Paul Clark

Author of The Omega Course

Does Fine Tuning Prove God Exists?

Christian apologists frequently cite fine tuning as proof of the existence of God. This article will examine the fine tuning argument and objections to it.

WHAT IS FINE TUNING?

The idea emerged from scientific advances in the late 20th century. It points to dozens of natural constants, the conditions of the early universe and the fundamental forces of nature, all of which, it claims, are fine tuned for the creation of life. Among them are:[i]

  • The cosmological constant
  • The relative strengths of gravity and electromagnetism
  • The relative strengths of the strong nuclear force and electromagnetism
  • The relative masses of the two lightest quarks
  • The strength of the weak force
  • The cosmic energy density of the early universe
  • The relative amplitude of the Q density
  • The low entropy of the early universe
  • The existence of gravity, the strong force and electromagnetism

The cosmological constant, for example, drove the rate of expansion of the early universe. If this expansion rate had been any faster, the universe would have expanded too rapidly to allow the creation of atoms, galaxies and stars. Any slower, and the universe would have collapsed in on itself.[ii]

The fine tuning argument states that if any one of these factors hadn’t been exquisitely fine-tuned, life would be impossible. Theologian William Lane Craig cites a number of atheist scientists who openly admit that fine tuning is real.[iii] This fine tuning is so astonishingly improbable that the only possible explanation is that God did it.

Other thinkers take a less theistic line. Philosopher Philip Goff comes at fine tuning from a philosophically idealistic and panpsychist perspective. He insists that fine tuning is real and argues that it shows the universe is goal-directed, and that goal is the creation of life.[iv]

CHRISTIAN OBJECTIONS TO FINE TUNING

Christian proponents of fine tuning may not be aware that some theologians strongly object to it. The first objection is that if God is all-powerful, he doesn’t need to fine tune the universe for life. He can create life whenever he wants without fine tuning anything.

The second Chistian objection is to ask how many miracles you need to create life. This is an argument that goes back to Leibniz in the 17th century. To use a modern analogy: if something is designed for flight, you don’t need a miracle to get it off the ground. Similarly, if the universe is miraculously designed for life, you don’t need another miracle to create life. You can have fine tuning for life or you can have God miraculously creating life, but you can’t have both.[v]

WHAT IS LIFE?

A secular objection to the argument that the universe is fine tuned for life is that we don’t actually have an agreed definition of what life is.[vi] We can all agree that people, tomato plants and individual ants are alive. But what about a whole colony of ants? Is it alive? Or prions, viruses, computer viruses, memes, AI, the internet, Gaia? Do they count as life forms?

If we don’t know what life is, how can we say that the universe is fine tuned for it? How can we say that some form of life couldn’t exist if the parameters of the universe were different?[vii]

To this, the Christian can object that the life form God really wants is the one he created in his own image: the human being. If that is the case, how come he took so long to get round to it? Why did he fill the earth with dinosaurs for 165 million years before sending an asteroid to wipe them out to make room for mammals to take over?

The idea that the universe was built for humans is ridiculed by Douglas Adams’ puddle analogy.[viii] He says it is like a puddle believing that the hole in the ground that fits it so perfectly was created especially for it.

And is it not egoism of the very worst sort to imagine that we, recently evolved mammals on an insignificant pale blue dot, are the reason for the structure of the whole cosmos?[ix]

INFINITE IMPROBABILITY

Apologists claim that the way the universe is fine tuned is almost infinitely improbable.[x] But it can be argued that we have no way of assessing these probabilities.

Where you have no previous history or other examples to draw on, the way to calculate the probability of an event is to define all the possible events and outcomes that can occur and then divide the number of events by the number of possible outcomes. We simply lack the knowledge to do this with any of the finely tuned features of the universe.[xi]

The only alternative is to use an inaccurate technique such as the principle of indifference[xii] or to use epistemic probability,[xiii] which is an academically respectable way of saying guesswork.

But, for the sake of argument, let us concede that the fine tuning of the universe is amazingly improbable. Does something improbable always need to be explained? Apologists say yes: it is as if someone has thrown a die 70 times and come up with number six every time.[xiv] The chances of doing this are about 1:1055 (10 followed by 55 zeros, an astonishingly unlikely event).

In the interests of science, I have just thrown a die 70 times. These are my results: 5, 3, 2, 4, 6, 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 3, 1, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1, 4, 6, 2, 5, 3, 4, 1, 1, 6, 3, 4, 1, 5, 6, 2, 5, 4, 3, 1, 6, 2, 5, 4, 2, 2, 3, 1, 6, 2, 5, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 4, 3, 6, 1, 6, 6, 4, 3, 6, 3, 2, 5, 4, 1, 5, 2, 4.

What were the chances of getting these results? About 1:1055, an astonishingly unlikely event. Does this require an explanation? No. It is just how things turned out. Maybe the same is true of the supposedly finely tuned features of the universe.

WAP

This takes us not a million miles from WAP, the Weak Anthropic Principle, which was devised by Australian physicist Brandon Carter in the 1970s. This starts with the observation that we are here. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the universe is as it is, because if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here. The WAP is compatible with the idea of multiple universes (see below), many of which might be completely hostile to life. But not the one we live in. Obviously.[xv]

IT HAD TO BE

Another possibility is that the finely tuned features of nature simply had to be that way. There was, for some reason we don’t yet understand, no other possibility. Einstein hoped science would eventually find this to be the case.

However, as theologian William Lane Craig delights in pointing out, string theory suggests that the opposite is true and the finely tuned constants could take many different values.[xvi] Physicist Sean Carroll counters that we don’t know whether string theory is true, and even if it is true, we don’t really know what it predicts.[xvii]

Whether these variables could be different was the subject of a “robust exchange of views” between physicist and philosopher Victor Stenger and astrophysicist Luke Barnes in 2012. It would be fair to say there is still no consensus on this question within the scientific community.[xviii]

THE MULTIVERSE

This is a family of arguments that say our universe isn’t the only universe but one of perhaps an infinite number. If there are so many, it is quite possible that most aren’t fine tuned in the way our universe is. We just happen to live in one that is (see WAP above).

Some apologists claim that the idea of a multiverse was invented as a counter to fine tuning. This is untrue.[xix] Others suggest that, since we have no evidence for a multiverse, it is a faith position every bit as much as belief in God. However, in their defence, proponents of a multiverse can point out that they do have mathematical equations that lead to such a conclusion.[xx]

There are a number of competing theories, all of them speculative, that suggest our universe may be one of many. Among these are inflationary cosmology, Roger Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology, loop quantum cosmology and Lee Smolin’s ideas about cosmological natural selection.[xxi]

I don’t have the slightest idea whether any of these theories is true or, if so, which one. But if our universe does turn out to be part of a multiverse, it would seem to me that fine tuning would be redundant. [xxii]

THE SAME OLD STORY

The fine tuning argument has, as we have seen, a number of objections, including some from Christian theology. Secular objections focus on our inability to define life, the impossibility of assessing the probabilities central to the argument, whether the variables in question could be different, and the possibility that a multiverse makes the whole question redundant.

Fine tuning is the latest iteration of a very old argument for the existence of God: the argument from design.

Thanks to geology, this argument was forced to retreat from its claims about how our landscape was formed. Evolutionary biology banished it from discussion about our planet’s variety of life forms, though it still fights vain rearguard actions over things like the evolution of wings, eyes and bacterial flagella.

Cosmology chased the argument from design from our understanding of the formation of stars, galaxies and planets. But it lingers on at the frontiers of our knowledge and has recently constructed a seemingly formidable fortress around fine tuning.

Confronted by the unknown, the scientific project has never settled for the answer that God did it. Instead, it has always pressed on in search of other answers. I can see no reason why it shouldn’t continue to do so in the case of fine tuning.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you have enjoyed this blog post, you may enjoy my novel The Omega Course, which uses fiction to explore the origins of Christianity and the Bible. Click here for details.

[i] Friederich, Simon, “Fine-Tuning”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/fine-tuning/&gt;.

[ii] Brierley, Justin: How a Dice can show that God Exists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy6kaDaeDT8 (accessed 18/05/2024).

[iii] Dr Craig Videos: The Fine-Tuning of the Universe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE76nwimuT0 (accessed 18/05/2024). It is possible that fine tuning was one of the reasons Fred Hoyle moved from atheism to agnosticism or even deism in later life.

[iv] Goff: Philip: Science Denial & the Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Life https://philipgoff.substack.com/p/science-denial-and-the-fine-tuning (accessed 18/05/2024). See also Consciousness and Cosmic Purpose Philip Goff on the Fine-Tuning of the Universe and Panpsychism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBamkPZ6pkc (accessed 18/05/2024). This blog post will not address idealism and pan-psychism.

[v] Halper, Phil: Physicists and Philosophers debunk the Fine Tuning Argument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ-fj3lqJ6M (accessed 18/05/2024).

[vi] Mariscal, Carlos, “Life”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/life/&gt;.

[vii] Halper, op cit.

[viii] Adams, Douglas: The Sentient Puddle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8mJr4c66bs (accessed 18/05/2024).

[ix] Halper, op cit.

[x] Brierley, op cit.

[xi] Halper, op cit. See also https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Probability (accessed 18/05/2024).

[xii] Halper, op cit. See also https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100001616 (accessed 18/05/2024).

[xiii] Friederich, op cit.

[xiv] Brierley, op cit.

[xv] Up and Atom: The Anthropic Principle – How Your Existence Could Lead to a Multiverse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF2v9oSy70I (Accessed 18/05/2025).

[xvi] Reasonable Faith Org: William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll, “God and Cosmology” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0qKZqPy9T8 (accessed 18/05/2024). It should be noted that Craig loves to mock string theory – see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MIfURwOrTU (accessed 18/05/2024).

[xvii] Halper, op cit.

[xviii] Friederich, op cit.

[xix] Halper, op cit.

[xx] Halper, op cit.

[xxi] Halper, op cit.

[xxii] Philosopher Ian Hacking says those who think like this are guilty of the inverse gambler’s fallacy. This charge has been widely debated in philosophical circles and there is no consensus that it is justified. See Friederich, op cit.

Published by

paulclark42
Author of The Omega Course and the Ruslan Shanidza novels.

3 responses to “Does Fine Tuning Prove God Exists?”

  1. Jacob Sandys Avatar
    Jacob Sandys

    Interesting piece! As someone undecided on his views in philosophy of religion, I’ll reply as I think a proponent of the fine-tuning. Feel free to explain why any of my criticisms are wrong – I’m not strongly committed to them so I’m happy to change my mind if you think I’m wrong.

    He can create life whenever he wants without fine tuning anything.

    This is of course true, but it seems very unlikely that God would make atoms within people’s bodies stay together (overriding the existing physical constants) while the rest of the universe was just a bunch of atoms lightyears apart. Additionally, to create biological life that can survive and sustain itself, planets and stars must exist, so God must hold together planets and stars too. At that point, God might as well just fine-tune the constant so he doesn’t have to add an additional force to hold stuff together himself. Also, if he adds a force to hold stuff together in the entire universe, then that just IS the fine-tuned gravitational force, so then it becomes false that God could create biological life without fine-tuning. On top of this, if the universe collapsed in on itself after like 1 second, which is what I gather would happen if the entropy or something wasn’t fine-tuned, not even God could create meaningful biological life because it would only last 1 second.

    Furthermore, the fine-tuning argument works so long as it isn’t vanishingly improbable that God would fine-tune the universe. Maybe you might think there’s not a 100% chance that God would fine-tune the universe, but because of how unlikely fine-tuning is said to be on naturalism, even if fine-tuning is only 1% likely conditional on theism, fine-tuning is still evidence greatly favouring theism over naturalism.

    Similarly, if the universe is miraculously designed for life, you don’t need another miracle to create life.

    I don’t think this is true. Fine-tuning is a necessary condition for life, not a sufficient one. On naturalism, there may be 2 incredibly improbable facts involved in the story of how life developed – 1. The constants were fine-tuned and 2. Molecules formed DNA (I don’t really think this is that unlikely, but I know theists say this). Therefore, it could be the case that God had to fine-tune the constants and then perform the additional miracle of forming the first biological life. I don’t think these claims are incompatible.

    If we don’t know what life is, how can we say that the universe is fine tuned for it?

    This criticism always strikes me as a bit odd. Fine-tuning proponents claim that, were the universe not fine-tuned, atoms would literally be lightyears apart and would never form stars, planets, organisms, or even any objects at all. Maybe it’s unclear whether a virus is alive, but it’s not unclear whether a bunch of completely unrelated atoms lightyears apart are alive.

    A better version of the objection is to claim that the relevantly important part of life that is the reason why God would find it valuable in the first place is that it is conscious, and it therefore has the ability to feel a depth and range of experiences and form valuable relationships and moral choices. Given this, we can point out that we don’t know what kinds of things could be conscious – maybe if the psychophysical laws were different the atoms lightyears apart could think and feel and love and all that stuff. However, most materialists don’t like the idea that psychophysical laws exist, partly because they lead to an even stronger argument for theism. On top of this, there are various goods that are achieved by embodied, biological life, such as being able to affect each other’s lives, form communities and control one’s own actions, that randomly floating atoms probably couldn’t do.

    And is it not egoism of the very worst sort to imagine that we, recently evolved mammals on an insignificant pale blue dot, are the reason for the structure of the whole cosmos?

    I think this gives us a reason to be initially sceptical of the claim because it just seems like the type of thing someone would believe out of egoism, but if there is a strong reason to think that it is the case, that doesn’t matter. If anything is objectively good, it comes from things that only life similar to humanity can achieve, like art, helping others, pleasure, virtue etc. This gives us a non-ad-hoc reason to think that, if the universe was fine-tuned for anything, it was life like humans. Additionally, we don’t know if the universe is full of alien life forms with civilisations of their own, which are also valuable.

    But it can be argued that we have no way of assessing these probabilities.

    The problem with this reasoning is that it would apply equally if the laws of physics meant that the stars spelled “God exists” in the night sky. If a view implies that the night sky saying “God exists” wouldn’t be evidence for theism because you can’t calculate the precise probabilities, then that view is crazy.

    Does something improbable always need to be explained?

    I agree that, like your dice example, the best explanation for something can simply be that it happened out of chance. However, we should always accept the most likely explanation of something, which means that we should only accept chance as an explanation if there is a rival, non-ad-hoc explanation. This is the reason that we shouldn’t accept chance as the explanation for why someone got a royal flush in poker 10 times in a row – this fact is much better explained by the hypothesis that they were cheating. However, if they got an inconspicuous, non-advantageous set of cards, we should accept the explanation of chance because there is no reason why the player would cheat to get a bunch of random cards, so cheating is not a better explanation in this case.

    To make this relevant to fine-tuning, we should only accept chance as the explanation if there is no better non-ad-hoc explanation of fine-tuning, but there is! Theism gives us a principled reason to think that the universe’s constants would look like they do. If the constants were random and not life-permitting, chance would be the best explanation, but the fact that the constants fall into a range that is naturally explained by theism means that we should infer theism instead of brute chance.

    So we shouldn’t be surprised that the universe is as it is, because if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here.

    The weak anthropic principle is obviously true. We couldn’t observe a universe that wasn’t life-permitting. The problem, however, comes in how atheists apply this to fine-tuning. They often seem to imply that a life-permitting universe can’t have an explanation because… we couldn’t observe a life-hostile universe? That doesn’t follow at all. For example, it’s perfectly reasonable for me to infer that my parents didn’t use effective contraception, even though I probably wouldn’t exist to observe my existence if they did. Also, if I was about to be executed by 50 highly-trained sharpshooters, and I hear the shots go off, but I find myself alive, it would be ridiculous to say “the fact that 50 sharpshooters missed doesn’t need to be explained because I wouldn’t be able to observe anything if they killed me”. Clearly in that case you should infer that they missed on purpose because it’s a better explanation of your present existence. For yet another example, the existence of human life is evidence that there wasn’t a mass extinction event 50 years ago, even though we wouldn’t be here to observe it if there was one.

    Some apologists claim that the idea of a multiverse was invented as a counter to fine tuning. This is untrue.

    I would just note that if the multiverse is a better explanation of fine-tuning than theism then it’s absolutely fine to infer the existence of a multiverse from it even if there’s no independent evidence. Fine-tuning itself would be the evidence.

    But if our universe does turn out to be part of a multiverse, it would seem to me that fine tuning would be redundant.

    This is only the case if the multiverse is a very specific type. It has to be one where the constants and initial conditions vary randomly (instead of just being the same or falling only within the enormous life-hostile range), containing a huge number of universes, that doesn’t form more Boltzmann Brains (randomly fluctuating matter forming brains that can observe for a few seconds then rearrange into randomness again) than observers like us in entire ordered universes, and so on. This means that the multiverse effectively has to itself be fine-tuned, which either just reduces the prior probability of the multiverse as an explanation or just pushes the problem back.

    I can see no reason why it shouldn’t continue to do so in the case of fine tuning.

    I completely agree with this, but I just think that the current evidence strongly suggests that the universe has improbable fine-tuning that is explained very poorly by anything that isn’t theism or Philip Goff’s natural teleology.

    Reply
    1. paulclark42 Avatar
      paulclark42

      Many thanks for your thoughtful response to my post. A few words in reply.

      The theistic objections to fine tuning – I just note them. As an atheist, I leave it to theists to sort out their own disagreements.

      Life – I think it’s a little arrogant of us to assume that life has to be a bit like us or that the universe was designed for our type of life. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that there are life forms out there which look at us and wonder whether something so tiny / short-lived / carbon-based as us can really be considered life.

      No way of assessing the probabilities. For me, this objection currently stands, since we have no other universes we can compare this universe to. People who support fine tuning constantly talk about the current situation being like a row of sixes or royal flushes. But I know of no evidence to suggest we have a string of sixes or royal flushes. For all we know, the probability of the universe being as it is could be 1.

      You say we should accept the best available explanation. I disagree. There is also the possibility that we are simply unable to explain something.

      Before James Hutton introduced the concept of deep time, the best explanation for the landscape around us was that it was shaped by Noah’s flood. Should people have gone with that explanation or should they have accepted that they simply didn’t know how geographical and geological features were formed?

      We simply don’t know why the “finely tuned” constants have the values that they do. Scientists and philosophers are entitled to speculate and to try to work out ways of turning their speculations into testable hypotheses. But, given our current state of knowledge, any attempt to draw firm conclusions is premature, whether those conclusions are theistic or panpsychic a la Philip Goff.

      Reply
  2. paulclark42 Avatar
    paulclark42

    John Smith, who posts on Twitter as @doofgeek4011 has written a detailed rebuttal of this blog post. I will put John’s essay below, followed by my response. John and I have interacted occasionally over the years. Though we don’t always agree, I have always found him to be knowledgeable and courteous.

     (Click here to can find John’s essay on Google Docs.)

    John Smith’s Rebuttal

    Paul Clark’s article “Does Fine Tuning Prove God Exists?” offers a range of skeptical objections to the fine-tuning argument, many of which are widely rehearsed in philosophical literature. However, his criticisms fail to hold up under rigorous scrutiny when measured against the depth of recent scholarship. Drawing from Cosmological Fine-Tuning Arguments by Jason W. Waller, Andrew Loke’s The Teleological and Kalam Cosmological Arguments Revisited, and A Fortunate Universe by Lewis and Barnes, I offer a comprehensive rebuttal to Clark’s critique.

    1. On Infinite Improbability and the Dice Analogy

    Clark trivializes the extreme improbability of life-permitting constants by comparing the situation to throwing dice 70 times and getting a non-uniform sequence—claiming that every outcome is equally improbable and hence nothing needs explanation. This analogy misrepresents the logic of fine-tuning.

    The correct analogy is not the probability of any outcome but the specificity and delicate narrowness of life-permitting outcomes within a vast possibility space. As Waller notes, we must focus not on whether some universe exists, but on the extreme precision with which certain constants fall within life-permitting ranges, which is epistemically surprising and thus calls for explanation. Barnes further clarifies that such arguments are not about improbability simpliciter, but about how physical theories in physics become “fine-tuned” when independent parameters yield values that cancel with incredible precision.

    Moreover, as Loke emphasizes, when specified events with extremely low probability occur—such as 100 students submitting identical essays—rational inference points to intentional arrangement, not random coincidence. The cosmos’ fine-tuned constants are more improbable than such examples, and therefore deserve a design-based explanation.

    2. Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) and the Multiverse

    Clark invokes the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP), stating that our existence explains the apparent fine-tuning since we couldn’t have observed a universe hostile to life. However, this commits the fallacy of using a selection effect as a full causal explanation. As A Fortunate Universe explains, anthropic principles are tautological; they describe constraints on observation, but don’t causally explain why the universe has life-permitting parameters rather than others.

    Even if we grant the multiverse hypothesis, the fine-tuning data doesn’t disappear. As Loke notes, the multiverse itself would need to be fine-tuned to produce varied constants in sufficient number, avoid Boltzmann Brain problems, and preserve order over time. Thus, appealing to the multiverse merely relocates the problem—it doesn’t resolve it.

    3. Can We Assess Probabilities?

    Clark insists we “have no way of assessing probabilities” since we can’t observe other universes for comparison. This ignores robust Bayesian methodologies. As Waller argues, the fine-tuning argument doesn’t require an objective frequency of outcomes; it appeals to the narrowness of the life-permitting range as new empirical evidence that can update our prior beliefs in explanatory hypotheses.

    Bayesian inference, even under controversy, clearly favors theism when the probability of a life-permitting universe is higher under theism than under atheistic indifference. Using Bayes’ Theorem:

    P(Theism | Fine-Tuning) ∝ P(Fine-Tuning | Theism) × P(Theism)

    If the probability of observing fine-tuning is significantly higher on theism than on atheistic indifference, then fine-tuning supports theism even if skeptics dispute the prior probabilities.

    4. The “What Is Life?” Objection

    Clark attempts to undercut fine-tuning by noting there’s no universally agreed definition of life, but this is a red herring. As A Fortunate Universe stresses, the relevant issue isn’t a definition of life, but the constraints required for complex, intelligent, embodied agents to exist—agents that require stable chemistry, long-lived stars, and galaxies.

    Waller also refutes this objection, noting that fine-tuning arguments use clear physical criteria: the ranges of constants that permit complexity, stable energy gradients, and atomic stability. These are well-defined in physical cosmology, and their narrowness has been quantified repeatedly.

    5. Theological Objections from Within Christianity

    Clark cites certain theologians who argue that if God is omnipotent, He needn’t “fine-tune” the universe—He could miraculously create life directly. This misconstrues both classical theism and the argument’s structure. The fine-tuning argument isn’t about what God must do, but about what God has evidently done.

    As Waller and Loke point out, the presence of finely calibrated constants that enable life through natural means coheres with the idea of a rational Creator who delights in ordering a cosmos where beings emerge through stable laws. This is not a “God-of-the-gaps” but a theistic explanation of cosmic order rooted in intelligibility, teleology, and the explanatory poverty of blind chance.

    Moreover, theism predicts intelligibility. As Loke explains, a divine mind would likely create a universe not chaotic but ordered, not arbitrary but rationally apprehensible—a cosmos where moral and cognitive creatures can arise. The structure of our universe fits this expectation.

    6. “It Had to Be” Argument

    Clark muses that maybe the constants “just had to be that way,” invoking a kind of necessity or hidden law. This view is speculative and inconsistent with current physics. As Barnes and Lewis argue, string theory suggests a vast landscape of possible low-energy constants—implying these constants could have been otherwise. Loke adds that unless such necessity can be demonstrated with well-confirmed physical or metaphysical theory (which it hasn’t), positing necessity over design lacks epistemic warrant.

    7. Clark’s Appeal to Agnosticism: “We Just Don’t Know”

    Clark concludes that maybe the best answer is agnosticism—we simply don’t know why the constants are the way they are. But this is not an objection to inference-to-the-best-explanation—it is a surrender of explanatory reasoning. As Waller notes, if the brute fact hypothesis is so improbable (and it is), then we are justified in preferring design or teleology as superior explanations until a better naturalistic one arises.

    Moreover, even under infinite possibility ranges, Barnes and Waller show how probability measures can still yield meaningful conclusions when truncated to physical ranges defined by current theories (e.g., Planck limits), allowing us to compare “life-permitting” ranges with the much vaster range of sterile outcomes.

    8. Why Theism Best Explains Fine-Tuning

    To elevate this argument to its strongest form, theists must also state why theism—not just design generally—explains fine-tuning best. Classical theism posits a necessary, rational, and omnibenevolent mind who creates for intelligible reasons. Such a being would plausibly choose to create a life-permitting, ordered cosmos over a chaotic or sterile one.

    As Loke stresses, theism renders a fine-tuned cosmos more expected than does atheism or brute chance. God is the kind of being for whom intelligible order, conscious beings, and moral goods would be goals of creation. This explanatory asymmetry is what grounds the Bayesian preference for theism over its rivals.

    Conclusion

    Paul Clark’s objections are neither original nor decisive. His analogies fail under the weight of probabilistic logic, his theological critiques misunderstand divine intentionality, and his appeals to the anthropic principle or multiverse are philosophically and scientifically inadequate as ultimate explanations. By contrast, the cumulative insights of Waller, Loke, and Barnes show that the fine-tuning of the universe remains an evidentially powerful pointer to transcendent intelligence. While not a deductive proof, it is a robust abductive inference to theism—more rationally compelling than Clark’s evasions or skeptical hand-waving.

    We don’t stare into a cold, indifferent void. As Lewis and Barnes put it, fine-tuning is a “clue to something deeper.” The laws of nature appear intelligible, the constants delicately balanced, and the cosmos breathtakingly hospitable to life. In the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

    Paul Clark’s Response

    Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post and taking the time to write such a full rebuttal. I haven’t read any of the books you mention, so this is a response to your eight points rather than theirs.

    1. On Infinite Improbability and the Dice Analogy

    We don’t know what life-permitting ranges are. We may know about the ranges that permit our kind of carbon-based life, but we don’t know what other kinds of life might be possible in alternative universes. Also, it could be that a different kind of universe might be more hospitable to life than our own, and the universe we know is in comparison fairly hostile it.

    2. Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) and the Multiverse

    I accept that the WAP doesn’t offer a causal explanation. But it doesn’t claim to. The weak anthropic principle talks about conditions, not causes. If the universe wasn’t as it is, we wouldn’t be here. But that doesn’t mean the universe is as it is so that we can be here.

    I don’t know whether our universe is part of a multiverse. But if it is, I don’t think this means the multiverse is fine tuned to create a universe like ours. To illustrate my point, let’s say there are a million universes:

    • 990,000 are completely inhospitable to life.
    • 5,000 are more hospitable to life than ours (but not necessarily carbon-based life).
    • 1 is like ours.
    • 4,999 are less hospitable to life than ours, but not entirely inhospitable, and in most of them life does exist.

    Wouldn’t it be a bit solipsistic to say the multiverse was fine-tuned so that our universe could exist?

    3. Can We Assess Probabilities?

    Bayesian reasoning isn’t my strong point, I have to confess. Parts of my brain tend to shut down whenever they come across something that looks mathematical. I note that Popper rejected it as a useful method of dealing with scientific questions. Since all Bayesian calculations depend heavily on the priors, it seems to me that it often serves as little more than a “rational” way of justifying your assumptions.

    If there is just one universe, the probability of it being like ours may be 1, we just don’t know. If our universe is one of an infinite number of universes, the probability that some of them can support life may also be 1.

    4. The “What Is Life?” Objection

    Isn’t it a bit solipsistic to assume that the reason the universe exists in its current form is to make room for intelligent life (i.e. us)?

    Two other objections: firstly, if intelligent life is the reason God made this universe, why did he spend over 13 billion years (including 170 million years messing about with dinosaurs) before he got round to us?

    Secondly, one suggested solution to the Fermi paradox is that complex, intelligent, embodied agents tend not to stick around too long before they blow their planet up or otherwise render it uninhabitable. When the most powerful democracy in the world re-elects a man like Trump, I can’t help but think such a solution isn’t entirely outrageous. Intelligent life may turn out to little more than a blip in the story of the universe. (I sincerely hope this is wrong!)

    5. Theological Objections from Within Christianity

    I leave theological questions to believers. Perhaps I should have left them out of my original blog post.

    6. “It Had to Be” Argument

    String theory is way above my pay grade, I’m afraid. I merely note that we don’t know whether string theory is correct or not. Some prominent physicists are highly critical of it, and some say it isn’t even scientific.

    If string theory is correct, it should be noted that it is friendly to the idea of a multiverse (see above).

    7. Clark’s Appeal to Agnosticism: “We Just Don’t Know”

    I think that when we really don’t know the answer to a question, those who are qualified to find the answer should get on with trying to find it, and the rest of us (here I definitely include myself) should remain agnostic.

    We don’t know why the universe is as it is. We don’t know if it could have been different. We don’t know whether ours is the only universe, one of many or one of an infinite number. Until we do know, any attempt to build a philosophy around the answer to any of these questions is premature.

    8. Why Theism Best Explains Fine-Tuning

    If something is necessary in philosophical terms, it means it is not a possibility: it is either impossible or it definitely exists. I lean to impossible, but I will admit that I don’t know.

    I have a real problem with the idea that the creator of this universe is in any sense omnibenevolent. Free will may or may not explain the problem of human evil, but I don’t think it explains cancer in children, the Boxing Day Tsunami or animal suffering, which exists on a massive scale and it is baked into the natural world. I find it hard to see how any God can be more than indifferent to us.

    If a divine creator does exist, it is not omnibenevolent.

    Conclusion

    I agree that my arguments aren’t original. I am not trained in either philosophy or physics. I am a language teacher turned novelist who likes to blog about religious questions.

    I also accept that my arguments aren’t decisive. The fact that you have read my blog and not been convinced proves it. But by the same token, your rebuttals aren’t decisive either. The fine-tuning argument exists at and beyond the frontiers of human knowledge, leaving plenty of room for honest disagreement, probably for the rest of our lifetimes and beyond.

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