We’ve now seen that living organisms—tiny portions of the universe—were not designed. They evolved. But what about the universe as a whole? Did the universe require a God to design and build it?

In explaining the evolution of life by natural selection, we have assumed that there are laws of nature. If life originated and developed by matter blindly operating in conformity with natural laws, then there’s no need to imagine a person designing living things. But some theists say that since there are laws of nature, there must be a law maker and a law giver.

Laws of nature are attempts by scientists to formulate statements which are universally true as well as being helpful in explaining what we observe. The theist will insist, however, that although the scientific laws we know are drawn up by scientists, they are attempts to capture real laws, the true laws which actually do prevail in nature, independently of the activities of scientists. It’s these true laws, independent of human activity, which require a law giver.

Although I agree that scientists are on the track of objectively true ‘real laws’, and have even found some of them, this line of argument comes to nothing, because a law of nature is not like a law in the juridical or legal sense. What scientists call ‘laws’ could easily be called something else, for instance ‘regularities’. It’s just an accident of the way our language has evolved that we call natural regularities by the name ‘laws’.

Laws of nature and juridical laws are very different. A scientific ‘law of nature’ can never be ‘broken’. Any clear breach of a proposed law merely demonstrates that it is not a law at all. The proposed law would be refuted and discarded.²³ A proposed law of nature is an attempt to describe the way things actually happen. A law passed by the U.S. Congress is nothing of the kind. Quite the contrary: the legislators and everyone else fully expect that any such law will be broken, and they write into their legislation instructions on what is to be done on the occasions when their new law is broken.

Even human laws of the kind appealed to in courts of law do not require a law giver. All great ‘law givers’ throughout history, like Hammurabi, Justinian, or Napoléon, started from pre-existing legal rules. Powerful monarchs, or people working for them, harmonized and codified those pre-existing rules. These rules first emerged as the customs of local communities. When tribal villages came into contact by means of trade and imperial rule, people had to devise ways of settling disputes between individuals from different communities. They also noticed that there were similarities as well as differences among the different traditional customs for settling disputes, common principles which could be identified. This is what actual historical ‘law givers’ did.²⁴ There has never been a law-giver without a pre-existing system of law. And even when a law is ‘given’ by a political ruler, it always evolves after that because of decisions in courts, decisions never anticipated by the law-giver. It’s impossible to prevent this evolution of new law.

The theist may try a different approach. ‘The fact that there are universal regularities—laws of nature, and especially laws of physics—is something that requires explanation. The atheist cannot explain it, whereas it can be explained by saying that it comes from the mind of God’. The theist is not saying here that the specific type of universal regularity could have been different and is improbable (I’ll get to that next). The theist is instead saying that any regularity at all requires a further explanation.

This claim rests on the assumption that if there were no God, we should expect there to be no regularities in the universe. But I can think of no reason why we should make that assumption. Furthermore (and this is a point I will return to several times in this book), the existence of God itself presupposes regularities. Whether there’s a God or not, we’re just stuck with the fact that there are regularities. God cannot account for all the regularities that prevail, because God could not exist if there were no regularities.

There certainly do seem to be universal regularities (or at least, regularities which hold for several billion galaxies, together constituting a tiny speck within the whole universe), though we should bear in mind that there’s also a huge amount of disorder and chaos in the universe, or what we can see of it. What we can see of the universe is generally characterized by a whole lot of empty space, and by chaotic violence and—as far as we can discern—utterly pointless occurrences on a vast scale.

Theists generally claim that natural laws are all determined by God, who could have chosen entirely different laws. Swinburne maintains—and in this he is typical of theologians—that all laws originate from God, who is not governed by laws. Thus all impersonal regularities, such as existing laws of nature, have a personal source: the free choice of God.

Suppose that God did decree all the physical laws of our universe. Still, there must be other natural laws that apply to God. Any general truth about the way reality operates is a natural law. If it’s true that everything God wills comes about, then that is a natural law. If it’s true that God can think, then there must be laws governing his mental processes. So even if there is a God, and even if God determined the laws of nature for our universe, God himself must still be subject to impersonal natural law. But if there must be natural laws to which God is subject, then we cannot say that any natural laws demand an explanation in terms of God, and this goes for the natural laws of our universe.

The Anthropic Coincidences

The Improbable Universe Argument—sometimes misleadingly called the Fine-Tuning Argument—is derived from facts about the universe revealed by modern physics. I believe it’s now the strongest argument for the existence of some kind of God.

It may be worth pointing out that this argument cuts no ice with most physicists, who are generally atheists.²⁵ I mention this, not because I think physicists are expert authorities in the area of philosophy and that we ought to accept their judgments on matters such as the existence of God—I think just the opposite—but simply to head off a possible misunderstanding about this particular Argument. Physicists, mostly non-theists, have developed various theories about the universe, and theists, mostly non-physicists, have adapted these theories to make the Improbable Universe Argument. Only a few physicists buy the Improbable Universe Argument, though they get a lot of press.

We humans can only exist because the universe has certain characteristics. For example, if planets had never come into existence, and had not then continued to orbit stars for billions of years, the emergence of humans would have been impossible.

It turns out that there are certain laws (or ‘constants’) prevailing in our universe which, if they had been different by only a few percentage points, would have meant that the conditions for human life could never have arisen. These laws have been called anthropic coincidences.

For example, if the ‘strong’ nuclear force had been slightly weaker, no element other than hydrogen could have come into existence. And if the strong force had been slightly stronger, stars would have quickly burned themselves out, without surviving for the billions of years needed for life to evolve.

Another example is the resonance of carbon. The only way in which carbon could have been formed within stars was by the collision of three helium atoms producing one atom of carbon. For this process to be effective, carbon had to possess a specific resonance; if that resonance had been somewhat different, the collision of three helium atoms would not have produced an atom of carbon.

A third example is the weakness of the force of gravity. The strength of electromagnetism between charged elementary particles is vastly greater—by a factor of 10³⁹—than the strength of gravity. If gravity were much stronger than it is, then stars would quickly collapse in upon themselves and planets would never have been produced.

The Improbable Universe Argument claims that if the laws of nature had been even slightly different from what they are, then the universe would not permit the development of life and consciousness, such as has evolved on planet Earth. Of all the imaginable laws of nature the universe might have, the vast majority would not have permitted life and consciousness to appear. According to some proponents of this Argument, the odds of natural laws being such that life and consciousness might appear are only one in many billions.

For a universe with the actual natural laws to have come into existence is therefore so improbable that it cannot have happened by chance. It requires a special explanation. That explanation can only be that someone—some intelligent agency—selected the laws. Obviously anyone capable of doing this has to possess stupendous powers that we can only consider godlike.

This Argument is sometimes referred to as a Design Argument, but it is very different from Paley’s Design Argument. It is frequently called the Fine Tuning Argument, but this is misleading. ‘Tuning’ is making adjustments to an already functioning apparatus to enhance its efficiency. Precisely this is what we are pretty sure has not happened with laws of the universe. If it had happened, the Improbable Universe Argument would be undermined: it is only because the Designer is not going to give the system periodic tune-ups that it is considered so vital to get the conditions exactly right from the getgo. Pickover likens this idea to the Creator adjusting a dial before setting off the reaction that would create the universe. Dial-setting is a more accurate metaphor than fine-tuning.

The Improbable Universe Argument does not dispute that, given the existence of the universe as it is, with its actual laws of nature, life and consciousness could evolve spontaneously, without direction or intervention by a conscious intelligence. The Argument maintains, however, that a conscious intelligence must have chosen the actual laws of nature—and must have done so with the aim of permitting life and consciousness to evolve.

Notice that this Argument goes against various types of Design Argument often deployed in favor of God. For instance, the claim that life could not have arisen naturally on the Earth because that would be too improbable implies that our universe is extremely inhospitable to the emergence of life. There’s obviously some awkwardness in proposing both of these arguments, though some theists manage to do it.

I don’t think the Improbable Universe Argument is convincing, given the present state of physics, but I can imagine future developments in physics that might strengthen it so that it would become more persuasive. For reasons I explain in Part III, this could not show the likely existence of the God of classical theism, because the God of classical theism is an incoherent notion and logically cannot exist. But it is imaginable that future findings of physics might cause us to entertain the hypothesis that a powerful intelligent being, or association of beings, set the dial for our universe.

Some physicists have questioned whether the anthropic coincidences are as highly improbable as is often claimed.²⁶ Here, however, I’ll assume that they are, and offer some objections to the Argument on that basis.

Objection #1: We Don’t Know that Our Universe Is Improbable

The Improbable Universe Argument rests on the assumption that our universe could have had entirely different physical laws, and that any imaginable laws were just as likely to hold for the universe as any others. It therefore assumes that there are more fundamental laws above and beyond the physical laws of our universe, and according to those more fundamental laws, any other laws could just as easily have been true in our universe. This is a bold claim about the nature of physical reality. Unless we accept such a claim, we cannot assume that these other, imaginary laws are just as probable as the ones we have.

A true die, as used in gambling, will show any given number from one to six (for instance, three) on any throw, with probability one sixth. This is because the six sides of the die are equally likely to turn up on top, if the die is properly thrown. A loaded die will show a three with (let’s assume) a probability one-fifth. Whether various results of throwing a die are equally probable or not is a matter of the shape and density of the die, and of physical laws. As we see from the case of the loaded die, the probability of the loaded die showing a three does not become one-sixth just because we can list six possible outcomes. The claim that our universe ‘could just as easily have had different laws’ is a claim about physical facts more fundamental than any laws which we attribute to our universe, and therefore it is a claim about natural laws which hold for all possible universes.

To claim that the laws of our universe are highly improbable is to claim that any other set of laws would have been equally probable. It is to claim that the die determining the laws of the universe, a ‘die’ with billions of sides rather than just six, was not loaded. We are currently not able to look at a random sample of universes to find out how the die might have landed in other cases, and neither are we able to examine the conditions determining the probability of any throw of this die. The probability that our universe has precisely the laws it has could be 1 (one hundred percent), or it could be

(fifty percent), or any other fraction of 1.

Objection #2: The Improbable Conditions May Not Be Independent

Suppose the laws of our universe could have been any other imaginable laws. It’s still possible that the actual laws of our universe are not as improbable as claimed by the Improbable Universe Argument. These long odds against the universe having laws allowing life to emerge are arrived at by multiplying each of several probabilities. One of the standard elements of probability theory is that while we may multiply probabilities to arrive at a compound probability of two ‘events’, we may not do this if the events are not independent.²⁷ There is still so much to be discovered about physics that it would not be surprising to find that some of the laws and conditions are not fully independent of each other. In that case, it would be mistaken to multiply them, and the probability of the universe having the laws it has could be much higher (or possibly much lower).

Objection #3: The Argument Assumes Existing Laws

Gilbert Fulmer has pointed out (Fulmer 2001) that any conclusion that life would be impossible under certain conditions can only be derived from assuming the laws of our universe. The Improbable Universe Argument proceeds by looking at just one or a few laws or constants different from those in our universe, assuming that all the other laws would be the same. If we assume that all laws might simultaneously be different, the conclusion does not follow. No attempt has been made to show that the emergence of life is improbable, given that all logically possible combinations of laws are possible.

Objection #4: There May Be Many Universes

But suppose that it’s true that the probability of the universe having the laws required to permit life is just as tiny as the Argument claims—for any one universe. Still, the Argument must assume that there is just one universe, or perhaps only a few. If there are, or have been, a great many universes, perhaps an infinite stream of them, then it would not be improbable for some of those universes to have the laws required. It would be certain. Exactly this has been proposed by some physicists. Given enough universes with different laws (in succession, or simultaneously, or related in a way where they cannot be compared in a common measure of time), for some of them to have the laws of our universe would be virtually certain.

Some atheists argue that life and consciousness may well exist in other universes under completely different conditions than in our universe. This strikes me as weak. Although ‘life’ in the bare sense of self-replicating molecules may exist in non-carbon chemistry, I believe it would be very rudimentary compared with carbon-based life, and even so, all elements heavier than helium would only exist in abundance in a universe with laws very much like ours. Hoyle (The Black Cloud) imagined a great cloud of gas in space that could think and Herbert (Whipping Star) imagined stars that could think, but probably once we have found out more about the physical conditions required to generate consciousness (given the laws of our universe) we will find these about as convincing as a block of wood that can think. If we ever find intelligent non-human life, I expect it will be carbon based.

Objection #5: There May Be Natural Selection of Universes

Lee Smolin has suggested that universes may reproduce, in the sense that events in one universe may give rise to other universes. If, for example, universes produce new universes by generating black holes, and if universes tend to generate new universes in some respects like themselves, then there would be natural selection of universes likely to form black holes, and therefore there would be natural selection for universes having laws very much like ours. Universes with black holes, as it happens, are universes likely to have solar systems with planets rich in carbon and other elements essential to life as we know it.

Objection #6: Dial-setting Does Not Imply God

Supposing that the laws of our universe are indeed due to dial-setting, still that does not imply the God of classical theism. Perhaps our universe was given its laws by a very powerful but less than omnipotent God, or perhaps by the final supreme collective effort of a dying association of godlings in another universe. We might call that association ‘God’, but it could be that this ‘God’ is long gone, or has no way of communicating with us or influencing us now that our universe exists.

There are even some physicists investigating the possibility that new big bangs, generating new universes, may be initiated in a laboratory run by humans. If this were possible, a laboratory-generated new universe would have its own spacetime, and would therefore probably not get in our way.

Objection #7: Would God Choose to Create Our Universe?

Much discussion of the Improbable Universe Argument takes for granted that if God exists, then he would have some incentive to bring into being a Universe like the one we live in.

If this were true, it would not, by itself, be much support for the existence of God. The fact that if A occurs then B is highly probable does not imply that if B occurs it is highly probable that A has occurred. If for the past hundred years the U.S. government had been permeated from top to bottom by a super-dedicated, super-secret conspiracy which had the object of bringing it about that the U.S. comprised precisely fifty states, then it’s very probable that the U.S. would now comprise precisely fifty states. But given that the U.S. comprises precisely fifty states, this does not make the existence of such a super-dedicated, super-secret conspiracy highly probable.

Nonetheless, the assumption that God would have such a motive and will is required by the Improbable Universe Argument. And surely this assumption is quite reckless.

Let’s suppose that there is a God but there is no physical universe. We’re angels at an angel seminar. Topic of the seminar is ‘Possible Things God Might Do’. We know all about physical universes on the theoretical level (these are the kinds of fantastic hypotheticals we angels like to debate in our abundant spare time, when we’re not dancing on the points of needles ²⁸). Would we conclude that God might set the dial for a physical universe like ours? It’s hard to see why.

Why would God want physical life to evolve at all? By hypothesis, something we can only call life already exists, in spirit form. We angels are one species of this spirit life. This spirit life has highly developed consciousness, and if we believe that the Devil started out as an angel, then these living entities have free will. What is it that’s so wonderful about physical life that is unattainable in the spirit world? Given the things theists tell us about spirits, I have no idea of the answer to this. (Don’t forget that if the answer is ‘Only a physical universe would enable x, y, or z to occur’, then whatever x, y, or z may be, that implies that God is subject to prior natural law, and the whole argument self-destructs, at least insofar as it is an argument for the God of classical theism.)

Assume, however, that biological life is desirable to God because it can evolve higher consciousness like that of humans (even though this higher consciousness already exists in the spirit world and does not therefore require the evolution of biological life). At least, then, an angel at the seminar would have to know that once the physical universe got going, life and conscious intelligence would both evolve by the operation of purely physical laws within that universe.

Yet surprisingly, many advocates of the Improbable Universe Argument reject this. Swinburne, for example, fully accepts Darwinian evolution and a completely physicalistic origin of life, yet he claims that the emergence of consciousness can never be explained by science. Consciousness requires special intervention by God. God has to intervene miraculously to make certain arrangements of matter the bearers of consciousness.

Given Swinburne’s view, despite what Swinburne himself concludes, it’s not obvious that the existence of a physical universe is necessary, or even helpful, to achieve anything God wants to achieve. A population of disembodied minds could exist (according to all Christians and Muslims, does exist) prior to a physical universe, and even given a physical universe, there has to be (in Swinburne’s view and in that of many theists) special intervention to make a population of conscious minds possible.

When theists try to explain what purpose it would serve God to arrange for a universe like ours, they tacitly abandon God’s omnipotence. When proponents of the Improbable Universe Argument assert that the various fundamental physical laws could be anything, this is in one sense far too sweeping (because we have no data on whether they ‘could be’ any different to what they are). But in another sense it’s far too modest: a God who could merely set the dial for an infinity of different physical constants would be a cripple of a God.

God’s omnipotence implies that there is no law of physics independent of God’s will, and thus the most fundamental laws of physics would be limited only by the laws of logical consistency. For example, God could just as easily have created a universe without fundamental particles, in which any type of substance could be divided infinitesimally, or he could have created a universe with several time dimensions as well as several spatial dimensions. He could have created a universe in which water was not H₂O and heat was not mean kinetic energy. Suppose that ‘string theory’ is all wrong. There are no superstrings. Still, God could have created a universe in which string theory was true. It’s surely clear that a truly omnipotent God could have created an infinity of different types of physical universe in which conscious life could evolve.

Christian apologists such as Bruce Reichenbach and Richard Swinburne, when they discuss cosmology, tacitly (and no doubt unwittingly) assume that God is subject to physical law (even though this law may be much more general than the laws of our universe). They tacitly give up God’s omnipotence.

Theists may respond that God might have motives, such as esthetic ones, for arriving at conscious life by the roundabout method of arranging for a Big Bang. That can’t be disproved. I’m not confident I can say much about the esthetic preferences of an omniscient and omnipotent God. But surely the point of the Improbable Universe Argument is to suggest that something which seems odd and inexplicable (laws of nature permitting the emergence of life and consciousness) can be made more comprehensible by supposing a God who started the universe and fixed its laws with the objective of bringing humans into being. This gain in comprehensibility, if it exists, must be lost if we have to start adding all sorts of ad hoc speculations about God’s otherwise unknown motives or limitations.

The Improbable Universe Argument hinges on the instigation of the universe being a means to God’s end. However, an omnipotent God would not and could not have means to ends: he could directly attain any desired ends. And if the instigation of the universe is not a means to God’s supposed end at all, but just something God did for inexplicable reasons, then the dial-setting hypothesis doesn’t help us.

Some atheists have proposed that if God wanted to create a universe which would enable conscious life to come into existence by the blind operation of natural laws, he would not have ‘wasted’ so much space just to produce us. The universe is quite big, and almost none of it has anything to do with humans. This isn’t a very good argument against God.

First, since God is omnipotent he faces no opportunity costs. Therefore no resource is ‘wasted’ because there’s always any amount more where that came from—and where that came from, according to classical theism, is nothing (nihil). Second, God may have numerous other plans not involving humans. We might be a very tiny part of all God’s reasons for creating the universe. Most theists would indignantly deny this, and insist that the universe is all there for our benefit. But that’s not essential to theism, and we ought to criticize an opposing position at its strongest.