Teleological argument

=== Fine-tuned universe ===
{{Main|Fine-tuned universe}}

A modern variation of the teleological argument is built upon the concept of the [[fine-tuned universe]]: According to the website ''[[BioLogos|Biologos]]'':<ref name="biologos.org">{{Cite web |title=What is the "fine-tuning" of the universe, and how does it serve as a "pointer to God"? &#124; BioLogos |url=http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141221081439/http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning |archive-date=2014-12-21 |access-date=2015-01-11}}</ref>
{{blockquote|text=Fine-tuning refers to the surprising precision of nature's physical constants, and the beginning state of the Universe. To explain the present state of the universe, even the best scientific theories require that the physical constants of nature and the beginning state of the Universe have extremely precise values.}}

Also, the fine-tuning of the Universe is the apparent delicate balance of conditions necessary for human life. In this view, speculation about a vast range of possible conditions in which life cannot exist is used to explore the probability of conditions in which life can and does exist. For example, it can be argued that if the force of the [[Big Bang]] explosion had been different by 1/10 to the sixtieth power or the [[strong interaction|strong interaction force]] was only 5% different, life would be impossible.<ref name="Himma2009"/> Noted physicist [[Stephen Hawking]] estimates that "if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have re-collapsed into a hot fireball due to gravitational attraction".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=White |first1=Martin |last2=Kochanek |first2=C. S. |year=2001 |title=Constraints on the Long‐Range Properties of Gravity from Weak Gravitational Lensing |journal=The Astrophysical Journal |volume=560 |issue=2 |pages=539–543 |arxiv=astro-ph/0105227 |bibcode=2001ApJ...560..539W |doi=10.1086/323074 |s2cid=11812709}}</ref> In terms of a teleological argument, the intuition in relation to a fine-tuned universe would be that God must have been responsible, if achieving such perfect conditions is so improbable.<ref name="biologos.org" /><ref name="Himma2009">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Design Arguments for the Existence of God |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/design |access-date=November 19, 2011 |date=12 April 2009 |author=Himma, Kenneth Einar}}</ref> However, in regard to fine-tuning, [[Kenneth Einar Himma]] writes: "The mere fact that it is enormously improbable that an event occurred... by itself, gives us no reason to think that it occurred by design ... As intuitively tempting as it may be..."<ref name="Himma2009" /> Himma attributes the "Argument from Suspicious Improbabilities", a formalization of "the fine-tuning intuition" to [[George N. Schlesinger]]:
{{blockquote|text=To understand Schlesinger's argument, consider your reaction to two different events. If John wins a 1-in-1,000,000,000 lottery game, you would not immediately be tempted to think that John (or someone acting on his behalf) cheated. If, however, John won three consecutive 1-in-1,000 lotteries, you would immediately be tempted to think that John (or someone acting on his behalf) cheated. Schlesinger believes that the intuitive reaction to these two scenarios is epistemically justified. The structure of the latter event is such that it… justifies a belief that intelligent design is the cause… Despite the fact that the probability of winning three consecutive 1-in-1,000 games is exactly the same as the probability of winning one 1-in-1,000,000,000 game, the former event… warrants an inference of intelligent design.}}

Himma considers Schlesinger's argument to be subject to the same vulnerabilities he noted in other versions of the design argument:<ref name="Himma2009" />
{{blockquote|text=While Schlesinger is undoubtedly correct in thinking that we are justified in suspecting design in the case [of winning] three consecutive lotteries, it is because—and only because—we know two related empirical facts about such events. First, we already know that there exist intelligent agents who have the right motivations and causal abilities to deliberately bring about such events. Second, we know from past experience with such events that they are usually explained by the deliberate agency of one or more of these agents. Without at least one of these two pieces of information, we are not obviously justified in seeing design in such cases {{omission}} [T]he problem for the fine-tuning argument is that we lack both of the pieces that are needed to justify an inference of design. First, the very point of the argument is to establish the fact that there exists an intelligent agency that has the right causal abilities and motivations to bring the existence of a universe capable of sustaining life. Second, and more obviously, we do not have any past experience with the genesis of worlds and are hence not in a position to know whether the existence of fine-tuned universes are usually explained by the deliberate agency of some intelligent agency. Because we lack this essential background information, we are not justified in inferring that there exists an intelligent Deity who deliberately created a universe capable of sustaining life.}}

[[Antony Flew]], who spent most of his life as an atheist, converted to [[deism]] late in life, and postulated "an intelligent being as involved in some way in the design of conditions that would allow life to arise and evolve".<ref name="Diogenes">{{Cite book |last=Allen, Diogenes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ouWlkBXeg5IC&q=anthropic+principle+antony+flew&pg=PA42 |title=Theology for a Troubled Believer: An Introduction to the Christian Faith |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-664-22322-9 |page=42}}</ref> He concluded that the fine-tuning of the universe was too precise to be the result of chance, so accepted the existence of God. He said that his commitment to "go where the evidence leads" meant that he ended up accepting the existence of God.<ref>{{Cite book |last=D'Souza, Dinesh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vVXf2PV8pyQC&q=anthropic%20principle%20antony%20flew&pg=PA133 |title=What's so great about Christianity |publisher=Regnery |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-59698-517-9 |pages=132–3}}</ref> Flew proposed the view, held earlier by [[Fred Hoyle]], that the universe is too young for life to have developed purely by chance and that, therefore, an intelligent being must exist which was involved in designing the conditions required for life to evolve.<ref name="Diogenes" />
{{blockquote|text=Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would ... A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.<ref name="Hoyle1981">{{Cite journal |last=Hoyle |first=Fred |date=November 1981 |title=The Universe: Past and Present Reflections |journal=Engineering and Science |pages=8–12}}</ref>|author=Fred Hoyle|title=Engineering and Science|source=The Universe: Past and Present Reflections}}