Considering Further Objections to the Fine-Tuning Argument
One has the duty to consider the best objections when assessing an argument. This duty flows from the higher obligation to discern truth – of course. What’s more, one has the duty to represent fairly what they believe are the most relevant objections when reporting an argument. Obviously, in any given presentation, certain selections must be made, since not everything can be covered in a single blog, a single article, or a single book for that matter. Inevitably, this limitation exposes one’s presentation to the “reading list” objection, where the opponent comes in and says, “But you haven’t said anything about X, Y, or Z.”
Generally, there is nothing wrong about bringing attention to some objection not considered in a presentation of some argument – within certain relevant bounds, that is. (For example, not everybody defending any argument should have to argue for very basic or very commonly shared assumptions, like various forms of realism, the reality of the external world, etc.; that would be ridiculous). However, there is something wrong in assuming that just because an objection was not publicly considered that the author has not personally considered it (or that it has not been publicly addressed elsewhere); it may be the case they have considered it and thought it too weak or irrelevant to include. For example, I often do not include the so-called “god of the gaps” objection in my discussions of metaphysical arguments for God, not because I have never thought about the god of the gaps objection, but because I find it extremely tired and unconvincing. As well, so many other people have, at tremendous length, rebutted this objection. So, for reasons of space and redundancy, I typically make the executive decision to leave that objection out, precisely because I feel there are far better objections worthy of the reader’s time. Thus, you can imagine the mild annoyance I feel whenever somebody flings out the “god of the gaps” objection assuming – despite my canvassing many more sophisticated objections – that it is something that has never crossed my mind, and that they somehow have caught me with my philosophical pants down. Yes, this is me complaining. I don’t do it often, however.
Now, concerning arguments for the existence of God, let me make another quick clarification before looking at additional objections to the fine-tuning argument not considered in my initial survey.
In general, my confidence is less in arguments for the existence of God that incorporate scientific findings, for several reasons. First, science, even very well-established science, is always provisional and comes with assumptions that may be philosophically challenged though they may be generally shared assumptions (for example, scientific realism). Moreover, science can only see so far. Things could change, scientifically speaking, and there may be other things beyond our current line of scientific sight. To illustrate, consider Big Bang cosmology. This seems to indicate a beginning of the universe, but it does not definitely prove it. Maybe there really was something prior to the Big Bang; I’m not sure how science could rule this out, even with BGV. Nevertheless, that we have the evidence we do for the beginning of the universe seems much better to be expected if God exists (or, say, if causal finitism is true) than if God does not exist.
Importantly, this is not to say my confidence in such arguments is necessarily low; only that, because of their provisional nature, they do not rise to the level of demonstration which I believe is afforded by the more traditional metaphysical arguments. One often sees a divide between these camps; there are philosophers who largely if only favor arguments for God from modern findings in science, either writing off as outdated or ignoring the traditional metaphysical approaches. On the other hand, there are philosophers who warn against using any findings of science in arguments for God, seeing them as too fallible; too risky, as it were. I find myself between these positions, happy to concede that metaphysical argument seem obviously the stronger approach but that arguments from fine-tuning or modern cosmology nevertheless have force – significant force in certain instances and definitely cumulative force. So, while I would urge that the strongest reasons for belief in God are based in metaphysical investigation, nevertheless additional worldview confirmation can be found in the more contemporary arguments, like the argument from fine-tuning.
OK. With that being said, let me now address other objections to the fine-tuning argument that have cropped up in response to my recent post in various places. Some of these I will make a personal response to, others I will refer out to where I believe the objection is best handled in the literature. I must insist that my original post is read before this one.
Deeper Physics/More Fundamental Laws
Perhaps the dials of fine-tuning can be explained (predicted) by deeper physical laws, more basic physical features? Perhaps, but this objection is one that falls prey to the relocation problem, as pointed out in my original post. Why does this deeper physics happen to give rise to just the fine-tuning necessary for the emergence of interactive intelligent life?
Rasmussen gives a nice illustration, “Calling features basic only relabels the mystery. Suppose astronomers discover a start constellation that form the following words: ‘the foundation of the universe caused these starts to exist.’ We might wonder why or how those starts managed to be arranged like that…. Now suppose someone gives the following hypothesis: the star arrangement is an inevitable consequence of the most basic features of reality. This hypothesis doesn’t’ remove the mystery. It only relabels it. Why would reality have features that happen to give rise to a message in the stars. Calling them ‘basic’ does nothing to answer this deeper question.” (How Reason Can Lead to God)
Collins summarizes the point as well, “… although many physicists had hoped that superstring theory would entail all the current laws and constants of physics, that hope has almost completely faded as string theorists have come to recognize that superstring theory (and its proposed successor, M-Theory) has many, many solutions, estimated at 10^500 or more. Consequently, the prospects of discovering such a fundamental law are much dimmer than they once were. Second, such a fundamental law would not explain the fine tuning of the initial conditions of the universe. Finally, hypothesizing such a law merely moves the epistemic improbability of the fine-tuning to the laws and constants up one level, to that of the postulated fundamental law itself. Even if such a law existed, it would still be a huge coincidence that the fundamental law implied just those lower-level laws and values of the constants of physics that are life-permitting, instead of some other laws or values.” (Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology)
Uniform Probabilities/Normalization Problem
For those familiar with this objection, the normalization problem is cogently addressed by Hawthorne and Isaacs in Misapprehensions About the Fine-Tuning Argument. Collins has an insightful response as well (Teleological Argument, Blackwell Companion 2009), as does Plantinga (Where the Conflict Really Lies, 204-211) For ease, McIntosh canvasses replies here: https://appearedtoblogly.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/normalizabilityff-1.pdf
Who Designed God?
As previously suggested, this objection is just not forceful against proponents of absolute divine simplicity, which I am. Even so, the objection seems misguided, since it’s not entirely clear that whatever designed something is necessarily more complex that what’s been designed – conceivably, we could design a computer that is ultimately more complex than we are. Yes? What’s more, it seems this objection is forceful only under the assumption that God is postulated simply to explain fine-tuning and is not otherwise independently motivated, which is definitively false. Fine-tuning, the argument claims, confirms theism (which is independently motivated) over naturalism.
“God of the Gaps”
Just when I said I typically omit this objection… Nevertheless, it is almost always brought up in response to the FTA, so let’s briefly address it.
Simply put, the person who claims arguments for the existence of God are “gap arguments” (or arguments from ignorance) are suggesting that the theist is wantonly plugging holes in areas of knowledge, often scientific knowledge, that have not yet been filled but that could be filled or very probably will be filled with a non-supernatural explanation down the line. Often, the objector will trot out examples of where this has happened previously, some of the examples comical (like Zeus being the explanation of lightning strikes) others more serious (like evolution seemingly pushing out the requirement of a divine designer of biological life). In short, the worry is to avoid this sort of thing (which I agree we should): “We don’t know how this or that occurred; therefore, God did it!”
But the FTA evades this concern since we are evaluating large scale metaphysical hypotheses and confirming one not by any lack of scientific knowledge but an abundance thereof. It’s from the best of our current scientific understanding of the world that the FTA proceeds and reasons are provided for why further advances in science are either very unlikely to alleviate the inferential force of fine-tuning to cosmic designer or cannot in principle do so (after all, both chance and necessity as explanatory options have been argued against independently by scientists and philosophers on theologically neutral grounds). Moreover, for something to be a “god-gap fallacy” it must be a gratuitous or wanton inference; otherwise, the question is being begged in favor of naturalism by ruling out in advance any possible inference for God as the best explanation of some phenomena, and that just isn’t legit.
Final note.
Concerning the reading list objection, understand this works both ways. In very many instances where somebody links to an article or book concerning an objection to a position I’m discussing, I’ve noticed their criticism is addressed in the resources I mentioned (for example, both the deeper physics objection and the normalization problem are thoroughly considered in the resources I linked in my survey article); which may indicate that one is not fairly reading the other side. One should be careful to avoid this.