The Divine Reality by By Hamza Andreas Tzortzis

Imagine you woke up one morning and walked to the kitchen to prepare your breakfast. As you approached the kitchen table, you found two pieces of toast with your favourite chocolate spread all over them. However, the spread has been arranged into the words ‘I love you’. You are surprised, but why? Do you think that the pieces of bread somehow managed to toast themselves, and the chocolate spread was able to arrange itself in such a way—all by chance? Or do you assume that your loved one decided to wake up a little early and prepare the toast in advance? Every rational human being on this planet will deny that it happened without any intention or cause; blind chance does not suffice as an explanation.

The universe is no different. It has an orderly and precise cosmic architecture that points towards purposeful design. The universe has the right set of laws to permit the existence of life, and it is ordered in a particular way to allow humans to flourish. If the laws were different or the universe did not contain a life-sensitive arrangement of stars, planets, and other physical things of varying sizes, you would not be here reading this book. In fact, there would be no human life at all. Consider another analogy.245 Imagine you are an astronaut working for NASA. The year is 2070, and you will be the first human being to visit an Earth-like planet in another galaxy. Your mission is to search for life. You finally land, and as you get out of your spaceship, you see nothing but rocks. However, as you continue your travels you eventually find something that looks like a huge greenhouse. Inside, you can see human-like creatures walking around, eating, playing, working and living normal productive lives. You also notice plants, trees, and other vegetation. As you approach the structure, friendly ambassadors receive you and invite you in. During your initial meeting with these friendly ‘aliens’, they tell you that the structure has the right levels of oxygen. It also has adequate amounts of water and chemical compounds to facilitate the production of food and life-supporting vegetation. Amazed by what you hear, you ask them how they managed to create a fully functioning ecological system that sustains life. One of the ambassadors responds, “It happened by chance”.

Immediately your mind starts to comprehend the implications of such a ludicrous statement. The only possible explanation for the structure is that it was designed by an intelligent being, not some random physical process. As these thoughts run through your mind, another ambassador interrupts and says, “He is only joking.” Everybody laughs.

If a small ecological structure on a rocky planet evokes the conclusion that it must have been designed, then imagine what we should conclude about the whole universe. The universe and everything within it obeys physical laws. If these laws were different there would be no complex conscious life. The universe contains billions of stars and galaxies. Among the countless galaxies occur innumerable planets. One of these planets is our home, Earth. Our planet contains trillions of conscious creatures. Imagine the conclusion we must reach if the reason these conscious beings exist is due to a sensitive arrangement of celestial bodies and physical laws. The inevitable conclusion is simple, yet profound: this was not a result of chance.

The Islamic basis.

This argument has an Islamic foundation. The Qur’an refers to celestial objects, the alternation of night and day, vegetation, animals and other physical phenomena. God created all of these things with a Divine precision: “The sun and the moon [move] by precise calculation. And the stars and trees prostrate. And the heaven He raised and imposed the meezaan.”246

The Arabic word meezan has a few meanings. These include balance and Divine precision. This word indicates that the cosmos was created with precision, balance and harmony. Many other references in the Qur’an indicate this cosmic precision, order and harmony in the universe:

“Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the Earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs for those of understanding.”247

“And He has subjected for you the night and day and the sun and moon, and the stars are subjected by His command. Indeed, in that are signs for a people who reason.”248

Islamic scholarship has referred to the design of the cosmos to evoke the need for a designer and maker. They have even used it in public debates. For example, Al-Ghazali writes: “How can even the lowest mind, if he reflects at all the marvels of this earth and sky, the brilliant fashioning of plants and animals, remain blind to the fact that this wonderful world with its settled order must have a maker to design, determine and direct it?”249.

Abu Hanifa, one of the great scholars of Islam, once engaged in a discussion with an atheist. It was reported that the scholar successfully used a variant of the argument from design:

“‘Before we enter into a discussion on this question, tell me what you think of a boat in the Euphrates which goes to shore, loads itself with food and other things, then returns, anchors and unloads all by itself without anyone sailing or controlling it?’ They said, ‘That is impossible; it could never happen.’ Thereupon he said to them, ‘If it is impossible with respect to a ship, how is it possible for this whole world, with all its vastness, to move by itself?’”250

These Qur’anic verses and Islamic scholarship echo the discoveries in physics in the past decade, which have shown that the universe has physical laws that seem to be precisely set for life, and that the universe has a particular order that facilitates human existence. This precision has also been referred to as ‘fine-tuning’ by many physicists, theologians and philosophers.

Fine-tuning.

The fine-tuning of the universe consists of various aspects. Firstly, if the laws of the universe were to not exist, life, especially complex conscious life, would not be possible. Secondly, the universe displays a fascinating order; the way celestial and other physical objects have been arranged facilitates life on Earth. All of the data associated with these different aspects of fine-tuning provide a strong cumulative case for the universe being designed to harbour complex, sentient life.

Physical laws.

There must have been exactly the right set of laws for life to exist. If these laws were even slightly changed, the result would be a universe without complex life:

• The law of gravity: Gravity is the force of attraction between two masses. Without gravity, there would be no force to aggregate things. Therefore, there would be no stars (and no planets). Without any stars, there would not be any sustainable source of energy to facilitate life.251 The universe would be a dark, empty vacuum.

• The electromagnetic force: This unique force affects everything within the universe. The electromagnetic force is responsible for giving things strength, shape and hardness. Without it, atoms would not exist, because nothing would keep the electrons in orbit. If there were no atoms, there could not be any life. The electromagnetic force also causes chemical bonding by attracting charges. In absence of any chemical bonding, life could not exist.252.

An interesting aspect of the electromagnetic force is that it has one-force strength, yet it satisfies a range of requirements. In his book, Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology, Professor John Leslie writes:

“Electromagnetism has one-force strength, which enables multiple key processes to take place: it allows stars to burn steadily for billions of years; it enables carbon synthesis in stars; it ensures that leptons do not replace quarks, which would have made atoms impossible; it is responsible for protons not decaying too fast or repelling each other too strongly, which would have made chemistry impossible. How is it possible for the same one-force strength to satisfy so many different requirements, when it seems that different strengths would be required for each of these processes?”253.

Maybe a satisfactory answer to Leslie’s question is that this force is precisely calibrated to satisfy all of these requirements.

• The strong nuclear force: Since the nucleus is made up of positively charged protons, it should just fly apart, because charges repel each other. However, the nucleus remains intact because of the strong nuclear force. If this were changed, “the universe would most likely consist of a giant black hole.”254.

• The weak nuclear force: The weak nuclear force is stronger than the force of gravity, but its strength is only effectual at extremely small distances. It is responsible for fuelling stars and the formation of elements. It is also responsible for radioactive decay. The sun would not be able to burn without this force, as it plays an important role in nuclear fusion. If this force were slightly stronger or weaker, stars would not form. In light of the above examples of the fine-tuning of physical laws, any rational person would ask some serious questions: Where did these laws of physics come from? Why do we observe these laws rather than a different set? How do these laws drive non-conscious, non-rational, blind and random physical processes to facilitate human life? It is a sign of a rational mind to conclude that a lawmaker, a ‘grand’ mathematician, or cosmic ‘mind’ created these laws to facilitate conscious life.

Cosmic order.

The orderly display we observe in the universe, and its celestial harmony, has not only evoked awe in the average thinker, but also mesmerised the greatest minds. Albert Einstein once said:

“I’m not an atheist, and I do not think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but does not know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.”255.

Even the outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins has commented on the order in the universe. Although he dismisses the design hypothesis and provides his own naturalistic explanation, he still highlights what mesmerised the likes of Einstein:

“But what I see as I write is that I am lucky to be alive and so are you. We live on a planet that is all but perfect for our kind of life: not too warm and not too cold, basking in kindly sunshine, softly watered; a gently spinning, green and gold harvest festival of a planet… what are the odds that a planet picked at random would have these complaisant properties?”256.

The universe is indeed “marvellously arranged” and it displays intricate order. If this order were different, it would be highly unlikely that human life could flourish. Here are some selected examples to reflect upon:

• The position of our planet: One of the life-supporting features of our planet is its distance from the Sun. Earth is located in an area known as the habitable zone. This zone is defined as the “region where heating from the central star provides a planetary surface temperature at which a water ocean neither freezes over nor exceeds boiling point.”257 If our planet were slightly closer to the Sun, it would be too hot to host life. If it were farther away, it would be too cold to facilitate complex life, such as our own.

• Jupiter’s gravitational pull: The absence of the gas giant Jupiter in our solar system would have severe implications for life. Professor of Geological Sciences Peter Ward maintains, “Without Jupiter, there is a strong likelihood that animal life would not exist on Earth today.”258 Jupiter acts as a cosmic shield; it prevents comets and asteroids from bombarding our planet because its gravitational pull ‘sucks’ up asteroids. Without our friendly gas giant, the development of advanced life might not have been possible Rebecca Martin, a NASA Sagan Fellow who studied the influence of Jupiter, states, “Our study shows that only a tiny fraction of planetary systems observed to date seem to have giant planets in the right location to produce an asteroid belt of the appropriate size, offering the potential for life on a nearby rocky planet… Our study suggests that our solar system may be rather special.”259

Without the presence of Jupiter, life on our planet would have been extremely difficult to sustain, due to the large number of collisions by asteroids and comets.260 261.

• Lunar tides: The relatively large size of Earth’s moon is responsible for tides, due to its gravitational pull. After the Moon’s formation, it was closer to the Earth than it is now, but this proximity was short-lived. If the Moon had not receded (due to angular momentum), there would have been serious effects on our planet. These include heating the Earth’s surface, which would have prevented complex life from emerging.

Professor Ward explains that a closer Moon would have flexed the Earth’s crust and produced frictional heating, possibly melting its surface: “The ocean tides (and land tides) from a nearby Moon would have been enormous, and the flexing of the Earth’s crust, along with the frictional heating, may have actually melted the rocky surface.”262.

• Stabilizing the tilt of the Earth’s spin axis: The Moon has also been responsible for stabilizing the tilt of the Earth’s axis. Professor Ward explains that even though “the direction of the tilt varies over periods of tens of thousands of years as the planet wobbles, much like precession of a spinning top, the angle of the tilt relative to the orbit plane remains almost fixed.”263.

This angle has held steady for hundreds of millions of years due to the gravitational pull of the moon. If the moon were smaller, or had a different location in relation to the Sun and Jupiter, it would not provide “long-term stability of the Earth’s temperature”.

264 Therefore, if the Earth did not have a moon, the climate of our planet would be dynamic, severe and ever changing. Only small organisms would have emerged, and complex life would not be possible. In light of the above, what best explains the laws of physics and the orderly display of our solar system? There are a few options:

chance, physical necessity, the multiverse or design.

Chance.

For this fine-tuning to have arisen by chance indicates that the laws of physics and the display of our solar system occurred without any intention or purpose. They were a result of accidental, random and haphazard causes. This is an irrational assertion. Consider this painting of Bruce Lee265

.

If I told you that it was a result of chance—that some ink fell on the canvas and produced this picture—you would dismiss the idea immediately. That’s because your experiences and background information tell you it is impossible. Similarly, if I argued that the Statue of Liberty was a result of blind chance, you would think I was deluded.

The chance hypothesis is not only irrational, it is counter-discourse. What I mean by this is that if someone were to claim chance, it would be equivalent to making any type of irrational claim. For instance, I could tell an atheist that I believe that my mother is not really the woman who I call my mother, but rather a large pink elephant that was born on Pluto and flew here on a giant feather. My atheist friend would call me crazy, but I would reply, “There’s still a chance.” Adopting the chance hypothesis renders all claims possible, and the role of reason would be made redundant in our academic and everyday discussions. I could assert that Islam is true because there is a chance that it is, and I would be within my epistemic rights to make such a claim because the minute someone adopts the chance hypothesis as an argument, it opens the door to anyone claiming anything they want to claim.

An atheist who accepts the chance hypothesis as a valid explanation for the fine-tuning of the physical laws must be accused of intellectual double standards. In their everyday decisions, chance is not factored in as a reasonable justification for extremely improbable things. Consider an atheist telling her son not to eat any cookies before he goes to bed, only to find him sleeping on the floor with crumbs all over his face and the cookie jar open right next to him. What do you think she will conclude? Do you think the chance hypothesis would even enter her mind? Of course not. Imagine such reasoning being applied to our financial transactions, or in courts of law and politics. Day-to-day life, world affairs and our economy would be chaotic. Many atheists raise the epistemic bar when it comes to God, yet for their day-to-day lives use a different standard. Their insistence in denying the obvious seems to have an emotional cause (or, as some thinkers argue, a spiritual one). For some atheists, the so-called rational arguments serve as a veil to hide a greater issue: the arrogance of not wanting to worship God (see Chapter 15).

But there’s still a chance!.

Some atheists still argue that there is still—no matter how unreasonable—a possibility that cosmic order is not the result of any intention or purpose. They claim that our life-permitting universe exists due to a remarkably lucky accident.

To answer this objection, take the likelihood principle into consideration. A rational mind would agree that whenever a set of data is unlikely under one hypothesis, then that data counts as evidence in support of a hypothesis that is more likely. Let me illustrate this principle with an example.266 Imagine a paternity test for baby George had to be done on Paul Y and John X. The mother argues that Paul Y is most likely to be the biological father. Nevertheless, she is unsure and wants a paternity test to be performed on them both. John X, however, believes he is the father and is determined to prove it. The DNA results report that Paul Y’s DNA matches baby George’s DNA, and John X’s DNA does not. In light of the evidence, the mother’s hypothesis is far more likely. John X’s hypothesis is not supported by the data at all. According to this principle, both DNA results support the mother’s hypothesis. Because for her hypothesis to be true, John X’s DNA must not match with baby George’s, and Paul Y’s DNA must provide a match. Therefore, the data supports the mother’s hypothesis over John X’s.

The data of the fine-tuning of the universe are best explained by design rather than chance, because fine-tuning supports the fact that there was some type of intelligent ‘pre-planning’ involved, rather than an accidental, random and haphazard set of causes. Applying this principle to the argument I have presented so far, we can see that the data does not make sense under the chance hypothesis and favours the design hypothesis.

Physical necessity?.

With the concept of physical necessity, the cosmic order has to be the way that it is. This is false for two main reasons. Firstly, we would have to believe that a universe that could not permit our existence would be impossible. This, however, is not the case. Another universe with a different set of laws could have been created.267 The physicist Paul Davies explains that “the physical universe does not have to be the way it is: it could have been otherwise.”268

Secondly, those who state that the universe had to permit life are making a claim that has no evidence. Referring back to the toast analogy, it is like looking at your toast and the chocolate spread and saying that it had to occur. This is obviously false, because the bread could have not been toasted and the chocolate spread could have been replaced with butter.

Multiverse?.

Some argue that the fine-tuning can be explained by postulating the existence of many universes. One of these is our universe. If the number of universes was a very high number, then the likelihood of having a universe that permits life would be reasonable. Referring back to our example of the painting, the multiverse essentially suggests that spilling ink multiple times might result in the image of Bruce Lee. There are a few variations of the multiverse theory, and this is not the space to address every one. However, a few fundamental points can be made to dismiss the multiverse theory in general.

Firstly, the multiverse theory is superfluous. It unnecessarily multiplies entities beyond necessity. Professor Richard Swinburne asserts, “It is crazy to postulate a trillion (causally connected) universes to explain the features of one universe when postulating one entity (God) will do the job.”269

Secondly, there is no evidence to support the multiverse theory. Professor Anthony Flew writes, “…the fact that it is logically possible that there are multiple universes with their own laws of nature does not show that such universes do exist. There is currently no evidence in support of a multiverse. It remains a speculative idea.”270

Not only does the multiverse have no evidence, it is unscientific. Luke A. Barnes, a postdoctoral researcher at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, explains that the multiverse theory is beyond the reach of observation:

“The history of science has repeatedly taught us that experimental testing is not an optional extra. The hypothesis that a multiverse actually exists will always be untestable. The most optimistic scenario is where a physical theory, which has been well-tested in our universe, predicts a universe-generating mechanism. Even then, there would still be questions beyond the reach of observation, such as whether the necessary initial conditions for the generator hold in the metaspace… Moreover, the process by which a new universe is spawned almost certainly cannot be observed.”271

The most popular version of the multiverse, as advocated by many leading cosmologists and theoretical physicists, is the idea that universes are generated by a physical process or set of laws. Essentially, they argue that the laws of physics had to exist for the universe, and all the other universes, to emerge. The problem with this version of the multiverse theory is that it takes more faith to believe in some physical process producing universes than God, because we would have to believe that the physical processes magically manifested themselves without any explanation. Furthermore, it would be within our epistemic rights to ask where these physical laws or processes came from. Significantly, the physical processes themselves would need to be ‘well designed’ to produce a single universe to permit our existence.272 So it seems to me that advocates of this version of the multiverse are just pushing fine-tuning and order up a level and not explaining anything at all. Either way, if the multiverse were true it would not provide a challenge to God’s existence (see Chapter 6).

It must have been designed!.

The physical laws and the remarkable order in the universe cannot be explained by chance, necessity or the multiverse, and therefore the best explanation is that it is a result of design. Postulating purposeful ‘pre-planning’ and intelligence behind the cosmos is a more coherent and rational explanation than the alternatives. The simplicity and force of this argument is evident in the example of someone coming across a garden with a neatly arranged bed of flowers forming the words ‘I love you’, and concluding they were designed by a gardener.

However, there are a few objections that need to be addressed.273.

Who designed the designer?.

The ‘who designed the designer’ objection can be found in Richard Dawkins’s book, The God Delusion: “…because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.”274 This contention claims that if a designer exists, then surely the designer also requires a designer.

Firstly, a basic principle in the philosophy of science dictates that when an explanation is understood to be the best possible account for a particular phenomenon, the explanation itself does not require a further explanation. The following example illustrates this point: Imagine 5000 years from now, a group of archaeologists start digging in London’s Hyde Park and find parts of a car and a bus. They would be justified in concluding that these finds were not the result of any biological process, but the products of an unidentified civilization. However, if some sceptics argued that we cannot make such inferences because we do not know anything about this civilization, how they lived and who created them, would the archaeologists’ conclusions be deemed untrue? Of course not.

Secondly, if we take this contention seriously, it could undermine the very foundations of science and philosophy themselves. If we require an explanation for the basic assumptions of science—for example, that the external world exists—where do you think our level of scientific progress would be? Additionally, if we were to apply this type of question to every attempted explanation, we would end up with an infinite regression of explanations, and an infinite regression of explanations would defeat the whole purpose of science in the first place—which is to provide an explanation.275.

The designer must be more complex.

Another objection argues that since an explanation must be as simple as possible—and not create more questions than it answers— postulating God’s existence to explain the design, fails. God must be more ‘complex’ than the universe; therefore, maintaining that God designed the universe just moves the problem up a level.

This objection misrepresents the Islamic conception of God. In Islamic theology, God is simple and uniquely one. Consider the eloquent summary of God in the Qur’an: “Say, ‘He is God the One, God the eternal. He begot no one nor was He begotten. No One is comparable to Him.’”276

Professor Anthony Flew comments on the simplicity of the concept of God, stating that the idea of God is “an idea so simple that it is understood by all the adherents of the three great monotheistic religions”277.

Is God physically complex?.

Another problem with this contention is that it assumes God is made of many physical parts. The reason that this assumption is implied is due to the fact that entities with complex abilities must also be physically complex. If God can answer billions of prayers, maintain the vast universe and know everything that happens within it, then He must have a complex physical makeup. This, however, is a false assumption. Complex ability does not imply complex makeup. Consider a straight razor and an electric shaver as an example. An electric shaver can shave hair and a straight razor can also shave hair. They both have the same ability, but the electric shaver is far more complex than the straight razor. Yet the straight razor can have more abilities than the physically complex electric shaver. It can cut fruit and materials, such as cardboard; it can even carve and make holes. I believe this objection can be easily dismissed by the following illustration: I know that humans are far more complex than cars. However, just because a human is more complex than a car does not mean that a human did not design it. This simple consideration is enough to take the wind out of the prior false objection.

‘God of the gaps’?

The ‘god of the gaps’ objection is an overused atheist cliché. In popular atheist discourse it is commonly used as an indiscriminate intellectual weapon. The assumption of this objection is that science will eventually explain the need for God by providing explanations for the currently unexplained phenomena. In the context of the design argument, the ‘god of the gaps’ objection carries little weight. Here are four reasons why:

1. When an atheist puts forward this objection, he or she is essentially claiming that given the scientific data we have accumulated thus far, a designer is actually the best explanation for the universe’s design, but there’s still some hope that in some unspecified future, scientific progress will refute the design argument. This is nothing short of blind faith in science, as it is tantamount to saying, “Science cannot address this issue, but we have hope.”.

2. The atheist’s predicament gets worse once we consider that a key premise of the ‘god of the gaps’ objection is false. It holds that science will eventually close the gap in our knowledge. However, science does not always close the gaps; it sometimes widens them. A hundred years ago we believed that cells were just blobs of protoplasm. However, since the 1950s we have become aware of the vast information-coding system in all cells. This discovery, instead of answering our questions, widened the gap in our understanding of how the first cells emerged.

3. I would like to ask the atheist to consider what questions science has actually answered. Science has shown mechanisms within the universe, how everything works and the physical laws involved. However, science has failed to provide answers to questions that have deep existential significance. Science has not explained fine-tuning, the beginning of the universe (see Chapter 5), the origins of life, nor the nature and emergence of consciousness (see Chapter 7). Science does not have a good track record of answering questions that have profound metaphysical implications (see Chapter 12).

4. The atheist assumes that the God explanation is a scientific one. Postulating a cosmic designer is a philosophical (or metaphysical) explanation, which aims to explain the fine-tuning of the universe.

Notwithstanding, some atheists maintain that the ‘god of the gaps’ objection is an argument from ignorance and not an adherence to the position that science will one day fill the gap. They maintain that not knowing how a finely-tuned universe was produced is arguing from ignorance. They also argue that the design argument assumes the knowledge gap will remain forever. This formulation of the ‘god of the gaps’ objection assumes that behind every gap has (or should have) a naturalistic explanation. The design explanation is a metaphysical explanation that best explains our current knowledge of the universe’s finely-tuned features. Further, the design explanation can also be considered as an inference to the best explanation. Inference to the best explanation is not an argument from ignorance; it is an indispensable way of thinking that attempts to coherently explain a set of data and/or background information. The design conclusion is the inference to the best explanation given the data we currently have. Instead of indiscriminately using the ‘god of the gaps’ objection, the atheist should show why the design explanation is not the best explanation and provide a better one for everyone to assess.

There is no likelihood!.

Some contend that the argument presented in this chapter does not make sense, because terms like ‘probability’ and ‘likelihood’ cannot be applied to the fine-tuning and cosmic order in the universe. This contention holds that mathematical probability cannot be assumed, because we only have one universe to observe. To have a mathematical probability we need to have a probability distribution. A mathematical probability is the number of ways an event can occur divided by the total number of possible outcomes. Since there are no other universes that we can observe, there are no other possible outcomes. Therefore, mathematical probability cannot be applied, and it renders the design hypothesis redundant.

This contention is misplaced. It mistakenly assumes that the argument refers to a mathematical probability; it does not. The type of probability that it takes into consideration is epistemic.278 This type of probability is not based on any number of possible outcomes; rather, it addresses the rational acceptability of a particular event considering the data we have at our disposal. Generally speaking, epistemic probability involves a hypothesis (H) and evidence (E). The greater the E for a particular H, the more likely that H is true. A good example is a crime scene: Imagine there is a dead man with a knife next to him and blood all over the floor and on his body. The detective believes that his wife is guilty of his murder. He discovers the following vital pieces of data: the wife has no alibi, and he has detected her fingerprints and DNA on the knife. The detective concludes that it is highly likely that the deceased’s wife is responsible for his murder. The evidence provides support for the detective’s hypothesis. This is a clear example of epistemic probability. None of the above examples of the fine-tuning of the physical laws and the cosmic order involve mathematical probability. All that has been said is that if the laws were different, the existence of a life-permitting universe would be unlikely, and given our background knowledge of designed things, the order of the cosmos supports the fact that this universe is designed for human existence.

Most of the universe is uninhabitable! So where is this so-called design?.

This objection posits that if the universe was supposed to be designed by a cosmic designer, then why does the universe permit life only in an extremely small section of the universe? This objection is based on a flawed assumption that the whole universe is supposed to exist for human habitation. According to Islamic theology, this assumption is false. The Islamic texts are explicitly clear that the size of our life-permitting planet is insignificant compared to the rest of the universe.

Why did God design an imperfect universe?.

This objection follows from the previous one. The disputants maintain that if God designed the universe, why would He design one that exhibits ‘bad design’? In other words, why is the universe designed in a way that facilitates life only in a very small section? This objection does not deny the fact that the universe is designed. However, it addresses the ability of the designer. A key assumption behind this objection is that if the designer is God, a perfect Being, then what He creates must exhibit a better design to facilitate human habitation. This is a false assumption because this is not the purpose of the entire cosmos. Rather, part of its purpose is to contain human beings in a small section of the universe. This is the Islamic view of human habitation. It holds that every corner of the universe is not supposed to be fit for life, and is not supposed to last forever. (This, however, does not dismiss the idea that life can exist on other planets. The point is that life is not meant to exist in every part of the universe.)

From this perspective the design of the universe perfectly fits its purpose. Therefore, this contention is incorrect.

The Weak Anthropic Principle objection.

The weak anthropic principle argues that we should not be surprised that there is fine-tuning of the physical laws and cosmic order in the universe, because if the universe was not finely tuned for life, our existence would not be possible. However, we do exist. Therefore, we should not be surprised that the universe permits our existence. This is why, according to this objection, the fine-tuning of the universe needs no explanation.

This contention can be summarised in the following way:

1. If we exist, the universe must have features that would permit our existence.

2. We exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has features that permit our existence.

The conclusion is indisputable. However, once again we have a misplaced contention. The fine-tuning does not assert that we need to explain the fact that our existence fits with the universe’s features. It seeks an explanation for the way our existence seems to fit with the universe’s features. In other words, it seeks an explanation for the improbability of these features permitting our existence.

The following story clarifies why the anthropic principle objection is misplaced.279 Imagine one day, while driving home, you accidentally take a wrong turn and end up in a secluded industrial area.

Your car stops working, so you decide to take a walk to see if you can find anyone to help you. Suddenly a group of armed people dressed in nuclear-type suits handcuff you, put a bag over your head and push you into the back of a car. After a few hours, you are forced out of the car and walk towards a building. Eventually the armed group take the bag off your head and place you in a chair. You look around the room, and all you can see are white walls and bright lights. However, right in front of you is a huge machine that looks like a giant futuristic washing machine. Everything turns silent, and you hear a voice ordering you to climb the stairs and get inside the machine. You are told you are the first participant to try the newly invented time machine. You have no choice in the matter. You enter the machine and within minutes you feel lots of heat and hear lots of noise, and your surroundings become blurry. You lose consciousness. After a while, you wake up and find yourself in 1625. You are tied up against a tree and you can see 100 Native Americans, approximately 10 yards away, pointing their arrows at you. These Native Americans have never missed when shooting an arrow, and they all have the ability to kill a fly while riding on a horse, blindfolded. You hear someone count down from 10, and then someone screams, ‘Fire’. Every single one of these American Indians is aiming for your heart. However, you open your eyes and realize every single one of them has missed their intended target: you. Now, there are two points I want to bring to your attention. Firstly, you should not be surprised that you are still alive because they missed; if you were not alive you wouldn’t be able to know. Secondly, you should be extremely surprised that the reason you are alive is based on the improbability of them missing. The anthropic principle argues the first point, while the argument presented in this chapter makes a case for the second. We should not be surprised that we are alive in a universe that has features to permit our existence.

However, we should be surprised of the improbability of these features permitting our existence. Hence, the anthropic principle misses the point.

You are assuming life is special.

An interesting objection to the fine-tuning argument is that it is ‘anthropocentric’. In other words, it assumes that there is something special about human life that requires fine-tuning. If there was no sentient life, we could still say that the universe was finely tuned for stars and planets. If there were no celestial objects, we could say that the universe was finely tuned for sub-atomic particles. This implies that the fine-tuning argument can be applied to anything in the universe; therefore, it is not a good argument at all.

This objection can be responded to in two ways:

1. Even if the universe was not fine-tuned for human existence, the argument could still be made for the existence of the universe itself. The universe contains complex celestial objects, along with the intricate chemical processes that are responsible for—and make up—these cosmic objects. This complexity requires an explanation. If such a universe did not exist, and there was just an empty universe with random particles, there wouldn’t be much for the universe to fine-tune for. However, there is a complex cosmic order that the universe seems to be fine-tuned for, therefore it is deserving of an explanation.

2. Life, especially human life, is extremely complex.

Therefore, it is the mark of a rational mind to search for an explanation for the existence of such complexity, given the fact that this complexity is based on the physical laws and cosmic order being fine-tuned.

Other-forms-of-life objection.

Another common objection to the fine-tuning argument is that it is based on the assumption that the only life that could exist is carbon-based life. If the laws of physics were different, carbon-based life might have been impossible. However, other non-carbon forms of life could have existed if the laws of physics were different. Therefore, intelligent life could exist under a different cosmic order. The fine-tuning argument, however, is not based on this hypothesis. It is based on two reasonable assumptions. The first is that conscious intelligent life requires an energy source, whether that life is carbon-based or not. For instance, without gravity there would be no stars, and without stars there would be no energy source for life. The second is that conscious life requires some form of complexity. For example, if the strong nuclear force were slightly changed, no atoms would exist apart from hydrogen. It is inconceivable that complex conscious life could be derived from hydrogen alone. If the physical laws were different, any form of stable and complex life could not exist. These are rational and coherent assumptions to make.280

The fine-tuning or design argument is one of the most intuitive. Its power and simplicity are difficult to challenge, just as it would be difficult to prove that your toast toasted itself and managed to spell out ‘I love you’, using your favourite chocolate spread, all by chance. It is clear that there must have been some purposeful design. However, the universe is far more complex and displays far more precision than three words on a piece of toast. It stands to reason that the only conclusion is that there is a cosmic designer who established order and precision in the universe to facilitate conscious life.