Before I go on, I must apologize, because I didn't give the selection effect point of view enough credit. There have been many attempts to formalize the selection effect argument in terms of conditional probabilities and Bayesian inference (for those math-oriented people out there), and this is a good thing. Critics of theistic inferences from the anthropic principle correctly point out that it isn't enough to simply say "it looks improbable, therefore God must have done it." However, even if you do carry out the calculations in a probabilistically careful manner, you do arrive at theistic interpretations. In addition, even in the mathematical arguments from the critics of theistic inferences, the selection effect is nothing more than an irrelevant red herring.
OK, sorry. I had to get that off my chest. You are welcome to ignore that paragraph if you want. On the other hand, if you wish to know more about it, I am happy to correspond with you, but I don't think I'll take up any more room about it here.
Moving on, I wrapped up the meeting discussing actual examples of fine tuning. The first, and perhaps simplest case of fine tuning to describe is the mass density of the universe. The universe is expanding, but gravity acts as a brake on the expansion. Early on in the universe's life, the rate of expansion had to be just right in order for life to exist today. If it was expanding too fast, the matter in the universe would have been to disperse in order to form galaxies, stars, and planets. On the other hand, if the expansion had been to slow, matter would have clumped up so much as to only produce things like black holes. In other words, there had to be just the right amount of matter in the universe to control the expansion rate so exquisitely that if even a "dime's worth" of mass had been added or subtracted from the universe, no life would have been possible. That's fine-tuning to one part in 10^60. (ie, more remote that winning the lottery eight times in a row).
However, the most extreme case of fine tuning known today -- one part in 10^120 -- has to do with something very mysterious called "dark energy". This phenomenon acts as sort-of an anti-gravity, causing the universe to expand faster! (You can imagine the surprise of astrophysicists when, in the late 1990's, more and more evidence accumulated that the universe's expansion is indeed accelerating.) I must admit I have no way to explain to you why dark energy -- sometimes known as the space energy density, and represented by a number called the "cosmological constant" -- is finely tuned, or what that means, but here are some quotes from scientific papers that lament this fine-tuning (and are unsettled about the possible theistic implications therein):
- The "cosmological constant...would involve the most extreme fine-tuning problem known in physics, and for this reason many particle physicists would prefer any mechanism that would drive the cosmological constant to be exactly zero today." -- Lawrence Krauss, 1998
- "This type of universe [one with such a cosmological constant], however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with 'common wisdom'." -- Zehavi and Dekel, 1999
- "If [the existence of such a cosmological constant] should become an established fact, we are also confronted with a disturbing cosmic coincidence problem. " -- Straumann, 1999
Wow, this post got too long. Before I go, let me say one more thing. It was a really good discussion, and outside of the material I summarized here, we talked about cool topics like life on other planets (which I am skeptical of, but not in a big way), and the multiverse (which I believe is worse than speculation-squared).
Until next time...
This actually has not much to do with the post, but rather a question raised in the meeting. Something was asked along the lines of "If there is life on other planets, did Christ die for him since Scripture says he died 'once for all'"? I referred the questioner to book 7 of the Narnia Chronicles.
ReplyDeleteI think I'd add something now though--and that is to always look at verses in context, meaning yes Jesus did die for the whole world (and probably other worlds, assuming they also sinned, etc). But also, that this verse has at times been used to support universalism, which affirms heaven, but denies hell, and could poke holes in real responses to suffering:-( (I believe here on earth that we have mustard seeds of the kingdom of God, as Glen Stassen and David Gushee write in Kingdom Ethics, but that we also have a lot of mustard seeds of hell, directed at the innocent and not-so-innocent.... thanks to people's sin :-( I do believe that there is a heaven and that there is a hell. I also believe we are responsible for people suffering now and starting heaven now though and that although Christ died for all, love gives them the right to accept/reject him. Enuf said;-))
Finally, I'd add that we must always approach discussions of faith with humility. If I met the society of aliens, I'd probably try to communicate and see what they already thought about God and start from there and see how it might be reconciled with the entire canon of Scripture.
On the other hand, I wouldn't spend too much worrying about them. Remember the epilogue to the Gospel of John??? (John 21). Peter asks about the beloved disciple and Jesus basically tells him not to compare and to let God do with the other disciple what God's going to do (which was part of the point of asking Peter if he loved Jesus "more than these"?). I guess I would apply this to the corporate as well. Let's worry about our society before the ones we speculate about and let God do with them (assuming they exist) what he will.
Not that this isn't without fallacy... we are a missionary faith, responsible for others and for reaching out and social justice. The key I guess is Peter's pride in asking about the others (and you/the group in no one exhibited such pride. It was mere curiosity).
Yeah, I'm rambling and have no idea what I'm saying.... Blessings!