Teleological Argument

Teleological Argument – Argument for Design
The Teleological Argument comes down to design. The appearance that the universe was designed to support life on earth is overwhelming. Secular scientists have observed that for physical life to be possible in the universe, many characteristics must take on specific values, as referenced below. In the secular scientific world, this circumstance of apparent fine-tuning in the universe is not disputed, and is referred to as “The Anthropic Principle.” Atheistic scientists have offered several unconvincing rationalizations for this having occurred without the involvement of a Divine Mind, but given the intricacy of the interrelationships between various features in the universe, the indication of divine "fine tuning" seems incontrovertible.

Teleological Argument – A Fine-Tuned Universe
The list supporting the Teleological Argument seems to be growing larger and larger as scientists discover more about the universe. Even now, this is a very long list, and who really likes lists? However, when I discuss these issues with atheists, they often ask for “details on this so-called fine-tuning,” so here’s the list:

1. Strong nuclear force constant
2. Weak nuclear force constant
3. Gravitational force constant
4. Electromagnetic force constant
5. Ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant
6. Ratio of proton to electron mass
7. Ratio of number of protons to number of electrons
8. Ratio of proton to electron charge
9. Expansion rate of the universe
10. Mass density of the universe
11. Baryon (proton and neutron) density of the universe
12. Space energy or dark energy density of the universe
13. Ratio of space energy density to mass density
14. Entropy level of the universe
15. Velocity of light
16. Age of the universe
17. Uniformity of radiation
18. Homogeneity of the universe
19. Average distance between galaxies
20. Average distance between galaxy clusters
21. Average distance between stars
22. Average size and distribution of galaxy clusters
23. Numbers, sizes, and locations of cosmic voids
24. Electromagnetic fine structure constant
25. Gravitational fine-structure constant
26. Decay rate of protons
27. Ground state energy level for helium-4
28. Carbon-12 to oxygen-16 nuclear energy level ratio
29. Decay rate for beryllium-8
30. Ratio of neutron mass to proton mass
31. Initial excess of nucleons over antinucleons
32. Polarity of the water molecule
33. Epoch for hypernova eruptions
34. Number and type of hypernova eruptions
35. Epoch for supernova eruptions
36. Number and types of supernova eruptions
37. Epoch for white dwarf binaries
38. Density of white dwarf binaries
39. Ratio of exotic matter to ordinary matter
40. Number of effective dimensions in the early universe
41. Number of effective dimensions in the present universe
42. Mass values for the active neutrinos
43. Number of different species of active neutrinos
44. Number of active neutrinos in the universe
45. Mass value for the sterile neutrino
46. Number of sterile neutrinos in the universe
47. Decay rates of exotic mass particles
48. Magnitude of the temperature ripples in cosmic background radiation
49. Size of the relativistic dilation factor
50. Magnitude of the Heisenberg uncertainty
51. Quantity of gas deposited into the deep intergalactic medium by the first supernovae
52. Positive nature of cosmic pressures
53. Positive nature of cosmic energy densities
54. Density of quasars
55. Decay rate of cold dark matter particles
56. Relative abundances of different exotic mass particles
57. Degree to which exotic matter self interacts
58. Epoch at which the first stars (metal-free pop III stars) begin to form
59. Epoch at which the first stars (metal-free pop III stars cease to form
60. Number density of metal-free pop III stars
61. Average mass of metal-free pop III stars
62. Epoch for the formation of the first galaxies
63. Epoch for the formation of the first quasars
64. Amount, rate, and epoch of decay of embedded defects
65. Ratio of warm exotic matter density to cold exotic matter density
66. Ratio of hot exotic matter density to cold exotic matter density
67. Level of quantization of the cosmic spacetime fabric
68. Flatness of universe's geometry
69. Average rate of increase in galaxy sizes
70. Change in average rate of increase in galaxy sizes throughout cosmic history
71. Constancy of dark energy factors
72. Epoch for star formation peak
73. Location of exotic matter relative to ordinary matter
74. Strength of primordial cosmic magnetic field
75. Level of primordial magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
76. Level of charge-parity violation
77. Number of galaxies in the observable universe
78. Polarization level of the cosmic background radiation
79. Date for completion of second reionization event of the universe
80. Date of subsidence of gamma-ray burst production
81. Relative density of intermediate mass stars in the early history of the universe
82. Water's temperature of maximum density
83. Water's heat of fusion
84. Water's heat of vaporization
85. Number density of clumpuscules (dense clouds of cold molecular hydrogen gas) in the universe
86. Average mass of clumpuscules in the universe
87. Location of clumpuscules in the universe
88. Dioxygen's kinetic oxidation rate of organic molecules
89. Level of paramagnetic behavior in dioxygen
90. Density of ultra-dwarf galaxies (or supermassive globular clusters) in the middle-aged universe
91. Degree of space-time warping and twisting by general relativistic factors
92. Percentage of the initial mass function of the universe made up of intermediate mass stars
93. Strength of the cosmic primordial magnetic field¹

Teleological Argument – Mathematical Impossibility without a Designer
The Teleological Argument reflects one of three possibilities for the existence of this incredible fine-tuning: law, chance or design. Scientists have puzzled over it for years and have found no natural laws that can account for it. The odds against such a theory ever being discovered seem insurmountable. Even Stephen Hawking, who was originally a believer in a “Theory of Everything” that could possibly explain the fine-tuning as necessary by law, after considering Gödel's Theorem concluded that one was not obtainable. He states: “Some people will be very disappointed if there is not an ultimate theory, that can be formulated as a finite number of principles. I used to belong to that camp, but I have changed my mind.”²

Since the threshold of mathematical impossibility is 1 in 10 to the 50^th power, and the odds of this fine-tuning coming into existence by chance are far, far beyond that, we can rule out chance. Only a transcendent Creator makes sense of this unbelievably complex order in the universe.

During the last 35 years or so, scientists have discovered that the existence of intelligent life absolutely depends upon this very delicate and complex balance of initial conditions. It appears that “the deck was stacked” in the substances, constants and quantities of the Big Bang itself, to provide a life-permitting universe. We now know through modern science that life-prohibiting universes are vastly more probable than any life-permitting universe like ours. How much more probable?

Well, the answer is that the chances that the universe should be life-permitting are so infinitesimally small as to be incomprehensible and incalculable. For example, Stephen Hawking has estimated that if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have re-collapsed into a hot fireball due to gravitational attraction.³ Physicist P.C.W. Davies has calculated that the odds against the initial conditions being suitable for star formation (without which planets could not exist) is one followed by at least a thousand billion billion zeroes!⁴ Davies also calculates that a change in the strength of gravity or of the weak force by merely one part in 10 raised to the 100th power (!) would have prevented a life-permitting universe.⁵ As we saw in the previous lists, there are dozens and dozens of such constants and quantities present in the Big Bang which must be exquisitely fine-tuned in this way if the universe is to permit life. Moreover, it's not only each individual quantity or constant which must be finely tuned; their ratios to each other must also be exquisitely finely tuned. Therefore, vast improbability is multiplied by vast improbability, and yet again by vast improbability repeatedly until our minds are simply reeling in vanishingly small odds.

There is no plausible physical reason why these constants and quantities should have the values that they do. Reflecting on this, the once-agnostic physicist P.C.W. Davies comments, "Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact."⁶ Likewise, British Astrophysicist Sir Frederick Hoyle remarks, "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics."⁷ Robert Jastrow, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, refers to this as “the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science.”⁸

Teleological Argument – What’s More Reasonable, Design or Chance?
In the final analysis, it seems the Teleological Argument has strong scientific, philosophical, and theological legs. The view that Christian theists have historically held, that there is an intelligent Designer of the universe, seems to make so much more sense than the atheistic alternative: The universe, when it popped into being, without cause, out of nothing, just happened to be, by chance, fine-tuned for intelligent life with a mind-numbingly unlikely precision and delicacy. To call the odds against this fine-tuning occurring by chance “astronomical” would be a wild understatement.