Sunday 26 May 2013

The Fine Tuning Argument for Naturalism

When theists say that our universe is one of the very few possible universes in which life could have arisen, what they really mean is that it's one of the few universes in which life could have arisen naturally. But the theist doesn't believe that life arose from the dust of the earth naturally, but rather that it happened supernaturally by divine intervention. But then the fine tuning argument is rather strange, for there is no limitation on what a god could create. If he saw fit he could have created us impervious to the cold vacuum of space, or to the extreme heat of a very young but already collapsing universe. Supposedly God didn't even have to create us with physical bodies, but instead with bodies made of some other substance, or maybe even created us as unembodied minds like himself. So if the possibilities for creation are endless to an infinite god, isn't it rather lucky of us—indeed something of a coincidence—that we would find ourselves existing in one of the very few universes that could have produced us without any supernatural intervention at all? Can a counter to the fine tuning argument be fleshed out of this? I think one can:

1. Its extremely unlikely that we would exist at all given naturalism; as our universe is one of the very few that could produce life naturally.
2. Therefore it's extremely likely that we would find ourselves existing in the universe we do, given naturalism; after all, where else could we come to exist naturally?
3. But it's not very likely that we would find ourselves existing in the universe we do given a supernatural creator; the range of possible universes in which we could exist given a supernatural creator is vastly greater than the range of possible universes in which we could exist given naturalism
4. Therefore, given that we have found ourselves existing in this very universe, naturalism is greatly supported over supernaturalism.

No comments:

Post a Comment