Return of the God Hypothesis: Breakthroughs in Physics, Cosmology, and Biology Seeking Evidence for the Existence of God

by Stephen C. Meyer

Moreover, it is at least reasonable to consider positing the action of a free agent as the explanation for the beginning of the universe. Most people already accept the reality of their own free will and think that their choices can cause new material states of affairs to occur. Those who don’t accept this possibility typically deny the existence of their free will only because philosophical arguments have convinced them that their perception of free will is an illusion. But that implies that people at least have an intuitive understanding of the concept of free will. Thus, the concept of a freely chosen decision does not represent an exotic, ad hoc, or arbitrary explanatory postulation, but rather one that we routinely employ to explain other changes of state or states of affairs. Indeed, positing the action of a free agent gives a perfectly cogent account of how the universe could have begun to exist consistent with our own experience of possessing free will.