The Dials of Life (Reasonable Belief part 3)

The first mention of life on earth in the Bible comes in verse eleven of the book of Genesis: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.” Of course, those who hold that Genesis is a historical account of the beginning of all things physical (as I do) have no problem with this. Many scientists, however would argue that life arose by chemical reaction without supernatural intervention. We will explore this concept in this series of articles.

First, I’d like to take a look at what conditions are there that even make life in general possible, and specifically life on earth. Scientists have observed that the properties of the universe seem to be uniquely “fine tuned” in order to make life possible. Sir Fred Hoyle, an English astronomer and the person credited with the term “Big Bang”, famously said ”Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” (Emphasis mine) And this is just regarding the formation of the carbon atom! Some other examples of fine tuning (there are many) include the strong and weak nuclear forces (that determine what kind of atoms are possible), gravitational forces (too much and everything collapses, too little and everything flies apart), spectrum of light (our sun provides just the right wavelength), distance of planet from sun (the earth is just the right distance)… the list goes on and on. Because of these "just right" conditions, some have said that the earth is located in a "Goldilocks" zone.

There have been several different approaches by science to avoid what they see as “the problem of fine tuning". One of the answers that has been proposed goes along the lines of “The only reason we can question these things is because we are here to observe them.” That is correct, as far as it goes, but given the overwhelming odds that all of these values are what they are, and that if any one of them had been off by the smallest fraction life and indeed the universe as we know it would not exist, we are entirely justified in asking “Why?”!

Another attempt to avoid this problem is the “multiverse hypothesis", which I believe we have thoroughly discussed here and here. Briefly, the argument goes that if there is an infinity of universes created at random, then it comes as no surprise that our particular universe has the parameters we find in it. This hypothesis , however, also fails to totally avoid the issue for both scientific and philosophical reasons. Scientifically, a multiverse generating mechanism must itself be “fine tuned”. Philosophically, God is still the most plausible explanation for the origination of the multiverse.

The “problem” of fine tuning remains. The universe and our planet earth give the strong appearance of having been designed to support life. Now those who have been following my blog can probably anticipate my next thought: fine tuning requires a “tuner”, and of course design implies a designer. If your view is that of a materialist (the physical is all there is) then of course these things are a “problem”. For a Christian, it is just another “infallible proof” of our wondrous Creator.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article. For more information on how I keep my worldview informed please go to http://crossroadspbc.org/