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

by Stephen C. Meyer

Burnham’s comment, offered in 1992, came in response to the discovery of the fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) by the COBE satellite, providing another dramatic confirmation o...

Yet it is not only cosmology that has rendered the “God hypothesis” newly respectable. As one surveys several classes of evidence from the natural sciences—cosmology, astronomy, physics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and paleontology—the God hypothesis emerges as an explanation with unique scope and power. Theism explains an ensemble of metaphysically significant events in the history of the universe and life more simply, more adequately, and more comprehensively than majo...

This chapter and the previous two have shown that only theism provides a causally adequate explanation for the whole ensemble of evidence about biological and cosmological origins under consideration. Deism can explain the origin of the universe and its fine tuning, but not subsequent infusions of functional biological information into the earth’s biosphere. Panspermia might in theory explain the origin of biological information on earth, but it does not explain the ultimate origin of biological information. Nor can it explain the origin of the universe or its fine tuning. Materialism and pantheism fail to account for all three key classes of evidence since they deny a preexistent transcendent intelligence.

FIGURE 15.1 Thomas Nagel, the eminent New York University philosopher of science and author of Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.

my colleague David Berlinski pointed out, “They began with what they needed and purified what they got until they got what they wanted.”17

Professor James Tour (Fig. 15.4), of Rice University, one of the leading synthetic organic chemists in the world, has written two seminal review articles since 2016 assessing the status of chemical evolutionary theory.18 He has concluded that all current chemical evolutionary scenarios lack plausibility precisely because they depend upon intelligently purified chemical reagents, intelligently designed chemical recipes, and intelligently guided experimental protocols.

Moreover, as I showed in Signature in the Cell, whenever chemists set up or interfere in a reaction sequence—or whenever they otherwise apply constraints to a chemical system—to ensure one outcome and preclude others, they effectively input information into that system. In so doing, they inadvertently simulate, if anything, the need for intelligent design to generate biologically relevant chemistry and information.

Laurence Moran and P. Z. Myers, both outspoken atheists, criticized Krauss and Dawkins for mischaracterizing the neo-Darwinian mechanism as wholly nonrandom, and Moran specifically blamed Krauss’s uncritical reliance upon Dawkins as the source of his misinformation.

In making this case, I critiqued several nontheistic interpretations of the fine tuning: (1) the weak anthropic principle, (2) the strong anthropic principle,4 (3) explanations based upon natural law, and (4) explanations based upon chance. In the last case, I critiqued only explanations that draw on the probabilistic resources of this universe. As it happens, most scientific materialists themselves now find these four interpretations of the fine tuning intellectually unsatisfying. Consequently, many have proposed an even more imaginative alternative. This explanation, known as the multiverse, cleverly revives a kind of chance hypothesis, one that attempts to render the cosmological fine tuning probable after all.

The Multiverse To explain cosmic fine tuning, some physicists have postulated not a “fine-tuner” or intelligent designer, but the existence of a vast number of other universes. This “multiverse” concept not only posits many other universes, but also various mechanisms for producing these universes.

Having a mechanism for generating new universes would, according to proponents of this idea, increase the number of opportunities for...

Thus, they portray our universe as something like the lucky winner of a cosmic lottery and the universe-generating mechanism as something like a roulette wheel or a slot machine turning out either life-conducive winners or ...

It’s important to understand why proponents of the multiverse need a universe-generating mechanism. Most proponents think of the different universes that they postulate as causally isolated or disconnected from each other. Thus, for the most part, they do not expect to have any direct observational evidence of universes other than our own.6 Consequently, nothing...

Nor would events in one universe affect the probability of events in another universe, including the probabilities of whatever events were responsible for setting the values of the f...

Assessing the Multiverse So do either inflationary cosmology or string theory give an adequate account of the fine tuning of the laws and constants of physics and/or the initial conditions of the universe? Do either of these cosmological models provide a better explanation of cosmic fine tuning than theistic design?

Many physicists today regard the argument over fine tuning as “a wash.” Some leading physicists have told me—in all candor—that they regard the multiverse hypothesis as a speculative metaphysical hypothesis, not a scientific one.

Reasons to Prefer Theistic Design over the Multiverse First, as the Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne has argued, the theistic design hypothesis constitutes a simpler and less ad hoc explanation for cosmic fine tuning.21 Swinburne affirms here the principle of Ockham’s razor, which states that when attempting to explain phenomena we should, as much as possible, avoid “multiplying (theoretical) entities.”

Philosopher of physics Bruce Gordon (Fig. 16.4) has amplified this argument by pointing out that accepting the multiverse hypothesis requires accepting two distinct types of universe-generating mechanisms to explain two distinct types of fine tuning. He notes that inflationary cosmology could conceivably explain the fine tuning of the initial conditions of the universe, but it does not explain the origin of the fine tuning of the laws and constants of physics. That’s because the inflaton field operates in accord with the same laws of physics across its entire expanding space. As it generates new bubble universes, those universes have the same laws and constants as the inflaton field from which they were birthed. As new bubble universes break off, only new initial configurations of mass-energy could arise.

In theory, at least, the inflationary string landscape model can explain the whole range of fine-tuning phenomena, but only at the cost of what philosophers of science call “a bloated ontology” (recall that ontology is the study of what really exists). That is, it does so by positing an extraordinary number of purely hypothetical and abstract entities for which we have no direct evidence.24

Indeed, to explain the fine tuning of both the initial conditions and the laws and constants of physics, the combination of inflationary cosmology and string theory needs to affirm numerous purely hypothetical entities, abstract postulates, and unobservable processes. In particular for an inflationary string landscape model to explain both types of fine tuning, it must make the following postulations: An inflaton field exists. The decay of inflaton fields will produce new bubble universes with different initial conditions. The process of inflation will continue eternally into the future. An infinite number of bubble universes exists (or will eventually exist). Unimaginably small vibrating strings of energy exist. Six or seven extra hidden spatial dimensions exist. The vibrating strings of energy within string vacua create the physical phenomena we observe. Lines of flux around the compactifications of space exist, making them quasi-stable with a positive cosmological constant. Supersymmetry applies to fundamental strings, so that both gravitons and gravitinos exist and their different vibrational modes correspond to all forms of radiation, matter, and the fundamental forces of physics.

Every mathematical solution to the equations of string theory corresponds to an actually existing universe with different laws and constants of phy...

In addition, multiverse advocates must affirm that an inflaton field plus some string-theory universe-generating mechanism can together produce enough different universes to render probable the origin of the finely tuned initial conditions, laws, and constants of our universe.25 Bruce Gordon likens accepting all these postulations to believing “six impossible things before breakfast,” as in the Alice in Wonder...

Kidding aside, he argues that the theistic design hypothesis—if adjudicated by Ockham’s criterion—provides a much simpler explanation of cosmological fine tuning than the multiverse, because theistic design affirms one clear simple postulate (the activity of a transcendent fine-tuner) and avoids the unnecessary and profligate multiplic...

There is yet another reason to prefer theistic design as an explanation of fine tuning over exotic versions of naturalism that postulate a multiverse. In order to explain the origin of the fine tuning in our universe, both inflationary cosmology and string theory (and versions of the multiverse that combine them) posit universe-generating mechanisms that themselves require prior unexplained fine tuning. Let’s look at this problem first as it arises within inflationary cosmology. Recall from Chapter 6 that the architects of inflationary cosmology proposed it to explain the absence of certain features of the universe that were expected on the basis of standard big bang cosmology, including the homogeneity and flatness of the universe. Yet for inflationary cosmology to explain the homogeneity of the cosmic background radiation and the flatness of the universe, the postulated inflaton field would need a certain minimum initial energy to drive the exponential expansion of the original volume of space.

Thus, not only does the universe-generating mechanism in inflationary cosmology require prior unexplained fine tuning. It actually requires more fine tuning than it was proposed to explain, making the fine-tuning problem it was designed to solve significantly worse. Consider the fine tuning associated with the flatness problem (the ratio of the actual mass density of the universe to the critical mass density). In standard big bang cosmology it is about 1 part in 1059. Consider also that the fine tuning associated with the homogeneity of the cosmic microwave background radiation is a more modest 1 part in 105.31 Yet inflationary cosmology requires several sources of extreme fine tuning that collectively dwarf that left unexplained by the standard big bang model.

In the first place, as we’ve seen, the fine tuning of the inflation shutoff energies necessary to produce new habitable bubble universes ranges from between 1 part in 1053 and 1 part in 10123. Second, the fine tuning associated with the choice of inflationary models (and the various parameters specified in these models) is 1 part in 1066,000,000 as estimated by Carroll and Tam.

Third, inflationary cosmology makes the already acute fine tuning problem associated with the initial “low-entropy state” of our universe exponentially worse. Recall that low entropy corresponds to a highly ordered state, and high entropy to a more disordered state. In a cosmological context, the “initial low-entropy state” of the universe refers to an initial highly ordered, homogeneous distribution of mass-energy (and a “smooth spacetime”). Indeed, as we saw in Chapter 8, for highly ordered, highly condensed matter such as stable galaxies and planetary systems to have developed, an even more highly ordered arrangement of matter and energy (and a “smoother spacetime”) must ha...

Inflationary cosmology not only does nothing to explain this initial-entropy fine tuning—estimated by Roger Penrose at 1 part in 1010123—it actually exacerbates it.32 It does so because the massive energy of expansion during inflation would increase the entropy/disorder of the universe more than the expansion envisioned by standard big bang cosmology. Thus, inflation would imply the need for a greater initial homogeneity (order) in the configuration of mass-energy (and initial smoothness of spacetime) to account for the high degree of order we see today. Since inflationary cosmology posits an exponentially larger surge of energy—an even bigger tornado!—than standard big bang cosmology, it would generate exponentially more entropy. It therefore requires an exponentially larger corresponding order (lower entropy state) at the beginning of the universe.

Cumulatively, the unexplained fine tuning necessary to produce life-compatible conditions given an inflationary cosmological model dwarfs that of standard big bang cosmology. Bruce Gordon quips that the use of inflationary cosmology to solve the fine-tuning problem associated with the standard big bang model is like “digging the Grand Canyon to fill a pothole.”33

Robin Collins has a clever way of characterizing this whole situation. He likens physicists who attempt to explain fine tuning solely by reference to universe-creating mechanisms, without intelligent design, to a hapless soul who denies any human ingenuity in the making of a freshly baked loaf of bread simply because the baker used a breadmaking machine. Clearly, argues Collins, such a benighted fellow has overlooked an obvious fact: the breadmaking machine itself required prior ingenuity and design, as did the recipe for and the preparation of the dough that went into it.

Similarly, even if a multiverse hypothesis is true, it would support, rather than undermine, the intelligent design hypothesis, since the multiverse hypothesis depends upon the specific features of universe-generating mechanisms that invariably require prior and otherwise unexplained fine tuning.39

These failed predictions as well the embarrassment of an infinite number of string-theory solutions have engendered a growing skepticism about string theory among many leading physicists. As the Nobel Prize–winning theoretical physicist Gerard ’t Hooft has explained: I would not even be prepared to call string theory a “theory,” rather a “model,” or not even that: just a hunch. After all, a theory should come with instructions on how . . . to identify the things one wishes to describe, in our case, the elementary particles, and one should, at least in principle, be able to formulate the rules for calculating the properties of these particles, and how to make new predictions for them. Imagine that I give you a chair, while explaining that the legs are missing, and that the seat, back, and armrests will be delivered soon. Whatever I gave you, can I still call it a chair?49

Consider what Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind, one of the architects of the string-theory multiverse, has himself said about the underlying impulse behind the construction of this immense theoretical superstructure. “If, for some unforeseen reason,” he says, “the [string] landscape turns out to be inconsistent—maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation,” [then] “as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature’s fine tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID [intelligent design] critics.”

Other leading physicists familiar with the research program have observed such a strong metaphysical predilection among their colleagues. As University of London theoretical physicist Bernard Carr has observed, “To the hard-line physicist, the multiverse may not be entirely respectable, but it is at least preferable to invoking a Creator. Indeed, anthropically inclined physicists like Susskind and Weinberg are attracted to the multiverse precisely because it seems to dispense with God as the explanation of cosmic design.”

None of this will surprise anyone with any acquaintance with the ethos or sociology of contemporary science. Since the rise of scientific materialism during the end of the nineteenth century, many scientists have regarded it as their duty to explain all events and phenomena, even singular events such as the origin of the universe, life, or consciousness, without reference to a designing intelligence. Some have come to see their vocation as scientists as part of a long struggle against what they regard as the irrationality of religion. Thus they have vigilantly resisted considering any discovery or explanation with implications favorable to theism, what...

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to ma...

Though Hawking had helped to prove the singularity theorems with Roger Penrose1 in 1970 and George Ellis in 1973,2 he found their implication of an absolute beginning of time and space philosophically disturbing and scientifically unsatisfying.

Yet Hawking also acknowledged that once his mathematical depiction of the geometry of space is transformed back into the real domain with a real-time variable—the domain of mathematics that does apply to our universe—the singularity reappears. As he noted, “When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities. . . . Only if [we] lived in imaginary time would [we] encounter no singularities. . . . In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down.”19

Quantum Cosmology What does this physics of the tiny realm of subatomic particles have to do with the origin of the largest object we know—the universe? As noted in previous chapters, an expanding universe in the forward direction of time implies a much smaller universe in the remote past. By extrapolating backward, astrophysicists envision a time in the first fractions of a second after the big bang—up until the first 10−43 of a second to be exact—when the universe would have been small enough that quantum mechanics would have been relevant for understanding how gravity works. In that subatomic realm, physicists think that general relativity—Einstein’s theory of gravity that applies to macroscopic objects—would break down. That insight has led physicists to seek to formulate a quantum theory of gravity, though as yet no such theory has attained anything like widespread assent.

Interestingly, in 2014, Hawking echoed this claim in a book titled The Grand Design, coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow. They wrote: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.”

Lest anyone miss the metaphysical implications of this view of cosmology, Hawking made them explicit: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

When I first read Krauss’s book, I discovered that the lion’s share of his discussion attempted to describe how material particles in the universe emerged from preexisting energy-rich fields in a preexisting space. This space and energy presumably arose from the singularity at the big bang. Near the end of this discussion, Krauss, clearly sensitive to the objection that neither space nor energy qualified as genuine “nothing,” acknowledged that he had not yet established his main claim. Then in a short chapter near the end of the book, he attempted to prove the thesis of his book—that the laws of physics could explain how the universe itself arose from literally nothing.8 He did so with a cursory description of Alexander Vilenkin’s work in quantum cosmology.9 I found Krauss’s discussion of quantum cosmology intellectually unsatisfying.

What I found in Vilenkin’s work surprised me. In his use of quantum cosmology, Vilenkin was clearly attempting to model the origin of the universe as a consequence of a deeper physical law or theory. But he exhibited a much more profound sense of the difficulty of this endeavor than either Krauss or Hawking. He also showed a keen sense of the paradoxical or even contradictory aspects of invoking a mathematical equation developed in the human mind as the cause of an actual universe.

Proponents of quantum cosmology frequently claim the laws of physics explain the origin of the universe. For example, Hawking asserts, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.” Krauss echoes this claim: “The laws themselves require our universe to come into existence, to develop and evolve.”10

The claim that the laws of physics cause events to occur sounds obviously true to many scientists, because we hear it so often and are trained to think of the laws of nature as the ultimate explanatory principles in nature. Unfortunately, this idea conceals an imprecision in thought and makes what philosophers and logicians call a “category mistake.”

To see why, consider the following illustration. If one billiard ball of some given mass bashes into another billiard ball, the law of conservation of momentum accurately describes the interaction. It will even allow us to make predictions about, for example, the change in velocity of the second ball, if we know the masses of the two balls and the velocity of the first ball as required by the equation describing momentum exchange.

The laws of physics represent only our descriptions of nature. Descriptions in themselves do not cause things to happen.

Of Math and Minds How, then, do Krauss and others maintain that purely mathematical entities bring a material universe into being in time and space? In other words, how can a mathematical equation create an actual physical universe?

This question has troubled the leading physicists promoting quantum cosmology—at least in their more reflective moments. In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking famously asked, “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”16 Though Hawking posed this question—perhaps somewhat rhetorically—he never returned to answer it.

Alexander Vilenkin has raised the same question. He notes that, in his version of quantum cosmology, the process of “quantum tunneling” from superspace into a real universe produces space and time, matter and energy. But he acknowledges that even the process of tunneling must be governed by laws that “should be ‘there’ even prior to the universe itself.” He goes on: “Does this mean that the laws are not mere descriptions of reality and can have an independent existence of their own? In the absence of space, time, and matter, what tablets could they be written upon? The laws a...