This post is part of a Revisions roundtable on Origins. For more information about Revisions roundtables and other articles in the same series, go here.
If we talk about the evolution of the camera or the computer or the automobile, we are talking about the evolution of design at the hands of rational, creative persons. But if we talk about the evolution of biological organisms, suddenly there is an issue of semantics, since for Darwinism random mutation rather than creative reason provides the competitive advantage of one organism over another. Indeed, that is a crucial part of the original scientific definition of evolution.
But is that the only issue on which creationists and evolutionists disagree—on whether our existence is plausibly due to random chances? If, for example, we knew or could prove that there is a God, would that make any difference to the Darwinist, or would they still disagree with the creationist?
After all, we can agree on 100 percent of the scientific facts. We can agree, for example, that nature is extremely well organized at both macro and micro levels, such that it can be classified in many different ways (domain, kingdom, phylum, etc.) and studied from many different angles (via biochemistry, biomechanics, etc.). And we can agree that a range of natural laws—from the laws of gravity to the laws of fluid dynamics—govern various aspects of life. We can even agree, at least for the sake of argument, on the age of the universe being about 13 billion years.
So, again, upon what do we disagree? We disagree on the cause of all this organization and all these laws. One side says it came about by chance and the other side says it came about by creativity.
Regarding the former, Physicist Alan Lightman, Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote an article in this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine titled “The Accidental Universe”. Although he talks about physics instead of biology, the exact same issue is at hand. He says it has become abundantly clear to physicists that the universe is so fine-tuned for life that the odds of it happening by chance are way beyond astronomical. He gives some examples, such as the strength of the nuclear force, the relationship between the strengths of gravitations force and the electromagnetic force, and the amount of dark energy in the universe. If any of these were off by just a percentage point or two, there could be no life in the cosmos. He says the last one alone has in the past ten years been seen as enough to settle the issue.
For example, Lightman says by way of analogy, if you had a ruler representing the possible amounts of dark energy in the universe, and that ruler stretched from the earth to the sun, the amount we have is less than the width of an atom.
Here we have a clear example of fine-tuning: out of all the possible amounts of dark energy that our universe might have, the actual amount lies in the tiny sliver of the range that allows life. There is little argument on this point. It does not depend on assumptions about whether we need liquid water for life or oxygen or particular biochemistries. As before, one is compelled to ask the question: Why does such fine-tuning occur?1
Of course, one option is to conclude that this is clear evidence of God’s handiwork. But Lightman says the alternative, which he and a growing number of physicists are espousing, is to believe in the multiverse—the theory that there are practically an unlimited number of universes out there. In such case the statistical chances for ours becomes plausible. Using the anthropic principle, we represent the one in a gazillion that allows life. “We are an accident,” Lightman says. “From the cosmic lottery hat containing zillions of universes, we happened to draw a universe that allowed life.”
The trouble with this answer is that it simply begs the question. The word “chance” is only coherent in the context of a broader, ordered reality. (For that matter, the word “accident” is only coherent in the context of a purposeful reality.) So what is the context in which we can declare one “chance” universe coherent and friendly to life, while a billion others are not so? Or, in reference to the lottery analogy, where does one go to cash in the winning ticket? You can’t say we won a lottery but that there is nothing equivalent to the stable economy that has a bank where you can place your winnings. If there is no broader, purposeful economy, then the notion of a lottery loses any and all meaning.
Even if the universe were programmed to use randomness, just as computers can be programmed to use randomness, the context of those programs will always be the much larger non-random creativity of the programmer.
So where does this leave us? Does it leave us still disagreeing on whether chance or creativity is the source of profound complexity in nature?
No, it leaves us with the self-evident truth upon which we can all agree—that all of creation is literally governed by rationality. This truth is not the result of scientific explanations, but rather the context of them. We are not saying that God’s existence is an astronomically high probability, but an abundantly clear revelation. This is not the answer to our question but rather the vantage point from which we search for answers. It does not beg the question but rather provoke it. And the question is…
God, who are you?
People often ask why God does not do spectacular, Old Testament style miracles anymore. But keep in mind that, according to the Bible, a lot of people saw those miracles and were not convinced. In fact, within two months of the parting of the Red Sea the people made a molten calf and then bowed down and worshipped it, saying, “This is your god” (Exodus 14). In other words, they made themselves the authors of God. As absurd as that sounds, is it any different from us pretending that we are the authors of intelligence and creativity and the explanation of life?
Surely the discoveries of modern science would have sounded ten thousand times more bizarre to the Israelites than their own experiences. Imagine trying to tell Moses that the earth is a spinning sphere and that it orbits the sun, that the fuzzy spot north of the Big Dipper is quintillion-mile sized galaxy. It probably would have made the parting of the Red Sea sound like child’s play. However, there is one thing he might not have objected to: if you told him things were that way only because there were sentences that governed the heavenly bodies.
The Bible says that God is, literally, self-evident. That does not necessarily mean that He is loud or boisterous. But if we want to see him then we just need to ask and seek and knock.
- Alan Lightman, “The Accidental Universe”, Harper’s Magazine, December 2011, 39. [↩]
