The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe

Historically, the argument from design probably has been the most widely cited argument for the existence of God, both in the West and the East (such as in theistic schools of Hinduism). Modern scientifi c discoveries, particularly the discovery beginning around the 1950s that the fundamental structure of the universe is “balanced on a razor’s edge” for the existence of life, have given this argument signifi cant new force in the last 30 years, with several books and many essays written on it. This precise setting of the structure of the universe for life is called the “fi ne-tuning of the cosmos.” This fi ne-tuning falls into three major categories: that of the laws of nature, that of the constants of physics, and that of the initial conditions of the universe, each of which we shall explore in Section 2. As will become clear in Section 5.2, the sort of life that is most signifi cant for the argument is that of embodied moral agents, of which humans are one example. This chapter is a highly abridged version of an in-process book-length project in which I argue for the existence of God based on this fi ne-tuning of the cosmos for life along with the beauty and intelligibility of the laws of nature. The main purpose of the book is to put this argument on as rigorous as possible scientifi c and philosophical foundation. Although this chapter has the same purpose, it will focus solely on the argument based on the fi netuning for life, although in my judgment the argument based on beauty and intelligibility is as strong. The sections of this chapter are arranged as follows. In Section 1.2, I present some key terms and defi nitions for easy reference. In Section 1.3, I present the basic form of what I call the core fi ne-tuning argument for the existence of God. This argument is explicated in terms of what I call the restricted version of the Likelihood Principle. In Section 1.4, I present an alternative way of formulating the argument using what I call the method of probabilistic