Atheists Respond to The Fine Tuning Argument for God

we need to get this mentioned fine-tuning somebody says fine tuning never heard a good rebuttal to the issue Christopher Hitchens was in the back of a car once mhm I think with like Doug Wilson or someone and he was asked you know are there any good religious arguments and he says you know the fine-tuning the the sort of hair's breath balance it's sort of you know it does sort of yeah yeah and he he sort of said it was something that really did actually trouble him and a lot of atheists possibly influenced by that clip

I don't know seem to say that the most powerful religious argument is the fine-tuning argument and so what's the question that atheists can't answer why are the constants of the universe so finely tuned there are constants which govern the physical Universe things like the strength of gravity the strength the strong and weak nuclear force this kind of stuff like if these had different values by you know whatever it is one part in 1 time 10 the minus billion or whatever the universe couldn't exist m it's just like balance on a knife edge If gravity was

slightly stronger then the universe would have collapsed in on itself if it was slightly weaker then everything would have flown apart so fast that even atoms couldn't form so there are three options here the the constants of the universe are so finally tuned because of chance because of necessity or because of design chance seems ludicrous because the odds are just so unfathomably small necessity seems maybe possible but like doesn't seem to be any like logical reason why something would like the strength of gravity would have to be what it is and the only thing left

there is design which requires something like God so by ruling out design as an atheist how do you answer this question well I mean first of all I say that I kind of I share the intuition that this is thorny really like yeah yeah and this this it quite often gives me pause for thought you know this is I think that um I think that the the primary way that I I think an atheist could respond to this is is to again draw the draw on draw on questioning the justification of the notion of possibility

when stretched to ways the universe could be so the you know this is kind of broadly an argument from analogy right it's it's is in like it's like it's like it's like paley's watch but with the entire universe um you know the universe is so finely tuned if it was if it was off by a you know fraction of a tiny number then then then then then everything would collapse and we'd all be doomed um and you know if we were to find a a similarly intricate object in the world we would say well of

course that was designed um and again it's interesting to again to bring this full circle from the beginning um of the podcast this is very similar to a point that Hume touches upon where he again just questions the justification that we have for a saying things could have been different um because it's like well what do we mean could there uh as in sure it's non-contradictory to say things could have been different but but but like what what do we genuinely mean like it seems like we need a metor sense of could than that um

and also he just he throws together like almost like off the top of his head like a load of other hypotheses because they're kind of equally um you know so he says um well uh it could be that God is not intelligent but just really prolific um so you know just if you do something an infinite number of times then you'll you'll eventually have this uh which is kind of s which is basically chance but saying well yeah so some people do some people do take the chance and they just that we live in a

Multiverse which I I've I've spoken to people who believe in the Multiverse um not the kind of Multiverse that I think would actually work here but there are people who just say yeah there's a Multiverse we have no seems like we couldn't even possibly have evidence to sort of IND the case but it does like explain it okay there's one hypothesis you I mean so so so and the other one he says he says is that we don't really know um what he well he he's talking about order generally says we don't really know how

ordered or disorder universes could be yes um is is one of you know that's kind of skepticism about about the notion of possibility and that's more taking the necessity line to say you know had the law of gravity been different by one par in whatever it is the universe couldn't exist is not the same thing as saying there's a one in you like a one part in 10 to the whatever chance yeah that it does exist because the sort of the room to maneuver in terms of you know what would have been different had have

been different is not the same thing as the chance that it could have been different yes exactly so so so the basically the problem there is well how do you define a probability space on the way on the ways the universe could have been because we don't have any any sort of observations there and and hum's point is not necessarily that um that that either of these are well so the dialogue kind of runs where he Pho the character in hum dialogue says this and then the response that he gets is um yeah but like

isn't the idea of intelligent God just so much more plausible and then his response is to say something like well ah uh idea of what is plausible is solely intra Universal it it doesn't step outside the universe it's just form within it outside the universe he's like well it's not necessarily that all bets are necessarily off but that um we don't know what bets are on uh is is his his point so he more it's more of an agnostic Point than atheist point he says you know he says he doesn't know the answer but he

also thinks that we are ill equipped to know the answer but I don't know man like I I don't know it's just doesn't it on the other hand doesn't it just seem like the universe definitely could have been tuned differently and it definitely isn't maybe but it there is a question that's sometimes asked as to if this is by Design like God God designs everything including presumably the parameters by which universes can and can't exist and so there is this mystery of like well why would it be so difficult like if the universe is what

everything exists for like like you know the universe exists for the creation of humankind that's like the purpose of it all then why would the parameters be set such that they're balance on such a knife edge you know why wouldn't it be uh why wouldn't it be that that like the sort of meta laws of the universe was such that you know it it could exist in all kinds of different conditions now I've never found that a very convincing response but I must say that I spoke recently to my friend Phil Halper who I've mentioned

on this show before he's uh he's he's got some some wonderful ideas uh and we were talking about gnosticism the the tradition in Christianity and I've been talking I've been banging on about gnosticism and everybody seems to hate me for it online at the moment at least the Christian Community are taking umage with how much I I I mention it but like in some Gnostic Traditions there's this idea that the material world is created by this like evil Demi urge that the true God is this immaterial spiritual being and that the material world is created

by an evil or malevolent sort of figure and so the the the Christian Gnostic position is many times that Jesus is sent by the father to enter the material world and sort of help people to throw off their material conditions and you know regain sort of their spiritual truth whatever and Phil pointed out that the fine-tuning argument seems to work better for Gnostic cosmology than a than a sort of traditional monotheistic one because you've got these meta conditions which seem to have been designed such that it's like nearon impossible to create a material Universe because

the the true God the true sort of creator of everything didn't want it to happen because the material world is evil and bad and and and incompetent and all this kind of stuff and so that the true God sort of sets the parameters so that it's nearly impossible like it's it's as impossible as it can be for a material world to come into existence but the evil Demi urge balances everything just right to bring into exist quite a novel Point yeah I know that's fantastic I hadn't thought of that I I'd be surprised of anyone

had thought of that yeah the um that's art I can't remember where he got it from I I he probably got it from somewhere I wish I could credit it but it's a it it was a really interesting thought which I mean it's a bit silly I'm being a bit silly here but but it does point out that like it kind of just depends where your intuition is like I mean why like well why is everything balanced on a knife edge that question can be asked can be asked in both directions the theist can say

look you know if if atheism is true then why is everything just balanced on a knife edge and I could say if if like theism is true why is everything balanced on a n you know the same question yeah I mean there's again it it trades on this idea of like well once you're at the once you're at the the the the level of metal laws How likely is it that the laws of the universe were a certain way we're just so outside the realm of anything that we normally reason about that I find it

hard to come to any conclusion whatsoever apart from just throwing my intuition at it and kind of grasping at something and it's like oh yeah it kind of seems like it would be unlikely but when I think about all of the other times that I infer something is unlikely I'm taking a set of previous experiences or other people's previous experiences or what I know about the laws that govern this universe and coming up with a hypothesis about uh How likely it is that a given set of possibilities will emerge yeah but I don't have any

of the prior data once I step outside to to the metal laws of the universe it seems to me like if the fine-tuning argument is correct that it is exceedingly unlikely for the the constants of the universe to be as they are and that they needed to in order to create the universe that either God really didn't want the universe to exist like he does he he created things so that like he really did not want this to happen and maybe somewhere in the sort of infinite realm in which he exists it just had to

happen at some point or he really did want it to happen because he balanced these laws so perfectly but he's somehow constrained by these like imagine like the immaterial Creator God before the existence of the universe is constrained by the strength of gravity and the strong the strong nuclear force like like what what what can that even like mean how can God be constrained by the strength of the strong and weak nuclear forces in creating the universe that just that just sort of seems Unthinkable to me well I think this is this is draw Upon

A Wider Point we've touched upon a number of times which is that there's an open question about if God is God does a lot of grounding for theistic philosophy and quite right too right this is this is like you know right back to like aquinus from long before then God does a lot of grounding and and it's a good philosophical job if you can get it so I it makes sense why he would um but then the meta question of what what um what what grounds the things that seem to constrain God is like like

things like the laws of logic which classically constrain God it's like well God can't ground something that's that's seems metaphysically prior to him and is constraining what he can do uh so yeah and the metal laws of the universe is another one it's like well if God made the metal laws of the universe then then in what sense does you know then then yeah if God sorry if God is constrained by the metal laws of the universe and had to do this fine tuning thing then it seems like what's grounding those metal laws so he's

he's either constrained by these metal laws which is like really weird because it means god is constrained by things like the force of gravity or the strength of gravity and if he's not constrained by them then it seems really weird that he designed things so that they seem so constrained yes and I mean this this comes up with with lots of other things like like you know the laws of morality I mean classically um this comes up and it's like really nent form in the Uther dilemma but has been developed a lot since then which

is that is that um if God is the thing that grounds the laws of morality then from God's perspective the laws of morality are morally arbitrary yeah um which is amazing right that that's that's you know that then there is just a kind of well he must have some other reason you know don't know what it is but but you know that that you know that there there is this um what God grounds can't Ground God and what God is constrained by he can't ground and sometimes it's very helpful for him to be constrained by

things and sometimes it's very helpful for him to ground things but each of those has philosophical trade-offs because once they're in one position it seems very unintuitive that it would be in the other position so yet another question which gives us pause is difficult I can't say that we' we've solved the problem um and and like like you say it you know it gives you a lot of trouble I mean I I I wouldn't say it's like easy it's just not my favorite argument I mean a lot of people say this is like their their

best religious argument is the one that they struggle with the most I mean I I find something like the existence of Consciousness more compelling for theism than something like fine-tuning maybe I I don't know maybe I just haven't thought about it I think for me the most troubling one we've looked at today is the um self-undermining one yeah that's the that's the one that genuinely does keep yeah like the argument from reason yes yeah yeah that's like that I certainly find that the most interesting and maybe also actually the most like difficult to respond to

but maybe the not quite as like just moving as the Consciousness that I am like constantly like like in and aware of um although you're not always aware of your Consciousness even though even though you are conscious all the time you're awake you're not always aware of it I think it's kind of transparent quite lot Josh rasm said he he talked something about the difference between noticing a tree and noticing that you've noticed a tree yeah and it's sort of the second one that you need to really be thinking about Consciousness as opposed to just

being conscious um yeah I I can't remember sort of the exact phrase he use but it was something like that at any rate um these are all questions which you know I can't say like we've answered them but to say that they the questions that atheist can't answer I know it's it's a good clickbaity video title but I hope people have found some interest in in listening to us give it an attempt and and found us to be relatively Fair on our treatment I mean I think a lot of this can be summed up in

a in a question or or response that I got on Twitter that somebody said when I put out a tweet asking for for questions what's the question that atheist can't answer somebody said most questions that's what makes us different to everyone else oh okay admitting that like we can't answer questions but it's the fact that we admit that we don't know that makes us atheists I don't know if that's a bit too self- congratulatory to to say or to end on maybe but like I wouldn't just ascribe that to atheists but I do think that

this this sort of basic response that seems underneath almost all of our responses here that clarify we don't know I don't know the answer I don't know what cons is I I don't know how to justify but it's not clear to me that theism necessarily helps and it's not clear to me that the certainty that theism sort of gives people is legitimate um the best the best that I can say is that I don't know the answer to a lot of these questions but I I certainly would be a far cry from saying that it's

impossible for atheists to one day answer them at least yes I think I think the another thing that I kind of General take away from discussion is that almost any Phil almost any ambitious philosophical view will have tradeoffs to um you know it is almost any philosopher view has questions that it cannot answer and I think that that's very very interesting it's one of the things that that allows philosophy to continue is hopefully one day we'll converge Upon A A A Perfect total philosophy and I think it'd be interesting to maybe sit down with a

theists and do a series of questions that theists can't answer why does the Mind map onto the brain so perfectly if it's not just the same thing as the brain why is there suffering in the world if God is good the ufro Dilemma these kinds of things like there are there are perennial questions that people have been raising for for thousands of years to theists in the same way they've been doing to atheists and um I'm kind of glad in a way that that no one really has an answer because not only would I be

out of a job but also out of a hobby yes that's what I