GOD REQUIRES EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE, BUT SO DOES THE MULTIVERSE

Carl Sagan had famously written: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” This makes a lot of sense. If my neighbor claims that he had just been voted the “Man of the Year,” I would be skeptical. However, if he had merry claimed that his wife regarded him as her “man of the year,” I would be satisfied without any evidence.

However, should the same skepticism also apply when my neighbor claims that God is the explanation of consciousness, life, freewill, and the fine-tuning of the universe? Admittedly, this is an extraordinary claim, but let’s just examine one aspect of it – the extraordinary fine-tuning of the universe. Some have calculated the chances of having a universe fine-tuned for life to be one chance in 10 followed by 100 zeros.

I want to argue that any explanation of fine-tuning requires an extraordinary explanation – either supernatural (ID) or a natural explanation. This consideration therefore transforms our question into, “Which paradigm is best?”

The natural explanation invokes the multiverse, reasoning that if there are an infinite number of universes, it is likely that our fortuitous universe would be one of them. However, this seems to be the most extraordinary claim:

1. There is no scientific evidence for even a second universe, let alone an infinite number.

2. There is no known mechanism that can generate universes out of nothing.

3. There is no evidence that anything has ever been caused naturally and without intelligence.

4. It can provide no answer for the elegance, universality, and immutability for our fine-tuned laws of science.

In light of these problems, rather than the ID paradigm as extraordinary, it would seem that naturalistic paradigm requires more support and represents a desperate attempt to remove God from the picture. Science writer, John Horgan, confessed that:

·       “Multiverse theories aren’t theories; they’re science fictions, theologies, works of the imagination unconstrained by science.”

Theoretical physicist, Paul Steinhardt, confessed the same concern:

·       “The key thing that distinguishes science from non-science is that scientific ideas have to be subject to tests. Some people are nowadays thinking, no, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.” (Regis Nicoll; Salvo Magazine; Summer 2017, 38)

Tim Folger, writing for Discover Magazine, claimed that the multiverse is the “only viable non-religious explanation”:

·       “Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multiverse. Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life….The idea is controversial. Critics say it doesn’t even qualify as a scientific theory because the existence of other universes cannot be proved or disproved. Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable non-religious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem”—the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life. (“The Multiverse Theory,” Dec. 2008)

Perhaps the multiverse requires even more extraordinary evidence than ID. As a naturalistic theory, it only can serve to explain the “fine-tuning problem.” In order to explain life, consciousness, DNA, the first cell, the existence of natural causal agents, the first cause, and freewill, naturalism must invoke entirely different theories for each. And with each additional theory or postulate, it makes itself even more improbable, thereby violating Occam’s Razor. However, ID has only one necessary postulate – God!

Columbia University mathematician and atheist Peter Woit has expressed serious doubts about the multiverse:

·       …The idea of assuming a Multiverse and using it to make statistical predictions doesn’t work. But instead of drawing the obvious conclusion (this was a scientifically worthless idea, as seemed likely to most everyone else), the argument is that we need a “revolution in our understanding of physics” that will make the idea work.

According to science writer, Denise O’Leary, “Woit blames the Templeton Foundation [for funding and purveying this meritless idea]. It appears to have given $15 million to physicist to pursue these questions, and $10 million to the publishing group Nautilus…And he does not understand “why the rest of the physics community is staying quiet.” (Salvo Magazine; Summer 2017, 50)

Why the quiet? Why the tenacious grasp of the multiverse? Perhaps this represents a desperate attempt to keep God out of the picture. According to evolutionist and geneticist Richard Lewontin:

  

·       We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism [that nothing exists apart from matter and energy]. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, …Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Clearly, the presence of God is unwelcome in the bastions of science, even at the expense of adopting science-less theories and purveying them as facts. O’Leary writes:

·       Vast evidence supports the view that our universe and our planet are fine-tuned for life, which suggests a cosmic scheme based on some type of meaning, purpose, or intelligence. By contrast, no evidence supports the multiverse.

Rather than proposing the highly unlikely multiverse, it is more reasonable to claim that we are very limited in our understanding about the origins of the universe and fine-tuning.

While this is true, we have to observe that we are also very limited about our understandings of the fundamentals – light, matter, energy, time, and space. However, this limitation should not prevent us from doing science or from going where our limited evidence leads.

FAITH IN AN UNPROVABLE MULTIVERSE

Along with other physicists, MIT physicist Alan Lightman affirms that the apparent fine-tuning of the universe for life is bewildering:

·       If the values of some of the fundamental parameters of our universe were a little larger or a little smaller, life could not have arisen. For example, if the nuclear force were a few percentage points stronger than it actually is, then all the hydrogen atoms in the infant universe would have fused with other hydrogen atoms to make helium, and there would be no hydrogen left. http://winteryknight.com/2015/06/28/mit-physicist-alan-lightman-on-fine-tuning-and-the-multiverse/

The is just one instance of the many physical law constants that are precisely calibrated for life. One physicist has calculated its probability as one chance out of ten followed by one hundred zeros – an impossible probability. Lightman therefore reasons:

·       If such conclusions are correct, the great question, of course, is why these fundamental parameters happen to lie within the range needed for life. Does the universe care about life? Intelligent design is one answer. Indeed, a fair number of theologians, philosophers, and even some scientists have used fine-tuning and the anthropic principle as evidence of the existence of God. For example, at the 2011 Christian Scholars’ Conference at Pepperdine University, Francis Collins, a leading geneticist and director of the National Institutes of Health, said, “To get our universe, with all of its potential for complexities or any kind of potential for any kind of life-form, everything has to be precisely defined on this knife edge of improbability…. [Y]ou have to see the hands of a creator who set the parameters to be just so because the creator was interested in something a little more complicated than random particles.”

Lightman observes that the theory of a multiverse is not evidentially-based but faith-based:

·       The… conjecture that there are many other worlds… [T]here is no way they can prove this conjecture. That same uncertainty disturbs many physicists who are adjusting to the idea of the multiverse. Not only must we accept that basic properties of our universe are accidental and uncalculable. In addition, we must believe in the existence of many other universes. But we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.

Lightman’s observations point to the fact that those who reject ID do not do so based upon science or evidence but upon an ideological/faith commitment.

“God of the Gaps” Fallacy

What is the “God of the Gaps” argument? Here is how atheism.wiki.com explains it:         

• God of the Gaps is a concept that comes from the fact that God is being squeezed into an ever smaller series of existential gaps… At one time, all the phenomena in the universe could be ascribed to God. The stars, the rain, the seasons etc. With time, and improved scientific explanations, the number of things for which "God did it" was a good explanation was reduced, and god was equally reduced to inhabiting ever smaller gaps in human knowledge… It should be remembered however, the fact that science has no present explanation in no way means that god (or Uranus, Zeus, Odin or any other god/goddess) exists or that the God/Gods of any other Mythology exist. Indeed, if we were never to answer these questions it still wouldn't mean that Allah created the Universe or that Thor causes it to thunder.

Through this incoherent thinking, atheists hope to demonstrate that any possible argument in favor of God is being pushed into the gaps or margins – those areas where science has not yet been able to provide an explanation. Once these areas have been scientifically explained, there will remain no further argument in favor of the existence of God.

However, there is a hidden and fallacious assumption here that has construed science to favor atheism – that scientific findings/understandings undermine the existence of God rather than validate the existence of God. It assumes that “God is being squeezed” out of consideration by science rather than being placed in stage-center.

The central question is this: “Who did it?” Do natural, undersigned laws account for scientific knowledge or do designed, purposeful laws account for them?

Of course, we cannot put God (ID) in a test tube. However, we are equally unable to put the concept of natural causation into a test tube. Both go beyond experimentation and replication. Instead, we have to examine them from a higher more philosophical perspective and ask:

• Which theory best accounts for the findings: naturalism or supernaturalism (intelligence, ID)? 

Here are some considerations in favor of ID:

1. There is no evidence that natural, unintelligent forces exist. Although we all agree that objects are subject to laws and respond in formulaic and predictable ways, there is no evidence whatsoever that these laws are natural and unintelligent in origin. Besides, natural causation cannot be invoked to explain them, since the natural hadn’t been in existence to cause the “natural” laws. It is more likely that they find their origin and unity in the single transcendent Mind of God. 

2. Reason, logic, and the laws that govern this universe are unchanging. In an ever expanding universe of molecules-in-motion, naturalism can’t account for them. Only an omnipotent, immutable God can! Only a transcendent (outside-of-this universe) God is impervious to change. Only transcendent laws can effect phenomena in this universe in a universal and uniform way.

3. Reason, logic, and the laws of science are uniform, wherever we look and in whatever historical period. However, for a force or law to be natural, it must have a location from which it exerts its influence. (At least, that’s our experience with the “natural.”) The sun attracts the earth because it is in proximity to the earth. We find that this gravitational influence diminishes as the distance increases. Likewise, I’ve found that I can’t pick up the WQXR radio signals, which beam from NYC, when I’m in Pennsylvania. However, the laws of science seem to operate uniformly and universally, transcending the material constraints of location, matter and energy. Naturalism can’t explain this, but supernaturalism can.

4. The laws require an adequate cause. Naturalism is unable to postulate such a cause. And there are also so many other things that naturalism can’t adequately explain (life, DNA, fine-tuning of the universe, freewill, consciousness, moral absolutes, the unchanging physical laws). In order to theorize about the origins of these things, naturalism must make many desperate theoretical leaps into muliverses and the emergent properties of matter. This violates simplicity and Occam’s razor. In contrast, ID need only postulate the Creator to explain all. Only He is adequate.

5. Our experience with causal agents informs us that the cause is always greater than the effect. If the effect was greater than the cause, it would suggest that some aspect(s) of the effect is uncaused - a scientific impossibility! However, the Creator is certainly greater than His creation.

6. Naturalism cannot account to the elegance of the laws of science. Nor can it explain how the laws work harmoniously and do not destroy one another. However, ID can!

Perhaps, then, we should be thinking in terms of “naturalism of the gaps.”

FAITH IN THE MULTIVERSE

Why is it that the laws of science are fine-tuned, precisely calibrated, for existence, even for life? I would say that this requires an omnipotent super-Mind. Those who are committed to a naturalistic explanation cite the evidence-less multiverse, reasoning that if there are an infinite number of universes, then one of them should be our fine-tuned universe. One physicist boasted that:

·       Arguments for fine tuning do not prove the existence of God, since the fine tuning could be explained by a suitable multiverse even if God did not exist.

Even if we overlook the logical problem of an infinite number of universes, the lack of any scientific evidence, and the lack of any mechanism that could create these infinite universes, there still remains many other problems for this faith:

1.     Why are our laws so elegant, so apparently designed?

2.     Why are they unchanging while everything else is in movement, even exploding?

3.     Why do they work so uniformly throughout our universe?

4.     Why doesn’t our universe self-destruct?

A multiverse cannot answer these questions. Other God-substitutes will have to be invoked! However, Intelligence explains more than accident and chance will ever explain! The choice is yours.