens up a whole new Avenue that most people tend not to have consider before we often take it for granted that God is a certain way and that he would value roughly the same things we do but aside from scripture how Justified is this view are we correct in thinking that the special case of Life supporting universes does require explaining or is this just our own bias at play these

kinds of objections help us to question the background assumptions that often do go unnoticed in debates around gut which is why despite not thinking that fine-tuning is the strongest argument for God I still think that it is well worth studying both for the theist and for the atheist but if you want to explore those objections around possibility and probability further then check out my video on David hume's fascinating religious views right here thank you so much for watching and have a wonderful day