Is Fine-Tuning a Valid Argument for God?
Question of the week: How do you respond to an atheist who says, “When something is designed and finely tuned it is done so to conform with its surroundings. An omnipotent Creator does not need to comply with external restrictions. If he does need to conform then he loses his right to be titled omnipotent. If fine-tuning is a valid argument for God, why does 99.999999% of our universe want to kill us?
My answer: For detailed responses see my books, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, The Creator and the Cosmos, 4th edition, and Designed to the Core. Your atheist friend overlooks that God performs multiple different kinds of miracles, some within the laws of physics, such as fine-tuning, others outside the laws of physics, like the creation of space and time and the creation of spirit beings. He also overlooks that, given the laws of physics that God designed to govern the universe, the universe must be precisely the total mass and size that it is to get one planet on which physical, intelligent life can possibly exist. Also, the laws of physics themselves are exquisitely designed to be tools in God’s hands for him to rapidly and efficiently eradicate evil and suffering.
The fine-tuning argument for God is one by analogy: Does the level of fine-tuning of the environment for a specified purpose greatly exceed what we human beings are capable of, or is it analogous to what happens in nature without any intelligent agency? As I explain in Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, God had more than one purpose for designing the universe the way he did. There are at least a dozen distinct purposes. The stupendous marvel of the universe is that it is exquisitely designed to simultaneously fulfill all dozen of these purposes and perhaps several more that we have yet to discover. That 99.999999% of the universe is hostile to our existence suggests, but does not prove, that God intends to fulfill his multiple purposes for creating the universe with just one species of intelligent, spiritual life on just one planet.