RECENTLY Eric Metaxas, an American religious writer and author of a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote on these pages that there is increasing evidence that the probability of the universe existing at all, and in such a way that intelligence life evolved, is so astronomically small that these things cannot have happened by chance but must be the work of an intelligent designer —Science turns to God as universe appears to be ultimate miracle.
Metaxas badly wants to believe something he calls “God” exists and created the universe and the conditions for intelligent life but his argument is flawed and the evidence suggests otherwise.
Metaxas claims that in recent years, as the number of factors needed to make life possible kept growing (never mind intelligent life), “the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one”. He adds that if the value of any one of the four fundamental forces that govern the physical cosmos was slightly different, the universe as we know it could not have come into existence and that the odds of these forces all having exactly the right value are so enormous that only the presence of an intentional designer — God — can have made it possible.
The search for extra-terrestrial life has generated fascinating debates and many books about the probability of finding it, including Amir Aczel’s Probability 1: Why There Must Be Intelligent Life in the Universe (1998); Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee’sRare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (2000); and Paul Davies’ The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe? (2010). Only in the past decade, however, have our instruments begun to detect significant numbers of planets, even in our galaxy, so the real search has only just begun.
In this month’s Scientific American, Canadian astrobiologist Rene Heller says there is growing evidence for large numbers of habitable planets in the Milky Way and our Earth “may not be anywhere close to the pinnacle of habitability”. Our sun is a perfectly ordinary, mid-range yellow star and our proximity to it places us, for now, in a “Goldilocks Zone” of heat and habitability but there are many candidates for what Heller calls “super-habitability”.
These are planets larger than the Earth, orbiting so-called K dwarf stars, which are more stable than our sun and will burn longer without exhausting their hydrogen fuel. We are finding many more such stars and most of the planets we have started detecting are of the “super-Earth” kind so it is far from clear that the odds are against the existence of extra-terrestrial life.
But even if Metaxas were right about the odds being overwhelmingly against the existence of a “fine-tuned” cosmos and the existence of life elsewhere, we could still not infer the existence of God. As Steven Weinberg, a Nobel-prize winner in the field, put it at the turn of the century, the more plausible, if daunting, hypothesis is that we are part not of a “universe” but of a “multiverse”, in which universes come and go with infinite variations. We just happen to be in one in which things worked out this way.
Metaxas makes no mention of the multiverse hypothesis and one suspects it is because he is so eager to embrace the old theological answer to the conundrum of existence. But even if it did make sense to infer the existence of a designer of the cosmos and a creator of life we would be left with more questions than we started with. For example, if God had wanted to create a universe with intelligent life in it, why would he have created one in which the odds were overwhelmingly against life and immense stretches of space consisted of superfluous and sterile stars and dark matter?
Why would he have made life struggle through billions of years of biological evolution and had intelligence emerge through the brain of a primate with many flaws, instead of — like his Biblical avatar Yahweh — just plonking a more ideal form of intelligent life into an ideally formed biosphere? Why would he, as David Hume famously asked two centuries ago, have created mosquitoes — or infectious microbes or ferocious predatory beasts?
All these things make sense in an evolutionary frame of reference, but an intelligent designer makes them inexplicable.
Finally, although he does not own up to it in his article, Metaxas, like most intelligent design advocates, almost certainly infers that not only that there is a God, but that it is his God, to whom he and others can pray and who meddles in his creation in arbitrary ways. That God sent his only begotten son to save from their sins a species of intelligent primates which had evolved over billions of years on a remote planet way on the periphery of an ordinary galaxy in the middle of nowhere. None of that, however, has the slightest connection with scientific fact or the new cosmology.
Paul Monk is the author of The West in a Nutshell.
174 COMMENTS
76 people listening
Why did the almighty create mosquitoes? To keep people off the scent and get them to think outside the box. If existence were a bed of roses - say the garden of Eden - then we'd all play goodie goodies waiting for our reward.
Maybe mosquitoes and suffering of innocent children are an unfortunate result of free will and good v evil. I only hope and fall back on believing that the suffering of the children is fleeting in the scheme of the so called eternity.
Instead of getting caught up in trying to fathom what may be two sides to the one coin, it might be more useful to direct energy into ways that could improve life on the planet. Most believers have one very important aim and that is to love your enemy. Now that would enter us onto a new level of existence. One on which theists or not, would agree leads in the right direction. Mandela could have sought revenge but delivered the opposite.
This article has no answers for the problem of our existence and that of the universe. The multiverse hypothesis borders on the fairytale/science fiction genre.
Evolution is a farce. How could complex information encoded in the DNA of every living creature come about by chance? What is the process for the increase in such genetic information necessary for the development of a new species? Blind incredulity will accept such explanations, but there is no scientific basis for them.
Perhaps, if the author of this article will allow me, to say that the Book of Genesis, which is the first book of the bible would be a good place to go to see how God created everything historically (first 12 chapters). Then go to the NT to book of Colossians (1:15-17) and see how He holds it altogether today. Regards, your local theologian.
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I have no problem believing in Evolution and God. God's creation could have developed by evolving. When talking about the universe, or the multiverse there must have been initial "matter" to give rise to the universe. Where did that matter come from? For me the answer is a creator.
Life=matter, energy AND information (DNA) Did information evolve too? A computer might "evolve" thanks to a whirlwind trough a junk yard but Windows 7 is another matter!
Monk didn't really address Metaxas' main claim: if we need at least 200 conditions to line up on a planet to support life then the likelihood of their being many earths out there is coming right down. When Einstein saw how ordered the universe was he was moved to remark that when science completes it's mission it will only have proved the existence of God. As for the multiverse?????
@Matthew Monk didn't dispute the whole 'long odds' basis of the argument. He disputed that this meant there is some creator.
If you threw a pair of dice six times and it landed double sixes every time would you claim it was because of a god or extraordinary odds just happening to fall in a sequence?
We now know that the universe isn't quite as 'ordered' as Einstein thought.
The multiverse is a hypothesis, we were told that in the article.
This commentary is not being intellectually honest, or using logical inferences. If there is a God, why would he cause life to evolve over billions of years? The Christian understanding of God is of a supreme being who created the universe through power that is far beyond the comprehension of the humans He created, although He gave them ability to explore creation and made them in the image of the Creator, as beings who also take delight in beauty, discovery and creativity. The biblical account is of a perfect world that fell to less than it was meant to be - where animals started to eat people, mosquitos bite, the ground grows thorns more than it grows food, and disease and death are part of life. Having studied and practiced science and medicine for many years, I do not understand how anyone who is intellectually honest can study literature relating to the creation/evolution debate and not come to the conclusion that evolution as a creative process is a huge farce that has had disastrous social impacts on the world and is holding back scientific innovation. The only way I can understand continued acceptance of evolutionary theory is it is enforced by peer pressure and lack of critical analysis.
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@Sandra Maybe evolution believers like atheists, hold anti Christ or God beliefs, because they are too proud to consider that there is a being mightier than themselves, despite their inability to explain how things happen outside of their control? To deny all the evidence and witnesses, that Jesus was killed and that his dead body was laid in a tomb, and that after 3 days it was nowhere to be found even by his enemies, without explanation, other than his witnessed reincarnation, is clearly incredible.
Paul Monk claims there is no evidence for God and then postulates the "multi-verse" theory ... for which there is no evidence. Atheists are funny.
Religion, and especially the trilogy of monotheistic (or desert) religions has done incredible damage to all life on this planet and continues to do so in its anthropocentric pursuit.
We just evolved, and we will de-volve, and then another species will evolve until our planet is finished.
There is no need to preserve us beyond our planet, that is another anthropocentric hallucination.
The sooner we kill off the god-factor the better for all species present and future
As a Doctor for over 40 years I have studied the human body and its biology in some detail. The idea that we have arisen over millions of years simply by random and advantageous mutations that are then passed on to our offspring may fit in well with an atheistic worldview, and in fact has become so much a matter of 'faith' of the new Atheism that anyone who dares question its basic tenets is labelled brain dead or stupid. I have yet to see or hear of a single mutation in medicine with all we now know about our genetic makeup with the exception perhaps of sickle cell anaemia that gives some protection to some types of malaria. Furthermore we also know that our 20,000 odd genes are not just almost the same as other higher primates, they are more like keys on a piano and can be expressed in myriad of different ways, think a Mozart or a Stravinsky played on the same keyboard. Paul's article is arrogant in the extreme. I suggest he sit down and actually read the New Testament before he makes such sweeping and pejorative comments on a God whom one day he will have to face and give an account of himself, whether he now regards all this as fantasy or not
Dr Martin Panter
Why is it that atheists cannot resist slipping a dose of nastiness and playing the man? It does their arguments no service and is, frankly, a bore.
@James Where's the nastiness? How does pointing out that someone's position drives their claims more than facts do 'playing the man'? Have you seen some of the lovely language and threats on social media in the USA whenever someone (usually a young person) lodges a complaint over illegal christian activities? Being told I can't possess any morals and/or have no purpose in life because I don't believe in someone's god isn't what you'd call nice.
@Johan That is not at all correct Johan. Stop projecting. Morals existed before claims of any god. Mankind didn't extinguish itself because it felt it had no purpose before claims of gods came along.
Are you one of those people who astonish me when they claim that without god they'd be unable to stop themselves from perpetrating all kinds of nasty deeds? Why is that? Can't people just be good for goodness's sake?
How do you define that "goodness"? It would have to be an ABSOLUTE goodness, wouldn't it? Where on earth would you find that if not in an absolutely good God? Your question has a long answer (which I have) for which there is no space here. Read C. S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" if you really want to know more about morality and right and wrong than what you currently think you know.
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What I would like to extinguish is the Nexus between conservative thought and Christianity:
What is implicit about all creationists and I would include Metaxsas is that their intelligent designer is NOT the Islamic conflict entity ; Or did your designer actually create a community where it is quite okay to carry a fellows head around for your son`s education? How much intelligence does that show in the creator?
I, and I suspect many others, simply accept that others have faith :Whilst having none of our own: But this doesn't mean I swallow all the leftie crap about socialism: Australia is NOT the USA: we can be rational in our economic discourse without it being blessed by some unproveable over-seer.
