God's Crime Scene

God’s Crime Scene

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It’s about 2 a.m. on an August morning in 1979. A beautiful young nurse by the name of Lynne Knight is living in a bungalow behind a larger house in Torrance, California. As two police officers approach her door, they notice a chair overturned in the entryway and bloody footsteps leading back to the rear bedroom. Each officer has his gun drawn, not sure what to expect.

When they switch on the light, they witness the worst murder scene of their careers. Ms. Knight is lying on her bed, undressed. Her throat is deeply severed, and her lifeless body, which had been stabbed repeatedly, is covered in blood.

Under her body is 18 inches of twisted wire strung between two small pieces of wood that had been sawed off from an old broomstick. Although they’ve never seen one in person before, the officers immediately know it’s a garrote—a homemade weapon used to strangle someone in order to commit a murder quietly.

The killer tried to murder Lynne with the garrote, but couldn’t complete the evil act because she fought back. So the killer stabbed her to death and left the garrote behind in a panic.

Could the garrote lead the cops to this monster? Not soon enough. For nearly three decades, the case went cold until cold case homicide detectives J. Warner Wallace, and Rick Glass got involved in 2007. They dusted off the evidence left in a box at the Torrance PD, and Wallace made it his personal mission to analyze every aspect of the garrote. It turned out to be the key to the murder trial that took place last summer in the same LA courtroom where O.J. Simpson was tried. And there was a familiar face in this trial. The defendant, Doug Bradford, hired O.J. lawyer Robert Shapiro to be his defense attorney.

While Bradford was a former lover of Knight, there was no eyewitness or DNA evidence to link Bradford to the murder. And there were several other suspects in the case, some of whom had since died. Wallace, Glass, and LA District Attorney John Lewin had an uphill battle to convince a jury of twelve that Bradford had indeed committed the crime. There would be no conviction unless all twelve agreed.

But Wallace, Glass, and Lewin had been down this road before. They earned convictions on every cold case they had brought to trial so far. Three of those cases were so intriguing that NBC’s Dateline featured them. This case was no different: Keith Morrison and his Dateline crew were filming the case in an episode they called “The Wire.”

Although Dateline didn’t know it going in, their confidence was rewarded: on August 14, 2014, this LA jury returned a guilty verdict. Robert Shapiro, perhaps aware he had been out argued, didn’t even show up for the verdict. Doug Bradford is now serving a life sentence after being free for 35 years.

How did they get the conviction?

They began by asking the question, all detectives ask at a death scene: can this death be explained by staying inside the room, or does it require us to look outside the room? Obviously, this death was a murder and required a suspect outside the room. Had this been a suicide, natural death, or accidental death, the event could be explained by staying inside the room.

Then Detective Wallace used some very ingenious methods to link the garrote back to Bradford. (You can watch the entire Dateline explanation here.) He linked the effect (the garrote) back to the cause (Bradford).

Now Wallace is employing the same investigative principles he uses to solve cold case murders to eight of the greatest questions we ponder as human beings. He does this in his insightful new book, God’s Crime Scene. In the book Wallace seeks to discover if we can stay inside the room (the natural world) or must go outside the room (the supernatural world) for the causes of the following effects:

  • The origin of the universe
  • The fine-tuning of the universe
  • The origin of life
  • The origin of new life forms and biological machines
  • Consciousness
  • Free will
  • Objective Moral Values
  • Evil

Each of the eight chapters starts with the details of a real criminal case and then applies the principles to the question at hand (the Lynne Knight case is in Chapter 4).

Wallace was a committed atheist until age 35. Now he is a highly skilled author and speaker who presents a unique case for the Christian worldview across the country. Columnist Mike Adams and I have recently teamed with J. to equip Christian youth and their parents with the case for Christianity through a dynamic new College Prep program. I can tell you that audiences are captivated by the way he applies forensic principles to build the case for Christianity.

But don’t think Wallace just tows the party line. Since he is a cold-case homicide detective, Wallace presents you with the evidence pro and con, and then leaves you to draw your own conclusions. He does a masterful job of laying out the evidence and even illustrates that evidence with over one hundred of his own drawings, which clarify and summarize some potentially difficult subject matter. (Who said a serious book can’t have pictures?)

God’s Crime Scene is an engaging and very readable work that investigates some of life’s most important questions. I highly recommend you get it regardless of your religious viewpoint. I can’t guarantee you’ll be convicted, but your thinking will be challenged.

 

Dr. Frank Turek (D.Min.) is an award-winning author and frequent college speaker who hosts a weekly TV show on DirectTV and a radio program that airs on 186 stations around the nation.  His books include I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God:  Why atheists need God to make their case.

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Could solar eclipses be evidence for God? — Premier Christianity

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This morning I published a guest article at the Premier Christianity blog (associated with the UK’s Premier Christian Radio). In it, I elaborate on solar eclipses as part of a cumulative body of data suggestive that our Universe is designed for intelligent life.

Today, the Arctic and Northern Europe, including the UK, will witness a total solar eclipse, representing the first total solar eclipse in Europe in more than a decade. An eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the earth. Since the sun is four hundred times bigger than the moon, but also coincidentally four hundred times further away, the sun and the moon appear to be the same size in the sky. Remarkably, of the many moons in our Solar System, our moon is the only one known to yield the most perfect solar eclipses when viewed from the surface of the earth.

Read the rest here.

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Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life and Is This Evidence for God?

Sometimes people ask about fine-tuning and I created this overview to just provide links to all of my fine-tuning blogs on CrossExamined.org. I’ll update this as I add to this. I defend this fine-tuning claim which is actually widely accepted in the physics community:

“In the set of possible physical laws, parameters and initial conditions, the subset that permits rational conscious life is very small.”

Of course whether that implies design is more controversial but I defend the case that it does:

Intro/Philosophical Background

If You Don’t Want God, You Better Have a Multiverse!

How Does Fine-Tuning Provide Evidence for God?

Evidence

Fine-Tuning of Initial Conditions to Support Life

Many Changes to the Laws of Physics Would be Life-Prohibiting

Fine-Tuning of the Force Strengths to Permit Life

Fine-Tuning of Particles to Support Life

Objections

Mistaken Objections that Seek to Trivialize Fine-Tuning

Important Objections in the Fine-Tuning Debate

But We Can’t Even Define Life

Coarse-Tuning vs. Fine-Tuning

For a more in-depth defense of the scientific case (and some excellent philosophical points), I highly recommend Cosmologist Luke Barnes:

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Are you Skeptical of the Bible Because it Reports Miracles?

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In a previous blog I defended the rationality of believing in the possibility of miracles if God exists –miracles are no less ridiculous than implications of some science-related theories that are more speculative than the God hypothesis.

In this brief blog, I consider the claim that the Bible shouldn’t be believed because it reports miracles. Since miracles are viewed as being impossible this undermines the credibility of the Bible – we’re told it’s just an ancient book written to superstitious people. But consider how some skeptics demand that God performs miracles to make Himself known. For example, I was in public debate last year in which my opponent said she would only believe in God if He revealed Himself in a miraculous way. But if skeptics would only believe in God if they witnessed miracles then it would be illogical for them to dismiss the Bible because it reports miracles. There is a tension between these viewpoints.

This appeal for God to work miracles to reveal His existence to a given person is inconsistent with the purpose for miracles within the Bible. Miracles are not generally intended as a way for God to make His existence known but rather are used to validate new revelation. It is striking that miracle claims are quite clustered in distinct time periods within Biblical history that correspond to those times where there was significant new revelation. (e.g. Moses, the prophets such as Elijah, Jesus and the apostles). The miracles were intended to provide evidence to the people of that time that these messengers were sent from God – most miracles were not intended to provide evidence to the modern reader.

A notable exception is the resurrection of Jesus. In Matthew 16:4, Jesus says “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” We’re actually rebuked for asking for sign miralces – but one will be given. Elsewhere Jesus reveals that Jonah was a type (symbol or foreshadowing) of how He would be raised from the dead 3 days later. A strong case can be made that Jesus’ resurrection is the best explanation for a number of historically accepted events.

If you’re a skeptic I understand how you wouldn’t see most miraculous accounts in the Bible as evidential for today but I don’t understand why you would reject the Bible out of hand simply because it reports miracles. I’d encourage you to check out the evidence for the resurrection and evidence from Biblical prophecies – which I think were intended to provide evidence to future readers.

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Are Creationists Stupid

Are Creationists Stupid?

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It is quite common in Internet circles to attack the intelligence and even sometimes the integrity of anyone believing in creation. An unfortunate strategy among some leading atheists is to group all opposition to solely naturalistic origins theories into one category, perhaps the one they think can most easily be refuted – young earth creationism. They like to ignore that God can also use processes and that many scholars (both now and in the early church) don’t think that the Bible teaches the age of the universe. Clearly, some creationist claims are mistaken[1] but is it ridiculous to hold to any belief in creation at all?

In evaluating this question, first consider how creation is defined according to the Oxford dictionary: “The action or process of bringing something into existence.[2]”

By this definition, everyone should agree that the following were created:

  • Our universe
  • Life
  • All species
  • Consciousness

Even atheists agree that none of these are eternally existent. Atheism entails though that there has been no intervention by a supernatural Creator in the origin of these entities and that is the notion of creation to which they object.

Let’s consider the most foundational type of creation that atheists must deny – the creation of the universe. The second definition in the Oxford dictionary actually highlights this particular aspect by defining creation as “the bringing into existence of the universe, especially when regarded as an act of God.” However, it is a well-established scientific fact that our universe has a finite age and most scientists agree that its early history is characterized by an expansion out of an incredibly dense and tiny state in what is now known as the Big Bang. So our universe was created! But does that necessarily mean there was a Creator?

Nobel prize winners who have contributed to the confirmation of the Big Bang have noted how it appears quite similar to a creation event:

“The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five Books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.“ Arno Penzias

“There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the Big Bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.[3]” George Smoot

Edwin Hubble’s successor, long-time atheist Allan Sandage, became a Christian late in life and notes that “it was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science… It is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence.[4]” Sandage also notes that “Astronomical observations have also suggested that this creation event, signaled by the expansion of the Universe, has happened only once. The expansion will continue forever, the Universe will not collapse upon itself, and therefore this type of creation will not happen again.[5]”

Quantum physicist Christopher Isham notes that “perhaps the best argument … that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation [steady state] or an oscillating Universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory.[6]“

So maybe it’s not so ignorant to see the Big Bang as a creation event and as evidence (not proof) for a supernatural Creator. But could there have been a natural cause to the Big Bang? I’ve blogged previously about how the overall universe had to have a beginning. I’ve quoted Alexander Vilenkin, a prominent cosmologist: “With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.” In this same blog, I also discussed and referenced the New Scientist article entitled: Why physicists can’t avoid a creation event?

There are some loud voices trying to silence these frank admissions – most notably by atheist Lawrence Krauss. Even Krauss speaks about creation but just claims it is out of nothing, which when pressed he admits by nothing he means the quantum vacuum. I posted several short video clips from an interview I conducted with OU physicist Mike Strauss asking for his response to Krauss’s claim that our universe could have originated from nothing. Strauss is also skeptical that the universe can be created from the quantum vacuum. I also asked him whether Vilenkin’s BGV theorem even left open the possibility that the quantum vacuum has eternally existed and again he was skeptical.

Strauss is but one many of Krauss’s critics. Consider this scathing NY Times critique by physicist/philosopher David Albert of Colombia: “And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.[7]”

As Frank Turek likes to ask – “Which is more reasonable that nothing created the universe or that Someone created the universe?”

There is also the matter of “dummies” like Leibniz (who was one of the inventors of calculus) arguing philosophically for the need for God even if the universe was eternal as I’ve blogged about recently. None of this argumentation relies on anything that is even remotely called into question by modern science so one cannot just dismiss this argument by assuming that Leibniz just lacked knowledge of future scientific discoveries. My blog also cites recent developments by Rob Koons and Alex Pruss and others that further these types of arguments by offering compelling support for the key premise of Leibniz’s argument.

Thus, creation shouldn’t be considered a dirty word used only by those who are intellectually inferior. We have logical reasons to believe that the universe needs a Creator; we find scientific evidence that looks remarkably like a creation event and attempts to attribute the creation of this universe to solely naturalistic causes are scientifically implausible. We’ve also discovered that a remarkable orderliness in the original Big Bang state was necessary for the existence of any form of life. Thus, we have many independent lines of evidences that combine to form a strong cumulative case for creation, and even for a Creator!

Notes

[1] Since there are many different, conflicting views of creation they cannot all be correct. The same could be said for various scientific theories as well.

[2]http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/creation

[3] George Smoot, Wrinkles in Time (1993)

[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/newsweek/science_of_god/scienceofgod.htm

[5] http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth15.html

[6] Isham, C. 1988. “Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process,” in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology, A Common Quest for Understanding, eds. R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, and G. V. Coyne, Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, p. 378.

[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html?mabReward=relbias:w&adxnnl=1&module=Search&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1418576495-uhuZjnkGzY+luBnAcl0rPQ

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New Proofs for God's Existence

New Proofs for God’s Existence

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Such was the name for a talk recently given at UT Dallas by Robert C. Koons, a philosophy professor from UT Austin. Actually, Koons is currently a visiting scholar at Princeton but took time out of his busy schedule to make a special trip to the Dallas area to speak on our campus.1  I was originally wondering whether or not Koon’s requested title might be over-stating the theistic case by claiming to be a “proof.” Wanting to be conservative in our claims, I added this footnote on our poster used for advertising the event:

“’Proof’ in the sense that the conclusion follows out of logical necessity if the premises are granted. Arguments are made for the truth of the premises but it is recognized that the premises cannot be proven with mathematical certainty.”

In retrospect perhaps this was probably unnecessary as everyone should know that even a valid proof is only as good as its premises. Even in math, axioms upon which proofs are based cannot themselves be proven. Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem shows that all but the most trivial mathematical systems cannot demonstrate their own consistency. But I think that Koon’s argument did rise to the level of what is meant by proof in philosophy. There are ways of resisting any proof, but the intellectual cost of denying a premise that nearly all people accept in other contexts is a high price to pay.

So what is this “new proof?” The overall argument Koons was making is actually one of the oldest around – a cosmological argument for God’s existence similar to that argued by ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, Jewish, Christian, Muslim thinkers, and even 10th-century Indian thinkers of the Nyaya School. However, Koons did present new arguments for the truth of the key premise of the argument.

Here is a video of Koon’s recent presentation on the UTD campus.

Summary

Here is my rough attempt to summarize Koons’ arguments but you really need to see the video for details. Koons started off by saying that if you can know that there is a hand with five fingers in front of you, then you can know that God exists. You know about your hand through empirical knowledge – by observation and memory, and the testimony of others. These are the same means that are necessary for scientific and historical reasoning. Anything that we know empirically is linked by a chain of causes. For example, sensory perception involves light being reflected into your eyes, stimulating your retina such that a message is sent through your optic nerve to the brain. Scientific reasoning infers causes from effects or effects from causes. If any of the steps involved in seeing your hand could occur without a cause, knowledge would be impossible.

Does everything have a cause?

Everything involved as a link in the chain of empirical knowledge must have a cause. If, for example, visual sensations could occur without any cause whatsoever, it would undermine our scientific inferences because such “uncaused” sensations would be completely unpredictable and would have a probability which could not be estimated. We would have good reason to think that we might be “Boltzmann brains” right now – with nothing but illusory sensations.

Empirical knowledge, such as knowing there is a hand in front of you with 5 fingers, is impossible unless we know that every step involved necessarily has a cause. We can’t know the principle that every step in a causal chain necessarily has a cause by empirical means (at least without vicious circularity). Thus, this type of minimal principle of sufficient reason must be a self-evident principle of reason. To doubt this is the unhealthy kind of doubt because it undermines all empirical knowledge.

However, surely there is one sort of thing that could fail to be caused without threatening empirical knowledge – things that are obviously uncausable. We here refer to things which are not just uncaused but self-evidently uncausable. If absolutely everything had a cause, then the network of causation would have to contain either loops (things that caused themselves) or infinite regresses. However, nothing can cause itself, since it would have to simultaneously both exist (in order to be the cause) and not exist (in order to be a potential effect). So if we can show the impossibility of an infinite regress of causes, then the contingent effects we see in the universe must ultimately trace back to an uncausable cause.

Analogies to Show the Impossibility of an Infinite Regress of Causes

Couldn’t there be an infinite regress of causes just extending back into the eternal past? Koon argues not and gives several examples of contradictions entailed by an infinite regress of causes:

1)      The Grim Reaper – this analogy was originally conceived by Jose Benardete in 1964 and modified slightly by Alexander Pruss.2  Consider a Grim Reaper (GR) who will kill Fred in 1 BC but if only if all other GRs failed to previously. Similarly, an additional GR will kill Fred in 2 BC if he is still alive in that year. There is a separate GR for each year prior to that with the same instructions going back into the infinite past. This story is possible if an infinite regress is possible. However, this scenario is not logically possible because it leads to a contradiction. At least one Grim Reaper has initiated a death warrant, since otherwise, all would have failed to do their duty. Suppose it was the N’th GR. But GR #N would have acted only if all earlier GR’s did not act. So both GR #(N+1) and GR #(N+2) did not act. But if GR #(N+2) and all earlier GRs did not act, then GR #(N+1) would have acted and thus a contradiction results. Thus we have a reductio ad absurdum, and an infinite regress is logically impossible.

2)      Even if an infinite regress was possible, an explanation would still be required according to a new argument by Alexander Pruss: http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2013/06/cannonball-and-regress.html.

3)      Koons also provides a counter-example from considering an infinite fair lottery. See the video for details.

Koons then argued that the attributes that we can deduce for a first cause to the universe correspond to some of the key properties of God in classical theism. He also went on to cite some scientific evidence that points to a Creator from evidence for an origin to the universe and from the fine-tuning of the laws and constants of nature to be life-supporting.

Koons closes by saying that “my overall point here is [that] theistic metaphysics is not a competitor to empirical science. Quite the contrary, if you don’t buy into theistic metaphysics, you’re undermining empirical science. The two grew up together historically and are culturally and philosophically inter-dependent… If you say I just don’t buy this causality principle – that’s going to be a big big problem for empirical science.” This is a powerful argument for God’s existence – if you want to explore additional writings on this subject I recommend the following:

Powerpoint summary of a similar argument by Joshua Rasmussen

A paper by Alexander Pruss and Richard Gale published by Cambridge University Press

Notes

[1] He was coming from New Jersey anyway to Waco to participate in a philosophy conference at Baylor honoring Alvin Plantinga but made the special trip to Dallas.

[2] Jose Benardete’s Infinity: An Essay in Metaphysics (1964)

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Godbuster: A Debate With Elliot George

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This past week I engaged in a radio debate with an atheist on Unbelievable on Premier Christian Radio (which you can listen to here). My interlocutor was a British atheist, a retired biology teacher who goes by the pseudonym Elliot George. In his book, Godbuster, George attempts to dismantle theistic belief. I knew when I saw the front cover that the book was unlikely to be particularly professional or intellectually challenging. After all, who writes “Dare you read this?” on the front cover of an intellectually serious piece of work? This initial impression was further compounded when I noticed that the book contains no citations or references, except for the occasional in-text citation to YouTube or Wikipedia. Apparently Elliot George was even reliant upon Wikipedia as his source for the ten commandments (p. 125).

The intellectual content of the book is also confronted with severe problems. The book showed little, if any, engagement or interaction with high-level Christian argumentation. No serious Christian arguments were addressed by the book. Instead, George throughout the book persists in attacking strawmen, even redefining terminology to comport with his position. Read more

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Coarse-Tuning vs. Fine-Tuning

nebulosa_borboleta1I attended an interesting debate last Saturday night between Justin Schieber and Blake Giunta. Blake used the fine-tuning evidence as one argument for God’s existence and Justin countered by pointing to the Coarse-Tuning argument.

What is the Coarse-Tuning Argument?

Assuming that the various finely-tuned constants can take on any value up to infinity, then any finite life-permitting range (even a large one) would become an infinitesimal subset. Thus, even coarsely-tuned parameters could be considered improbable. This is often seen then as a reductio ad absurdum against fine-tuning – for then we should be equally surprised no matter how wide the range of life-permitting values is for a given constant (so long as it was finite).

Blake followed Robin Collins in arguing that coarse-tuning could still represent an improbable situation if indeed we knew that the possible values for the various constants could go to infinity. However, I don’t think many physicists would be persuaded of anything improbable if the universe only required coarse-tuning rather than fine-tuning to support life. In fact this was the expectation prior to the pioneering work of Hoyle, Barrow, Tipler, Carter, and others. No one that I’m aware of argued that physical constants being life-permitting pointed to design until the life-permitting range of constants was discovered to be exceedingly narrow.

Why coarse-tuning would not be accepted as improbable?

Most physicists did not accept a Coarse-Tuning Argument not because it might not be improbable if the possible range was infinite, but rather due to skepticism that the possible range of constants could be infinite. If David Hilbert was right, actual infinities are nowhere to be found in reality and it would be impossible for the constants to be infinite. See my previous blog for a discussion of some of the issues associated with actually infinite quantities. Even if Hilbert is incorrect, one could still argue that one can estimate probabilities by taking limits and that Hilbert’s Hotel shows simply the counter-intuitive nature of dealing with infinities. Even if the actually infinite is possible, physicists generally reject candidate theories that entail the actually infinite – at least if the equations cannot be renormalized to avoid the infinities.

Is the range of possible values for the constants infinite?

The key assumption in the Coarse-Tuning Argument is that the possible range of constants could be infinite. However as Luke Barnes has pointed out the concept of mass becomes incoherent if fundamental particles could exceed the Planck mass. Particles over a certain mass would form a black hole and therefore be impossible to create. Does it really seem physically possible that an electron could have a mass of a billion tons? Might it be prohibitively difficult to create particles with such a huge mass due to the energy or energy density requirements in making it? Would such a massive particle be stable? We could treat the case that the electron’s mass was greater than some huge value as corresponding to there being too few electrons after some small amount of time in which the universe expanded and cooled. This special case would obviously be life-prohibiting as electrons are necessary for chemistry, stellar fusion, and other processes critical for life.

What about force strengths?

Another class of parameters that have to be finely-tuned is force strengths. Most physicists think that at least 3 out of the 4 fundamental forces are unified at certain energy levels – and probably all 4. Thus, there is an underlying relationship between the forces that would constrain their relative strengths. Ratios of the force strengths would not be infinite. If a constant governing a force strength had a value of 0, that special case could also be evaluated with respect to its ability to support life. All 4 fundamental forces are thought to be necessary for life although there are ways to have life without the weak force – but only by compensating with additional fine-tuning in other aspects.

Robin Collins argues that once force strengths become too large we lose our ability to predict whether or not such a scenario would be life-permitting – there could be new physics at such large energy scales. This is not a problem for the fine-tuning argument as defined by leading advocates though because the argument only addresses the parameter ranges for which we can reliably evaluate suitability for life – we consider only the epistemically-illumined region. Here is how John Leslie explains it in his Universes book (which I highly recommend):

If a tiny group of flies is surrounded by a largish fly-free wall area then whether a bullet hits a fly in the group will be very sensitive to the direction in which the firer’s rifle points, even if other very different areas of the wall are thick with flies. So it is sufficient to consider a local area of possible universes, e.g., those produced by slight changes in gravity’s strength, . . . . It certainly needn’t be claimed that Life and Intelligence could exist only if certain force strengths, particle masses, etc. fell within certain narrow ranges . . . . All that need be claimed is that a lifeless universe would have resulted from fairly minor changes in the forces etc. with which we are familiar. (pages 138-9)

In other words, it still looks like the rifle was aimed if it hits a tiny group of flies surrounded by a vast wall without any flies – even though there might be other flies on parts of the wall we cannot see. A design inference can be justified even though we lack complete knowledge about the life-permitting status of all of the possible parameter space. We’re only evaluating the local, finite region for which a determination can be made.

A finite number of physically possible constants?

If one takes the fine-tuning argument based on physically possible parameter space rather than metaphysically possible parameter space, then it’s expected that the range of values for constants is finite. I’ve previously linked to this important article by John Barrow outlining different ways in which physics itself can drive constants to different values. For example, spontaneous symmetry breaking in the early universe affected various parameters related to electromagnetism and the weak force. The Weinberg angle could have taken on other values that would have resulted in alternate derived parameters. However, nothing in those equations allow any of the parameters to go to infinity.

Barrow also notes that unifying gravity and quantum mechanics is only possible if “the true constants of nature are defined in higher dimensions and the three-dimensional shadows we observe are no longer fundamental and do not need to be constant.” Because of quantization, the number of ways of compactifying these extra spatial dimensions would be finite. We can treat the case that quantization is not in effect as a special case that would not plausibly support life. Without quantization, atoms are not stable and would not have consistent properties permitting information to be stored. Even String Theory entails a finite number of possible sets of fundamental constants. Many theorists think it’s quite large, perhaps 10500, but all we need is for it to be finite to avoid the infinities required by the coarse-tuning argument. Refer to my previous blog for other reasons to expect a finite range for constants of nature.

Initial conditions

Cosmologist Luke Barnes also points to the fine-tuning associated with the initial conditions of our universe as an example immune from the problems of infinities. Unless one thinks that probabilistic statements cannot be made despite the reputation of statistical mechanics as a well-established physics discipline, one is able to conclude that our universe started out in an incredibly special, highly-ordered state. The number of life-permitting states is extraordinarily tiny compared to possibilities as Roger Penrose has computed – see my blog for details. Since the number of particles was finite and the volume of space in the early universe was quite small, there is no problem of infinities that prohibits a rough probability estimate.

Summary

More work should be done in assessing the possibilities of infinities and the potential impact on the fine-tuning argument. However, I see no reason that Coarse-Tuning would be a reductio ad absurdum against fine-tuning because if we knew for sure that the constants had an infinite range the finiteness of the life-permitting range should suffice for demonstrating that life-permitting universes are a tiny subset among possibilities. However, physicists are rightly skeptical that these constants could be infinite. I’ve listed several reasons for thinking that the constants couldn’t have an infinite range – which is why physicists were not astounded until they discovered that life-permitting ranges are tiny among possibilities that can be evaluated. We can compute that the universe would be lifeless if gravity were 40 orders of magnitude stronger even though we might have some slight uncertainty about what happens if it were 4000 orders of magnitude stronger and do not know a precise upper bound of what is physically possible.

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Jesus on Trial by David Limbaugh

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When David Limbaugh let his friend Steve know that he had doubts about Christianity, he was surprised by Steve’s response. Instead of a blast of arrogant judgmentalism, Steve responded like a Christian should—with grace and evidence. What has happened since that time is told in Limbaugh’s excellent new book, Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel. Limbaugh artfully tells his journey from skepticism about Christ to skepticism about skepticism and ultimately to trust in Christ.

David is a lawyer, but he doesn’t write like a lawyer. While he’s intellectually precise, he writes as if he’s sitting across the table from you, anticipating your questions and objections. This is rare for a book of Christian evidences (often called Christian apologetics). Such books often read like technical manuals, but not Jesus on Trial. Limbaugh not only does a masterful job of highlighting the abundant evidence that supports Christianity, his insights into what the scriptures actually say will have you marveling at the tapestry of scripture and the Savior who wove it.

From the very beginning, Limbaugh bares his soul, holding nothing back about how his previous doubts were shielded by an embarrassing lack of knowledge. He writes, “I knew, after all, that I hadn’t really given the Bible itself a hearing, much less a fair one. To my surprise— and this is embarrassing to admit—Steve showed me how verses of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, were tied to others in content and theme with remarkable frequency. Amazingly, I had never looked at a reference Bible before, and I was blown away. My ignorance was on display, but Steve wasn’t remotely judgmental— to help me learn more, he even gave me that Bible. I was genuinely intrigued to discover that the Bible was not simply a mishmash of stories, allegories, alleged historical events, and moral lessons. There was obviously a pattern here, and for the first time in my life the Bible appeared to me to be thematically integrated. The scales on my eyes started peeling away.”

His two chapters called “Aha Moments” reveal the numerous tipping points in Limbaugh’s journey where scale after scale fell away—tipping points that no honest seeker of truth can ignore.   Of course, as Limbaugh admits, many who are not interested in truth, or have their own agenda, ignore or remake Christ in their own image.

He writes, “We must not casually remake Jesus in the image in which we prefer to see Him or which conforms to the popular culture’s misperceptions about Him. Our politically correct culture may, presumptuously, choose to recast Jesus as indifferent to sin and saccharine sweet, no matter the circumstances, but this Jesus is God, and God cannot look upon sin. What do these revisionists make of the Jesus Who made a whip of cords and drove the moneychangers out of the Temple (John 2: 15)? … What do the revisionists say about the Jesus Whom Paul describes as “revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus ” (2 Thess. 1: 7– 8)? What of the difficult moral standard Jesus laid down in the Sermon on the Mount? Did He show indifference to sin there?” Limbaugh rightfully concludes: “This idea that Jesus is meek, mild, indifferent, and non-judgmental is the stuff of pure myth.”

In addition to correcting the culture’s emasculated view of Christ, Limbaugh has two fantastic chapters tackling the paradoxes of Christianity. These include: God’s plan of salvation, including the relationship between grace and works; the acknowledgement that we are sinful yet commanded to be perfect; the Trinity, that God is one in essence yet three in persons; that Jesus has two natures, human and divine; that you must give up your life to find it; that Christians are strong when they are weak; that God is sovereign yet humans have free will; that God knows all and is unchangeable, yet we are to pray; that the Bible is inspired yet written by men; and many others. The insights Limbaugh brings to these paradoxes are some of his own, and the best nuggets mined from Christian scholarship that I doubt you’ll find in one place anywhere else.

Limbaugh devotes several chapters to the evidence for the Bible, including its unity and reliability as evidenced through history, archaeology, prophecy and science. He debunks several myths and misunderstandings along the way, and then saves his final chapter for what many think is the atheist’s trump card against God: Evil.

Many years ago David provided me an “Aha Moment” during one of our very many theological discussions. He said, “Evil really bothers me, but only Christianity has a sensible answer to it.” There’s no question he’s correct. We wouldn’t even know what evil was unless good existed, and real objective good could only exist if God exists. As David explains, evil turns out to be a backhanded argument for God. In fact, evil is the very reason God entered human history in the person of Christ. Only his sacrifice can solve the evil in my heart and yours.

David puts it this way: “Don’t be offended by the notion that you must have saving faith in Christ. Don’t assume that God is making you jump through unnecessary hoops. He is the One Who suffered for you. He did this so that you could live. He doesn’t ask you to believe because He is on a divine ego trip, but because He loves you and wants you to latch on to Him in order to be saved from your sins.”

I just can’t recommend Jesus on Trial highly enough. Every thinking person should investigate the claims of Christ, who is unarguably the most influential human being to ever walk the earth. If his claims are true (and Limbaugh shows they are), then we won’t be putting him on trial—he will be putting each of us on trial. Only Christ can secure you a favorable verdict.

David Limbaugh will join cold case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace as a speaker at the CrossExamined donor banquet on October 9, 2014 at the Big Chill in Charlotte, North Carolina.  For details on attending, email Gil@CrossExamined.org.

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Still Haven’t Found What You’re Looking For? C.S. Lewis, Bono and the Argument from Desire

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For better or worse I was a child of the 80’s, and during that time a new rock band came on the scene that changed pop music, both in Britain, America and eventually the world. I immediately loved their sound as soon as I heard it. Their style was unique, and the lyrics had a real message. Their songs resonated much deeper than the typical pop tunes being played on the radio. That band was U2 from Dublin Ireland.

In May of 1987 the band released their 5th studio album titled “The Joshua Tree.” The second track on that album is a “gospel-esque” song that producer Danny Lanois encouraged Bono to write.[1] The song is “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” The song has been acclaimed by many critics and publications as one of the greatest songs of all time.[2]

What makes this song so unique and timeless? Sure it’s Bono’s excellent vocals, Adam Clayton’s chilled-out bass, and the Edge’s astral guitar licks, but I believe that it is also something more, something much deeper. The song touches on a truth that is embedded in all people – a deep sense of longing and desire for something that this present world cannot fully satisfy. Here is the second refrain.

I have kissed honey lips

Felt the healing in her finger tips

It burned like fire

(I was) burning inside her.

I have spoke with the tongue of angels

I have held the hand of a devil

It was warm in the night

I was cold as a stone.

But I still haven’t found

What I’m looking for.

But I still haven’t found

What I’m looking for.

The song is written in the style of a gospel-lament which has it roots in the Psalms, the Lamentations of Jeremiah and later, African-American Spirituals. So, what is the singer lamenting?

He is lamenting that no matter what he tries or what he does, ultimate satisfaction isn’t found in this world. His satisfaction must come from somewhere else. He was made for something else, for somewhere else, or perhaps for someone else. He is a pilgrim and a sojourner on this earth, “just a passing through.”

Here a much younger “Edge” explains the origins of the song & Bono sings it with a gospel church choir in Harlem, NY.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis articulates an argument for the existence of God based on our dissatisfactions as well as our deepest desire, which sounds a lot like the lyrics of U2’s song. I would even argue that the core idea is the virtually the same.

Lewis’s argument goes like this:

…A baby feels hunger; well there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world[3]

Philosopher Peter Kreeft has done us a great service and re-formulated Lewis’s argument from desire into a syllogism that might be a little easier to follow.

  1. Every natural innate desire corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire
  2. But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth and no creature can satisfy.
  3. Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth, and creatures which can satisfy this desire.
  4. This something is what people call “God” and “life with God forever.”[4]

Premise 1 – Every natural desire corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire

The key here is that every natural desire has a corresponding reality. The implication is that there is a distinction between two kinds of desires – natural desires and artificial desires. Everyone has natural desires, like the desire for water, food, sleep, friendship (companionship), etc…, but we also have desires for things that are artificial, or conditioned by society – like the desire to be famous, or the desire to possess superpowers (like one of the Avengers), or the desire to own a Ferrari.

However, with the artificial desires, we don’t recognize a condition called “Ferrari-lessness” which corresponds to, say a natural desire like the desire for water (thirst), or for food (hunger).

Premise 2 – But there exists a desire in us which nothing in time, nothing on earth and no creature can satisfy.

This premise is existentially true, and either one senses it or not. It can’t be forced. It may be pointed out, however, that even though one might not sense a desire for God, it doesn’t mean that the desire is non-existent,  just buried under the concerns, the worries and the busyness of life.

The Southern novelist Walker Percy commenting on “the search” in his classic novel The Moviegoer (1961) touches on this idea:

The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be on to something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.

Something is missing, so we despair. Indeed, as Thoreau writes, “…most men live lives of quiet desperation” (Civil Disobedience & other Essays), or like mythical, Greek Sisyphus, we “feel” the futility and the endless drudgery of work & life and deeply sense that there must be “something more.”

If God is the ultimate source of joy and fellowship, then nothing but Him and Him alone (& life with Him forever) will satisfy the heart of every person.

This truth has been articulated by many different voices throughout history.

“For He [God] has set eternity in the hearts of men…” – King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

“Thou, O Lord hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee” – St. Augustine (The Confessions)

“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” – Blaise Pascal (Pensees)

“Not to be onto something is to be in despair” – Walker Percy (The Moviegoer)

“I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” – U2 (Bono)

Peter Kreeft brilliantly summarizes premise 2 this way:

The second premise requires only honest introspection. If someone defies it and says, “I am perfectly happy playing with mud pies, sports cars, or money, or sex, or power,” we can only ask, “Are you really?” But we can only appeal, we cannot compel… Even the atheist Jean-Paul Sartre admitted that “there comes a time when one asks, even of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, ‘Is that all there is?’”[5]

Premise 3 – Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth, and creatures which can satisfy this desire.

Premise 4 – This something is what people call “God” and “life with God forever.”

Admittedly, the conclusion of this argument is not an “air-tight” case for the God of the Bible, but it is certainly a stepping stone. When the argument from desire is placed alongside of other arguments for God’s existence, such as the cosmological argument, and the teleological argument, then I think it makes a pretty compelling case worthy of serious consideration.

Kreeft says, “What it proves is an unknown X, but an unknown whose direction, so to speak, is known. This X is more: more beauty, more desirability, more awesomeness, more joy.”[6]

Our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. ~ C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory, pg. 42)

Truth, Goodness & Beauty

It may be that beauty, and our desire for infinite beauty and truth and goodness is where we feel the unfulfilled longing[7] the most, as Kreeft brilliantly explains:

There are three things that will never die: truth, goodness and beauty. These are three things that we all need, and need absolutely, and know we need absolutely. Our minds want not only some truth and some falsehood, but all truth, without limit. Our wills want not only some good and some evil, but all good, without limit. Our desires, imaginations, feelings or hearts just want not just some beauty and some ugliness, but all beauty without limit.

For these are three things that we will never get bored with, and never will, for all eternity, because they are three attributes of God, and therefore all God’s creation: three transcendental or absolutely universal principles of all reality.   …Truth, goodness and beauty are ‘patches of Godlight’ here in the ‘Shadowlands.’ Their home is Yonder.[8]

Christianity teaches that the only way to truly KNOW God is through Jesus Christ who came to reveal Him for Who He truly is.

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3)

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Still_Haven%27t_Found_What_I%27m_Looking_For (accessed, Sept. 2, 2014).

[2] Ibid.

[3] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book III, chap. 10

[4] Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL, 1994), pp. 78-81, also see his “The Argument from Desire” on http://peterkreeft.com/topics/desire.htm (accessed Jan. 1, 2006).

[5] Ibid.

[6] Kreeft, Op cit.

[7] In his autobiographical work Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis explored his own experiences with what he called “the stab, the pain, the inconsolable longing” that he was sure all human beings felt.

[8] Peter Kreeft, “Lewis’s Philosophy of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty,” in David Baggett, Gary R. Habermas and Jerry Walls, Editors, C.S. Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness and Beauty (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 23-36.

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