This article is the fourth and final in a four-part series about the three distinct ways to formulate the argument for an intelligent cause based on the fine-tuning of the constants of nature. Look here for the first, second, and third parts of the series.

The third formulation of the fine-tuning argument is presented on our podcast, Physics to God (specifically, the first five episodes of season one). This approach makes the important conceptual shift of recognizing that fine-tuning is not the problem, but is rather the clue to the solution of an intrinsic mystery at the heart of fundamental physics.

The Objective of Science

To appreciate this point, first note that the objective of science is to explain everything we observe. Physicists accomplish this by simplifying and reducing phenomena to their most fundamental elements. Physicists’ repeated successes have led them to expect that the fundamental laws of physics will be unified, simple, and beautiful. However, the fundamental constants of nature — 25 seemingly arbitrary, complex numbers that read like a list of data — are the polar opposite of what physicists would expect of a final theory of everything.

In his discussion of the constants in 1985, physicist Richard Feynman (QED, p. 129) described the great challenge and mystery the constants pose to a final theory: 

There is a most profound and beautiful question associated with the observed coupling constant…It is a simple number that has been experimentally determined to be close to 0.08542455. (My physicist friends won’t recognize this number, because they like to remember it as the inverse of its square: about 137.03597 with about an uncertainty of about 2 in the last decimal place. It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it.) Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to pi or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It’s one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the “hand of God” wrote that number, and “we don’t know how He pushed his pencil.” We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don’t know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly!

Feynman’s great mystery of the constants is: How could 25 seemingly arbitrary numbers truly be fundamental? And if they aren’t fundamental, how could physicists possibly find a deeper theory that would explain the values of the constants?

An Intrinsic Mystery

Notice that the mystery of the constants has absolutely nothing to do with fine-tuning, but is rather an intrinsic mystery that lies at the heart of physicists’ dream of discovering the most fundamental reality of the universe.

Given this conceptual backdrop, we can see how the discovery of fine-tuning is scientific knowledge — it provides a significant clue about the constants. We now know that the constants aren’t truly arbitrary but are fine-tuned in order to bring about a complex, ordered, and structured universe. 

We can now ask: What does the scientific discovery of fine-tuning tell us about the cause of the constants?

Using the definition of intelligence as the ability to select one option from among many for the purpose of achieving a particular objective, the straightforward conclusion is that constants were selected by an intelligent cause for the purpose of bringing about a universe with atoms, molecules, planets, life, stars, and galaxies.

Let’s summarize this approach:

(1) Feynman posed the great mystery of the constants: How could physicists possibly find a deeper theory that would explain the values of 25 seemingly arbitrary numbers?

(2) From among the vast amount of theoretically allowed values, it was discovered that the specific values of the constants are fine-tuned — i.e., they are necessary for bringing about a complex and ordered universe that is much greater than the sum of its simple parts.

(3) The term “intelligence” refers to the ability to pick out or select one possibility from among many for the purpose of producing an intended goal.

Combining these three points, we argue:

(4) The cause of the fine-tuned constants is intelligent.

Weaknesses and Strengths 

Let’s point out the weaknesses and strengths of this formulation in comparison to the argument from elimination and the argument based on probabilities.

The weakness is that it relies on the qualitative reasoning that the relationship between the fine-tuned values of the constants and the resultant complex universe indicates the existence of an intelligent cause. While this is a fairly straightforward inference for some people (like ourselves), others are bothered that it isn’t expressed with the same rigorous mathematical language as the probabilistic approach.

The advantages of this formulation are: (a) It doesn’t rely on elimination to infer an intelligent cause but on the direct inference from a cause that acts with purpose to the fact that it’s intelligent; (b) It doesn’t depend on questionable calculations about the probabilities of the constants (i.e., all it requires is that the constants, numbers like 1/137, could logically have been different); (c) It doesn’t need to speculate about the likelihood of God creating a universe like our own, nor deal with all the attending problems of evil and suffering; (d) Since fine-tuning is recognized as scientific knowledge that solves the mystery of the constants, it’s clear that the fine-tuning argument is not an argument from ignorance (i.e., it doesn’t fall prey to the “God of the gaps” fallacy). 

Like the first two approaches, this formulation must also reject the multiverse. (We will thoroughly do this in season two of Physics to God: Understanding and Rejecting the Multiverse.) However, because this third approach provides a direct inference to an intelligent cause, the burden of proof is on multiverse scientists to provide evidence that supports a multiverse.

When all is said and done, irrespective of which formulation one prefers, fine-tuning provides in our view the best modern-day argument for the existence of an intelligent God who created the universe and its laws.