Contending For The Faith---Part 12

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month.  This is the next installment.

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone has suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.

The "Fine-Tuning" (Teleological) Argument for the Existence of God

To My Readers: The information in this post is condensed and presented by me, but the content is that of the brilliant philosophical minds which produced it. I wish to acknowledge the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, and modern proponents of the Teleological Argument, including (but not limited to) Robin Collins, William Dembski, William Lane Craig, and John Leslie. The work belongs to them, and I take no credit for any of it.---Introibo

The Fine-Tuning Argument is presented thus:

1. Every complex design has a designer.

2. Everywhere people look in the universe, they find evidence of complex design. 

3. Therefore, the universe had a Designer.

Again, if the first two premises are true, then so is the third (conclusion). Before going further, it must be specified what is meant by complex design. Here are three tests  that will be used to determine whether or not something is truly designed, as opposed to being the result of natural forces.

1. Is it simple or complex? 

2. Is it just orderly or does it also convey some kind of information? 

3. Does it seem to have a purpose?

Test #1: Whether the design is simple or complex.

An example of what is meant by simple and complex can be made: A mountain, even if picturesque and beautiful, has a simple form that’s explained by the forces of nature—wind, rain, ice, and snow, for instance, have shaped its outline. By contrast, specifically, picture Mount Rushmore, which famously and intricately displays the faces of four American presidents. These very complex features cannot be the result of natural causes—even if we didn’t know who caused the design, obviously someone planned and designed the faces we see. 

Test #2: Does the Design Convey Information?

Here’s an example of order: DXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDX. Everything is organized into an orderly pattern but there’s no information—it makes no sense and conveys no message. By contrast, seeing "SEND HELP" written in the sand at the beach, clearly contains information. Information is a mark of design, and design is a mark of an intelligent being. In the case of the universe, we’ll call the intelligent being the Designer. For one more example, first picture a canyon that over time has been eroded into certain patterns. Then picture a rock wall with hieroglyphics that depict birds and people and homes. The features of the canyon are the result of time, wind, water, and erosion. The hieroglyphics were made by design. They were designed by a designer, and convey information (even if people don’t understand it).

Test #3: Does the Design Have a Purpose?

Sometimes no one can be sure about a design’s intended purpose. For example, people have not always understood the meaning or purpose of hieroglyphics. But they did know it served a purpose: it was conveying some kind of information. Once the code was broken, we could understand the meaning and therefore the purpose. In the case above of the message in the sand, the purpose is pretty clear. Someone wants someone else to know that they need help.

With this understanding of design, the first premise can be established.

First Premise: Every Complex Design has a Designer.

There is no need to search long or hard for examples of design. Among the nearly countless things people design are homes, buildings, bridges, factories, cars, engines, planes, watches, computers, cameras, paintings, sculptures, and clothes. All of these need someone who plans them out, whether an architect, a painter, an engineer, or other. In fact, though certainly some designs work better than others, everything people make is designed. This point is easy to prove. Everything that’s complex, conveys information, and has a purpose is designed. Where design is found, a designer will likewise be found.

Second Premise: Everywhere People Look in the Universe, They Find Evidence of Complex Design. 

Just like in the everyday world, in the universe design can be found virtually everywhere. To determine whether it was designed, and thus whether there’s a Designer, the three tests will be applied to it.

APPLYING TEST #1 FOR DESIGN: SIMPLE OR COMPLEX? Consider the cell. Every life form, including plants and animals, is made up of cells. The human body is composed of many different types, such as blood cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, and bone cells. Until recently these cells were essentially a mystery to scientists. This was because the early microscopes weren’t powerful enough to see inner cellular details, cells appeared to be very simple. However, modern technology has shown scientists the details inside a given cell, and initially they were stunned to see the complexity of even the simplest cell. It is known in 2023 that a single cell is made up of multiple complex parts. Consider the human body, which has various internal parts—such as the stomach, heart, brain, liver, kidneys— called organs. Each has a unique duty to perform. While the organs interact with one another, they each perform their own function as well.

Cells also have parts known as organelles, or “little organs.” These also interact, and each has a job. For instance, some organelles clean up the cell, others help make proteins, and others help the cell divide. The cell is the simplest of life forms, yet the more scientists learn about it, the more they see its complexity. Each and every cell provides good evidence of complex design.

APPLYING TEST #2 FOR DESIGN: ORDER ONLY, OR INFORMATION?

 In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered DNA. Those letters stand for deoxyribonucleic acid, which is found inside each individual cell of every plant, animal, and human being. Visually, DNA can be pictured like two sides of a twisting ladder, steps (rungs) and all. DNA is to the cell what our brain is to our body. It’s where the cell stores all the information necessary for it (the cell) to function. The more scientists study DNA, the more they realize how much info is stored there. Like a highly detailed manual, DNA tells each cell what to make and how to make it. Hair, muscle, nerves, blood, bone cells—DNA runs them all. DNA also contains instructions that tell each cell how to replicate itself and when to divide. For life to continue, DNA must reproduce itself daily inside special cells in a person’s body, since cells do not always have a very long life; that is, some cells exist for a short time and then die. (Other kinds of cells, such as nerve cells, divide inside the body until they reach a certain level of maturity, and then they live until the person dies). 

If cells didn’t know how to divide, they’d eventually die out, and ultimately so would humanity. Without DNA, and all the information it contains, life would not be possible. DNA works like extremely complex software. It cannot be seen by the human eye, yet it stores more data in a smaller space than our most advanced supercomputers. The DNA in the human brain contains more information than hundreds of encyclopedia volumes. 

DNA certainly meets the first two tests: It’s highly complex and contains detailed information. But this raises some questions. What’s the source of the information and instructions stored in DNA? What determines how its messages are sent? How does the cell’s machinery know to build proteins? Who or what tells its machinery how to divide? There aren’t many choices as to the answers. Everyone knows that information comes only from a mind; all information is the result of someone’s mind, somewhere. Look at any email, article, book, or code—someone had to plan and write it. There is an intelligent mind behind each one. But DNA is far more than an email or a book. It’s a phenomenal amount of organized data. All these marks of design mean somewhere a Designer is behind it.

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, a founder of the Center for Science and Culture (part of the Discovery Institute), said there is a mind behind the information found in DNA “that’s far greater than our own—a conscious, purposeful, rational, intelligent designer, who’s amazingly creative. There’s no getting around it.” (See Stephen C. Meyer, “The Explanatory Power of Design: DNA and the Origin of Information” in William A. Dembski, ed., Mere Creation, 1998, pg. 244). Even the detestable Bill Gates admits, “DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we’ve ever devised.” (See Ibid, pg. 225). 

APPLYING TEST #3 FOR DESIGN: DOES IT HAVE A PURPOSE?

The final test will show the degree to which the universe has been designed for a purpose: that of sustaining human life. It's been noted that if something is designed, it is normally designed for a purpose, even if just for fun. Consider cars. They’re all designed, and their primary purpose is getting people from one place to another. Even so, today’s cars are designed to do more. They’re also designed to get someone from one place to another safely, and in comfort, and with options and amenities. Car designers leave a lot of evidence that they want the driver and passengers to arrive securely while having enjoyed the trip.

Just think of all the things designed into today’s cars. Seats for our comfort. Air bags for our safety. GPS for keeping us on track. Multimedia centers (with premium sound and even HD) for our enjoyment. Data panels for accurate and precise information. Wheels and a finely tuned engine to ensure we finish our journey in good shape. Great care is being taken to design cars for easier, safer, and more enjoyable road travel.

The Universe Appears to Be Designed for Life

The universe also seems to have been planned and designed with a particular purpose in mind: to sustain life on Earth. In fact, it has been designed and prepared as though humans were expected to show up. Here are three supporting facts:

1. The Beginning of the Universe was Designed for Life.

That from the very beginning the universe was suited to allow for life can be seen in the fact that its original expansion rate was perfectly balanced. If the universe had expanded faster than it did, no planets could have formed. 

2. The Galaxy was Designed for Life. 

There are billions of galaxies in the universe. Also, there are different kinds of galaxies. Human beings live in a spiral galaxy, the kind most suited for life. Other kinds, like elliptical or irregular galaxies, cannot support life. Some are too close to each other. Others are too hot or too unstable. Only the kind of galaxy like the Milky Way in which we find ourselves provides life with the best chance of beginning or survival.

3. Earth's Location in the Galaxy was Designed for Life.

Spiral galaxies look like they have “arms,” and Earth is located in a perfect spot between two spiral “arms.” If the planet were closer to our galaxy’s “arms,” it could not have formed. If  Earth were too close to the galaxy’s nucleus, life could not survive the deadly radiation bursts and gamma rays found there. Furthermore, Earth is located in what’s known as a “safe zone,” a narrow area outside of which life cannot exist. For example, if this planet were any closer to our sun, it would burn up. If it were any farther from it, even by as little as 2 to 5 percent, it would be too cold to sustain life.

Anticipating the Atheistic Response: Natural Selection Explains Design Via Evolution

The typical atheist response is to assert natural selection from evolution is responsible for humans appearing on Earth. The brilliance of the Teleological/Fine-Tuning argument, is that the objection fails because the fine-tuning took place at the beginning of the universe, prior to any claim for natural selection. Scientists used to think that whatever the early universe might have been like, given sufficient time and luck, intelligent life forms would evolve somewhere. As a result of scientific discoveries over the last fifty (50) years or so, we know that assumption was wrong; the exact opposite is true.

Astronomers have been stunned by the discovery of complex and delicate balance of initial conditions must be present in the Big Bang itself if the universe is to permit the existence of intelligent life anywhere at all in the cosmos. This delicate balance is the focal point of the argument today. 

Two Kinds of Fine-Tuning

There are two kinds of fine-tuning. The first involves constants of nature, and the second involves certain arbitrary physical quantities.

(a) The constants of nature. What is a constant? When laws of nature are expressed as mathematical equations, you find appearing in them certain symbols which stand for unchanging quantities such as the force of gravity, and the electromagnetic force. These unchanging quantities are called constants. There could be different universes governed by the same laws of nature, even though these constants had very different values. So the actual values of the constants are independent of nature's laws; depending on the values of those constants, universes governed by the same laws of nature will look very different. 

(b) Arbitrary physical quantities. There are certain arbitrary quantities in the initial conditions of the universe on which the laws of nature operate upon, but those laws did not create the quantities. An example would be the amount of entropy in the early universe. It's just a given in the Big Bang as an initial condition, and the laws of nature take over and develop from there. If the initial quantities had been different, then the laws would produce a very different universe. 

These quantities and constants must fall into an incredibly narrow range to produce a life-permitting universe. Scientific laymen might think that if the constants and quantities had assumed different values, then other forms of life might well have evolved. This is not the case. By “life” scientists mean that property of organisms to take in food, extract energy from it, grow, adapt to their environment, and reproduce. The point is that in order for the universe to permit life so defined, whatever form organisms might take, the constants and quantities have to be incomprehensibly fine-tuned. In the absence of fine-tuning, not even atomic matter or chemistry would exist, not to speak of planets where life might evolve. 

Sometimes atheists will object that in universes governed by different laws of nature, such disastrous consequences might not result from varying the values of the constants and quantities. The Catholic apologist needn’t deny that possibility. Maybe in a universe governed by different equations, the gravitational constant G could have a greatly different value and yet life still exist. However, such universes are irrelevant to the argument. All that is needed to be shown is that among possible universes governed by the same equations (but having different values of the constants and quantities) as the actual universe, life-permitting universes are extraordinarily improbable.

This can all be expressed in the following syllogism:

1) The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. 

2) It is not due to physical necessity or chance. 

3) Therefore, it is due to design.

Premise #1 The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. 

"Fine-tuning” is a neutral expression that has to do with the constants and quantities’ being just right for the existence of intelligent life. There is little doubt that the universe is fine-tuned in this neutral sense. Even if some of the evidence of fine-tuning should prove to be mistaken, the multiplicity of lines of evidence for the fine-tuning of certain constants and quantities as well as the number and variety of the constants and quantities that exhibit fine-tuning give ample grounds for thinking that fine-tuning is here to stay and cannot be just written off as a colossal blunder on the part of the scientific community.

A person is justified in thinking that premise 1 includes all the alternatives, since necessity and chance seem to exhaust the alternatives to design.

Premise #2 It is not due to physical necessity or chance. 

Can the cosmic fine-tuning be plausibly attributed to physical necessity? According to this alternative, the constants and quantities must have the values they do, and there was really no chance or little chance of the universe’s not being life-permitting. Now, on the face of it, this alternative seems extraordinarily implausible. It requires someone to believe that a life-prohibiting universe is virtually physically impossible. However, it does seem possible. If the primordial matter and anti-matter had been differently proportioned, if the universe had expanded just a little more slowly, if the entropy of the universe were marginally greater, any of these adjustments and more would have prevented a life-permitting universe, yet all seem perfectly possible physically. The person who maintains that the universe must be life-permitting is taking a radical line which requires strong proof. Yet there is none; this alternative is simply put forward as a bare possibility.

What, then, about chance? Some people say that the existence of any universe is equally improbable and yet some universe must exist. The fine-tuning of the universe is said to be like a lottery in which any individual’s winning is fantastically and equally improbable but which some individual has to win. Just as the winner of such a lottery should not conclude that the lottery must be rigged just because he won, so we should not conclude that there is a cosmic designer just because our universe exists. The fallacy in this reasoning is that we are not trying to explain the existence of our universe; rather it is the existence of a life-permitting universe that demands explanation.

Thus, the proper lottery analogy to the fine-tuning of the universe is a lottery in which a single white ball is mixed into a billion billion billion black balls, and a ball is then selected randomly from the collection. True, any ball that rolls down the chute will be fantastically and equally improbable; nevertheless, it is overwhelmingly more probable that whichever ball rolls down the chute, it will be black rather than white. Similarly, the existence of any particular universe is equally improbable; but it is incomprehensibly more probable that whichever universe exists will be life-prohibiting rather than life-permitting. It is the enormous, specified improbability of a life-permitting universe that presents the hurdle for the chance hypothesis.

In order to defeat the teleological argument, some atheists posit a Multiverse Hypothesis, which is essentially an effort on the part of partisans of the chance hypothesis to multiply their probabilistic resources in order to reduce the improbability of the occurrence of fine-tuning. The very fact that otherwise sober scientists/philosophers must resort to such a remarkable hypothesis is a sort of backhanded compliment to the design hypothesis. It shows that the fine-tuning does cry out for explanation. Nevertheless, is the Multiverse Hypothesis as plausible as the design hypothesis?

Two problems with a Multiverse: (1) It is pure speculation with no scientific confirmation. (2) Dr. Roger Penrose calculates that the odds of our universe’s low entropy condition obtaining by chance alone are on the order of 1:10(10)(123), an inconceivable number. If our universe were but one member of a collection of randomly ordered worlds, then it is vastly more probable that we should be observing a much smaller universe.

The conclusion is now inevitable (#3): It therefore seems that the fine-tuning of the universe is plausibly due neither to physical necessity nor to chance. It follows that the fine-tuning is therefore due to design, unless the design hypothesis can be shown to be even more implausible than its competitors. The universe was designed by a Supreme Intelligence we call God.

Conclusion

The Teleological (or Fine-Tuning) Argument is a strong proof for the existence of God. It should be no surprise that a universe created by an Intelligent Designer will show its design so as to point to Him. " For I will behold Thy heavens, the works of Thy fingers: the moon and the stars which Thou hast founded." (Psalm 8:4).