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.