Christian Apologetics: The Teleological Argument

/
1 min read

The teleological argument is the argument that the universe appears to be fine tuned for the presence of life.
For example, the cosmological constant of the universe is fined tuned so that if it were altered by 1 part in 10120, the universe as we know it would not exist. That number is incomprehensibly large. For comparison, the volume of the known universe is 3.57×1080 m3.
Scientists consider something as impossible if the odds of it happening are less than 1 in 1050. The cosmological constant is a billion billion billion billion billion billion billion times more finely tuned than that. The odds of winning the powerball is 1 in 292 million. The fine tuning of the cosmological constant is equivalent to winning 14 times in a row.
You might think “well, we’re just lucky on that one.”
There are other rates, ratios, or physical constants that are finely tuned to varying degrees. With every constant that is fine tuned, the universe’s fine tuning becomes even more impossible to explain.
Here’s a short list.
So you don’t have to explain away the cosmological constant being finely tuned to an insane degree, you have to explain that plus 92 constants that are fine tuned so that life can exist.
Atheists try to get around this by postulating a multiverse. The say that there could be an infinite number of universes and we just happen to live in the one that can support life.
So we happen to live in the universe than can support life, there just happened to be a planet with the conditions to support life, life actually started on that planet, life then evolved in a hostile universe to intelligent humans who take time to consider their origins. That’s some very long odds, people.
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.” – Sir Fred Hoyle

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”-Psalm 19:1

 universe-1044107_960_720

8 Comments

  1. “Atheists try to get around this by postulating a multiverse.”
    I’m going to distill a number of arguments I’ve had over the years with atheists: “We can’t explain something we can see, so we’ll make-up things we can’t see or test but will explain things to our liking. You Christians are stupid.”

    • It’s doesn’t even solve the problem the secularist think it solves. Even if the origin of this universe is explained, it does nothing to explain how something contingent begins. It just pushes the question further up the stack, so to speak.

  2. Laurens Kraus, a well known atheistic evolutionary “scientist”, was actually pretty honest when asked in an interview about the possibility of a Geocentric Universe when he said it would be possible based on existing evidence but it would also suggest the earth was specially created for humans “…and we can’t have that”. (since obviously that implies a Creator)
    This whole idea of a multiverse is nothing more than a so called ‘rescueing device’ in order to explain something that is not possible or if the evidence points to something that is ‘not desireable’.

  3. In fact there is a lot of evidence that suggests the earth in in the center of the Universe. One that I find really compelling is the fact that no matter in which direction you look into the Universe from earth, all you see is red shift.
    This is only possible if the location you are at is actually in the center. This is how Steven Hawking came up with the hypothesis of a ‘bended Universe’. But this is just another rescueing device to explain away what is staring them straight in the face. It has no scientific basis at all and is nothing more than Star Wars/Trek fantasy.
    1 Timothy 6:19-21 – “…profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called”
    Romans 1:20 – “For since the creation of the world His attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse”.
    They are litterally making up excuses for what any rational human being already understands.

  4. “This is only possible if the location you are at is actually in the center. ”
    Well that might be overselling it. The conclusion they have given is that space itself is expanding. Everywhere is getting farther from everywhere else. The example is a balloon. Blow it up a little and put 3 dots on it in a line equally spaced. As the balloon is inflated more, the first dot and the second dot get farther apart, but the first and the third dot get farther apart twice as fast. In this model, you would see the red shift the same at any location in the universe.
    The rate of expansion of the universe is another one of those insanely fine tuned numbers.

    • Hey thanks for your reply.
      The problem with that model is two fold:
      1) It assumes a (initial rapidly) expanding universe
      2) It assumes a closed geometry of the Universe
      The bottom line here is we need to look at the data. And the data currently available suggests that the Universe is flat, not closed. (or open). Both secular and creationist scientists agree on this.
      So secular scientists implement another rescuing device called inflation. The hypothesis is that in the beginning the Universe had an extremely rapid and exponential expansion that exceeded the limit on the speed of light set by the special theory of relativity, resulting in a space that is flat and homogeneous. But because the Universe is very large and we are very small, it only looks like it´s flat.
      This is nothing more than speculation and has no scientific basis.
      Edward Hubble had this to say about the red shift phenomena:
      “Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the Universe. […]This hypothesis cannot be disproved, but it is unwelcome and would only be accepted as a last resort in order to save the phenomena. Therefore we disregard this possibility[…]the unwelcome position of a favored location must be avoided at all costs[…] such a favored position is intolerable…” – Edward Hubble
      My point is not to claim as a fact that the Earth is at the center of the Universe, simply because it is impossible to do, unless you are able to stand outside of it and look inside. All we can do is look at the evidence and see where it points us to and draw a logical conclusion. And this conclusion can only be drawn based upon the philosophical model you hold (In essence, there is a Creator or there is no Creator)
      Mainstream science is infested with secular scientists who have already decided that “there is no God”, and therefore will always be looking for explanations that support that idea, even if the evidence suggests something else.

  5. Another interesting idea is the so called “Axis of Evil”. This refers to the data that suggests the celestial bodies throughout the Universe are aligned with the Earth. This then puts the Earth near or at the center of the Universe.
    A recent study which was published in Astronomy and Astrophysics on September 21, 2016, confirmed this again.
    https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.06719.pdf
    Personally I believe that a Geocentric Universe where the Earth is the center, stationary and motionless (but not flat !!), fits extremely well with what scientific data points to and fits much better with philosophical ideas (Biblical).
    For example, there is no need anymore to go trough all kinds of weird theories to explain how Joshua was able to make the sun “stand still” in the sky for a day.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Previous Story

On the Senate

Next Story

The Muslim Question

Latest from Philosophy

A Place for Everyone

If you ever played any team sports, you’ll be familiar with motivational quotes. Successories kicked things