Findings in contemporary physics and cosmology suggest that the universe is, in various ways, fine-tuned for the emergence of life. Had, for example, the value of the cosmological constant, the mass of the neutron, or the strength of the force of gravity been only slightly different, then life never would have emerged. Indeed, theoretical physicists tell us that, of the innumerable possible ways our universe might have been, the conditions for any conceivable form of life (and not only carbon-based life) would have been possible in only a vanishingly small portion of them. Thus, we need an explanation of why ours is a life-permitting universe, given that this outcome was antecedently highly improbable (and given that, by ordinary epistemic standards, antecedently highly improbable events need to be explained).
There really are only two possible answers here. One is The Multiverse Hypothesis, according to which there are indeterminately many (perhaps infinitely many) universes. Thus, so goes the thought, we shouldn’t be surprised that we exist in a life-permitting universe, given that some such universes will exist within the multiverse — and of course observers like ourselves will exist only within those universes in which it’s possible for us to exist.
The major problem with that response is that not just any multiverse will explain fine-tuning, given that, of the logically possible multiverses, most will contain no life-permitting universes. Only a multiverse which is itself fine-tuned for generating life-permitting universes will explain the fine-tuning of our universe. But then the multiverse’s fine-tuning would require explanation.
Theism offers an explanation of fine-tuning insofar as the existence of God predicts the existence of at least some universe (and perhaps many universes) containing life, given that life is a prerequisite for the emergence of embodied consciousness subjects, who add to enormously to the value of a universe (such that God would have reasons creating arenas in which they could exist). In this way, the fine-tuning data constitute confirmatory evidence for theism.
A Statement of the Argument From Fine-Tuning
The universe is fine-tuned for the emergence of life.
On theism, fine-tuning is expected: God would have reasons for creating a universe fine-tuned for life.
On atheism, fine-tuning is unexpected.
So, fine-tuning is evidence for theism.
