Could it really all just be coincidence? Everything seems to just fit perfectly together like it was all purposefully designed with exact conditions to breed life. Even water just happens to purify and recycle itself and fall back down on your head, trees exhale oxygen for you to breathe and you exhale carbon dioxide for them to breathe. The human body is radically complex, as well as the environment (ecosystems, food chains), interdependence-if it wasn’t for algae we'd all be dead. Modern science only adds to the argument of design. That’s why Antony flew renowned atheist became theist after learning of microbiological machines. Bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that God designed universe and structured its laws. In fact, this is what led to modern science-the belief that an all powerful God created the world and we would be able to observe law and order in the universe because of this. True story. It requires far more faith to believe there is no designer.
This apparent design in the universe is observed by a wide variety of scientific fields (biology, biochemistry, genetics, cosmology, physics, astronomy, origin of life). Many atheist scientists catch themselves contemplating a designer, even outspoken atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says he has to remind himself there’s no creator.
Cosmology: The universe is finely tuned by many factors and degrees to the point that is irrational to deny. The conditions and specifications that allow for life in the universe can only occur when certain fundamental physical constants are within a very narrow range. If even just one of many, are off slightly, the universe would be unfit for the development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity and life. Because the universe is so finely tuned, it would appear that there is an intelligent creator behind it. Simply put, if you were walking along in the forest and found a watch, you would expect there to be a designer behind it.
Physician-Geneticist Francis Collins discovered the genes causing a number of diseases and led the human genome project and was director of the National Institutes of health notes in his book ‘The Language of God’ that if the critical density of the universe was off by 1:15^15,the universe would either collapse or expand too rapidly for stars to form.
One of the most finely tuned discoveries is the Initial low entropy condition which is finely tuned to 1:1010^123. Others include the cosmological constant, finely tuned to 1:10^120, ratio of electrons to protons, initial expansion rate of the universe, uniformity of radiation, epoch for supernova eruptions, you get the point, with PLENTY more. What are the chances just one constant is right let alone all of them put together?
Nobel prize winner and sceptic Francis crick “an honest man armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.” Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces in nature worth speaking about. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” Atheist mathematical physicist and philosopher of science Roger Penrose says the constants are extraordinary figures, and that the universe has a purpose and something much deeper about it.” Physicist Paul Davies says the impression of design is overwhelming.
Rebuttals: The multiverse is also invoked as an escape from the obvious. It’s claimed that we possibly have an infinite number of universes with varying specifications and we are in the one that worked! It completely violates Occam’s razor by ignoring the simpler and more likely explanation. Author Greg Easterbrook says “the multiverse rests on assumptions that would be laughed out of town if it came from a religious text”. Philosopher Richard Swinburne states “it is the height of irrationality to postulate an infinite number of universes never causally connected with each other, merely to avoid the hypothesis of theism.”
There’s also the puddle rebuddle, an analogy where a puddle says “gee I fit nicely in to the crevice I’m in, it must have been designed for me!” but water can fit into basically anything, the argument is a tad ridiculous.
It’s even argued that there’s a chance of randomness but that chance is so extremely unlikely. If a dealer gives himself 4 aces for 20 hands in a row, and a player stands up to shoot him but he responds, “hey I know it looks suspicious but you should know it is technically possible that I’ve dealt this way completely coincidentally”, should everyone sit back down and accept this explanation? It’s like when Lloyd Christmas asks the girl what the chances are that she’ll go out with him and she says 1 in a million, and he says “so you’re saying there’s a chance?” Its irrational to argue the possibility even in the face of the extreme improbability.
Another alternative is evolution, and that “of course we’re alive, we evolved and adapted to be able to live to these circumstances” that would barely work for biology but how would it explain the livelihood of the universe in the face of all the narrow parameters. This isn't an explanation, it's not a matter of evolving to whatever conditions are present, the argument is that life of ANY sort, wouldn't exist if these conditions weren't as such.
Sceptics might say fine tuning entails restrictions, and if God was restricted then he isn’t all powerful. But this doesn’t work, he still could have arbitrarily chosen these specifications. Just as someone who builds a computer could choose it to only function at 76 degrees. The laws of physics that require fine tuning, were also created by God, so this fails.
It could also be that God wanted complexity to work as discoverable evidence of a designer. If you were walking along the beach or forest and found a watch, you would expect there to be a designer behind it.
Some complain that cancer and other disfunctions exist in nature but don’t seem to realize it is human’s own fault. Cancer and most other sicknesses don’t even exist in indigenous tribes. Humans literally create these illnesses through not following biblical principles in everything from growing crops to manufacturing food and taking short cuts, living unhealthy lifestyles and then have the nerve to blame God! They’ll also complain about death in nature and pretend everything is horrible but completely sidestep how serene, beautiful and healthy it is to acknowledge nature. If you want to make the argument that its a bad design then go ahead, all you that could show is that the designer didn't do a good job not that they didn't exist!
The Earth’s uniqueness: The principle of mediocrity or Copernican principle is the idea that the earth isn’t special in the seemingly unending universe. An idea that only seems to have piling evidence opposing it.
Geologist and astronomer published book Rare Earth arguing that earth is the only planet with animals in the visible universe. Marshalling evidence from a range of scientific disciplines. Don Johanson director of institute of human origins called the book “carefully reasoned and scientifically astute.” And “in spite of our wishful thinking there just may not be other Mozarts or Monets.” They don’t mention the possibility of design but they do throw phrases like ‘sheer luck’ and ‘a rare chance of happening’ around.
Why would God create a whole universe and care about us? Why are more and more scientists agreeing about the uniqueness of earth? And the fact that “the universe must have known we were coming”? Show me another universe with the location, size, composition, structure, atmosphere, temperature, internal dynamics, intricate cycles like the carbon cycle, oxygen cycle, calcium cycle, nitrogen, sodium and so on; capable of sustaining life.
The Privileged Planet talks about this as well but concludes a designer. Carbon holds many atoms and is needed for complex life. But there is no chance of other carbon-based life-paired with water which is also crucial. John a O’Keefe “only one planet in the universe is likely to bear intelligent life. We know of one-the earth.” Is it really just coincidence and the universe began mindlessly? The sun is 400 times bigger than the moon yet the moon is 400 times closer, but both being crucial to sustain life on earth? Earth is another book that does the same job.
Its claimed that Christians used to think we were at the center of the universe, the enlightenment caricatured this. It isn’t true. Historical researchers conclude “the Copernican system far from demoting man, destroyed Aristotle’s vision of the earth as a kind of cosmic sink and if it did anything it elevated humanity.” Philip Sampson sees that Galileo thought his major troubles stemmed from making “fun of his holiness”-mocking the pope. He was sentenced to house arrest. He wasn’t persecuted by the church they continued to give him his pension! Bruno was killed for his heretical views on the trinity nothing to do with his Copernican views. David lindberg “one obvious [myth] is that before Columbus Europeans nearly unanimously believed flat earth…popularized by Washington Irving who flagrantly fabricated evidence in his 4 volume history of Columbus.”
More expert testimony:
In chapter 8 of A Brief History of Time, atheist Stephen Hawking describes the picture of the big bang that "all the observational evidence that we have today" paints. Then presents 4 questions that the general theory of relativity cannot answer. But in regards to the fine-tuning and cosmologica constants he says “it would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”
Isaac Newton, considered by many to be the greatest scientist of all time, said towards the end of the scientific revolution "atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors."
Distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson “the more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”
Nobel prize winning scientist Arno Penzias “the best data we have, are exactly what I would’ve predicted had I had nothing to go on but the 5 books of Moses, the psalms, the bible as a whole…”
Labelled one of the world’s greatest observational cosmologists, Allan Rex Sandage, deciphered secrets of stars, plumbed the mysteries of the quasars, revealed the age of globular clusters, pinpointed distances of remote galaxies, quantified the universe expansion, has been showered with prestigious honors, called by New York Times “grand old man of cosmology”-through his research and discoveries-became a Christian at 50.
Owen Gingerich Harvard astrophysicist as well. “Fred Hoyle and I differ on a lot of questions but on this we agree: a common sense and satisfying interpretation of our world suggests the designing hand of a superintelligence.”
Robert Augros and George Stanciu “a universe aiming at the production of man implies a mind directing it,” though man is not at the physical center of the universe he appears to be at the center of its purpose.
Robin Collins “subjectivity can’t explain the success of the criterion of beauty in science. We wouldn’t expect purely subjective patterns to serve as the basis of theories that make highly accurate predictions, such as the success of quantum electrodynamics to predict the quantum correction to the g-factor of the electron.” Evolutionary development of ideas of beauty don’t explain the things we can’t see, touch or hear-underlying world of physical laws and mathematics. “in physics, we see an uncanny degree of harmony, symmetry, and proportionality. The laws of nature seem to have been carefully arranged so that they can be discovered by beings with our level of intelligence.”
Biology and DNA:
One of the things that converted well-known atheist philosopher, Antony Flew to theism was the scientific support for design “My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species…the only reason I have for believing in a first-cause God is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms.”
The human genome-consists of all the dna of our species, the hereditary code of life, this strange text is 3 billion letters long. Written in a cryptic 4 letter code. Such amazing complexity within each and every cell. These are the instructions to building a human being-more specifically the instructions to building proteins.
This information isn’t a long string of arbitrary characters, it’s an organized sequential arrangement that’s complex and corresponds to an independent pattern or functional requirement and to suggest it is random and mindlessly produced is far less reasonable and likely than designed. Information theorists understand that variability, unpredictability and irregularity mean complexity. Self-organization gives you repetition and redundancy. Nothing attracts the letters to each other-nothing at all so it has to come from somewhere else. Why is it that an archaeologist never assumes an ancient tablet’s inscriptions arose from mindless, natural processes?
Jonathan McLatchie holds a Bachelor’s in forensic biology, Masters and PhD in evolutionary biology as well as Masters in medical and molecular bioscience, he is not alone when he says that the genetic code appears to be very highly fine-tuned and optimized. He responds to the objection that this is just a “god of the gaps” explanation, by pointing out that an intelligent designer isn’t being inferred from what we don’t know but instead what we do. “We know that biological systems are chock full of information content and [this content] in every realm of experience traces its source back to intelligent cause.”
George Sim Johnson “human DNA contains more organized information than the encyclopedia Britannica. If it were in computer code sent from outer space, we would say its proof of alien intelligence, but if it’s in nature then its seen as random forces.”
Dean Kenyon retracted everything he said in his book defending natural origin of life and became theist.
Bill gates “dna is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we’ve ever devised” This doesn’t mean we are programmed without freewill; the code is only to make the body function not control us. And other areas of study show the mind is immaterial and not subject to the brain but the opposite
Information theorist Henry Quastler “creation of new information is habitually associated with conscious activity” Throwing scrabble tiles around isn’t going to produce a book. Yet apparently it should because they are just as mindless as what they are claiming everything else is. They even throw in the phrase millions of years to make the low probability seem better. But does it in the case of scrabble tiles? To invoke chance is to invoke a naturalistic miracle. Which apparently only they can have.
Microbiologist Michael Behe talks about irreducible complexity of cells in that they include signal transduction circuits, sophisticated motors, and all kinds of biological circuitry. These machines need all the various parts to function. How could this come about by random variations? Natural selection only preserves things that perform a function. But irreducibly complex systems perform no function until all parts are present. Whenever we see irreducibly complex systems, we know a designer was the cause. So many biologists and people who study this area become theists because they just know it can’t come about from natural processes and requires a mind. They defy explanation by Darwinian natural selection.
Some complain about the inverted retina in the eye and that it is faulty design and causes blind spot but it is actually a tradeoff that allows the eye to process a vast amount of oxygen it needs. The blind spot isn’t a problem because we happen to have two eyes and the blind spot doesn’t overlap. It’s actually an incredible design. Biologist George Ayoub “the vertebrate retina provides an excellent example of functional-though non intuitive- design. The design of the retina is responsible for its high acuity and sensitivity. It is simply untrue that the retina is demonstrably suboptimal, nor is it easy to conceive how it might be modified without significantly decreasing its function.” Good design has tradeoffs. Could the screen be bigger? Yes but it would affect portability. Could the memory be bigger? Yes but it would cost more. The real issue is its overall function and how well it works.
This is Laminin, a cell adhesion protein molecule found in the extracellular matrix, the sheets of protein that form the substrate of all internal organs also called the basement membrane. Laminin is vital to making sure overall body structures hold together. Colossians 1:15-20 “He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, for by him all things were created, visible and invisible and in him all things hold
together.”
Biological complexities: Antony flew converted through this area of study. Jonathan McLatchie holds a Bachelor’s in forensic biology, Masters and PhD in evolutionary biology as well as Masters in medical and molecular bioscience. He is not alone when says that the genetic code appears to be very highly fine-tuned and optimized. He notes that a bad objection to this is the “god of the gap,” since the argument doesn’t infer an intelligent designer from what we don’t know but instead what we do. “We know that biological systems are chock full of information content and [this content] in every realm of experience traces its source back to intelligent cause.” If instead of a regular, repeating pulsar, we received an informational signal with code from space, we would instantly recognize it as having intelligence behind it. And that [the fine-tuning argument] “is based on standard principles of scientific reasoning and the historical abductive method (infer to the best explanation from multiple competing theories) and understanding the present is the key to the past.”
For more deets:
Jones, Michael. “The Teleological Argument (What It Really Says).” YouTube, Inspiring Philosophy, 1 Sept. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yt7hvgFuNg&feature=youtu.be.
Winger, Mike, and Jonathan McLatchie. “A Bunch Of Reasons Christianity Is True: Special Guest Jonathan McLatchie.” YouTube, Mike Winger, 16 May 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1cVRHXFGrY&feature=youtu.be.
Bertuzzi, Cameron, et al. “Luke Barnes and Alex Malpass Discuss The Fine-Tuning Argument for God.” YouTube, Capturing Christianity, 21 Apr. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXzM_tBPm-0&feature=youtu.be
Bertuzzi, Cameron, and Dr. Robin Collins. “Answering Objections to the Fine-Tuning Argument with Dr. Robin Collins and Dr. Josh Rasmussen.” YouTube, 6 June 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Yi2vR7ps4&feature=youtu.be.
Stephen Meyer.
The Design Revolution
Garte, Sy, and Cameron Bertuzzi. “From Atheism to Christianity: Why This Scientist Accepted Jesus.” YouTube, Capturing Christianity, 9 Mar. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdbuMwT_KhM&feature=youtu.be.
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