We will discuss the following objections in later sections. Unsurprisingly, a wide range of objections have been raised against the FTA. Chance is discounted because the probabilities involved are extremely small, and the universe conforms to an independent pattern (it is life permitting). (3) Therefore, it is due to design.” Physical necessity is discounted because of the existence of alternative mathematical laws of nature and the non-uniqueness of initial conditions in all physical laws. (2) It is not due to physical necessity or chance. Craig (2003) presents the FTA as a syllogism: “(1) The fine-tuning of the initial state of the Universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. Roberts (2011), motivated by the problem of old evidence, formulates the argument with the existence of a life-permitting universe as background evidence and the fine-tuning of the universe for life as new evidence on which we update our credences. (I will discuss multiple naturalistic universes in a later section). Given that theism “was advocated prior to the fine-tuning evidence (and has independent motivation)”, it follows that the existence of a life-permitting universe strongly supports theism over the naturalistic single universe hypothesis. In a similar vein, Collins (2009) argues that given the fine-tuning evidence, a life-permitting universe is “very, very epistemically unlikely” under the hypothesis that there is a single naturalistic universe, but not unlikely under theism. Swinburne argues that the probability that human bodies exist, given that the universe conforms to natural laws, is very low if theism is false, and not very low if theism is true. Swinburne (2004) presents the FTA as a “C-inductive” argument, that is, an argument that adds to the probability of the conclusion. Philosophers of religion have formulated the FTA in a number of ways. Faced with his own fine-tuning discoveries in physics and astronomy, Fred Hoyle commented that, “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” (Hoyle 1982). It is worth remembering, before we consider the range of philosophical formulations and responses, that the argument has considerable intuitive force. It thus provides evidence for the existence of God. evolves according to unbroken patterns, the laws of nature” (Carroll 2016: 20)-but not particularly unexpected given theism-that God exists. The FTA claims that, given the fine-tuning of the universe, the existence of a life-permitting universe is very unexpected given naturalism - that “there is only one world, the natural world. This is known as the fine-tuning of the universe for life. But new information has seemingly made this familiar fact into an astounding one: in the set of fundamental parameters (constants and initial conditions) of nature, such as the cosmological constant and the strength of electromagnetism, an extraordinarily small subset would have resulted in a universe able to support the complexity required by life. ![]() ![]() To be sure, it is a familiar fact-after all, we exist. The claim is that the existence of a universe that supports the complexity required by physical life forms is remarkable. The Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God puts forward just such a fact. Is the physical world all that exists? Are the ultimate laws of the physical universe the end of all explanations, or is there something about our universe that is noteworthy or rare or clever or unexpected? I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections.
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