God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion (25 page)

Likewise, big-bang cosmology, even without inflation, explains why the second law of thermodynamics also was not violated in producing order in the universe. The expansion of the universe does the trick. We can think of the visible universe as a sphere. For any spherical body, its maximum entropy is that of a black hole of the same size. Thus, as the universe expands, its maximum entropy increases, leaving room inside for order to form. In fact, observations are consistent with a model in which 13.7 billion years ago, the
universe was confined to a region so small that it was equivalent to a black hole and possessed maximum entropy. That is, our universe was once in a state of complete chaos in which local order did not form until it started to expand. This did not violate the second law because while the entropy was maximal at that early time, it was also small and could increase as the maximum allowable entropy increased with the universe's expansion.

Note, by the way, that if the universe began in total chaos it possesses no memory of a creator, even if there were one. Thus modern cosmology not only does not require a creator, it shows that the only creator that is possible is one who simply tossed the dice and gave us a universe that was totally absent of any plan whatsoever. Such a creator might as well not exist since it has no effect on the world as we know it.

The Big Bang

Despite these results, theologians still look to the big bang as evidence that the universe had a beginning and thus a creation. However, modern cosmology does not require that everything that exists began with the big bang. Our visible universe, which began with the big bang, could be just one part of a vaster whole.

While it's true that
our
universe began with the big bang, we have no basis to rule out the possibility that it arose from an earlier universe. Here we are not referring to a particular model going back to 1948 called the
oscillating universe
, which is now ruled out by the data.
³⁸
That model referred only to the universe we live in and not the modern cosmological picture that envisages our universe as just one of many universes in what is termed the
multiverse
.
³⁹
And, as the ancient atomists first realized, there is no reason that any one universe should be special.

Prominent Christian theologian Richard Swinburne has vehemently objected to the notion of a multiverse: “To postulate a trillion-trillion other universes, rather than one God in order to explain the orderliness of our universe, seems the height of irrationality.”
⁴⁰
Irrationality is in the eye of the beholder. A trillion-trillion natural universes seems far more rational to me than one supernatural God of limitless power for which there isn't a shred of
evidence. At least we can apply established physics and cosmology to speculate knowledgeably about a multiverse. We have nothing but ancient superstitions to provide a basis for speculations about God.

On the other hand, cosmologist Don Page, an evangelical Christian, differs from most other theists in finding the multiverse proposal to be supportive of the God hypothesis: “God might prefer a multiverse as the most elegant way to create life and the other purposes He has for His Creation.”
⁴¹
But then the Tooth Fairy might have preferred the multiverse, too.

Let us go through the theoretical arguments Craig and others have made for the universe necessarily having had a beginning. Two are based on theorems derived from general relativity, which is not a quantum theory and so is not applicable in the domain of distances on the order of 10
^–35
meter that existed at the beginning of the inflationary big bang and so should not even be used to discuss that realm. The third is mathematical.

Hawking and Penrose long ago admitted that their 1970 theorem proving that the universe began in a singularity, while not mathematically erroneous, did not apply at the origin of our universe. In
A Brief History of Time
, Hawking said,

The final result was a joint paper by Penrose and myself in 1970, which at last proved that there must have been a big bang singularity provided only that general relativity is correct and the universe contains as much matter as we observe.
⁴²

Hawking continues:

So in the end our work became generally accepted and nowadays nearly everyone assumes that the universe started with a big bang singularity. It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe—as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account.
⁴³

The more recent theological claim that Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin have proved that the universe had to have a beginning is also in error. Again, this
theorem was derived from general relativity and so is inapplicable to the issue of origins. Furthermore, it is disputed by other authors.
⁴⁴
I asked Vilenkin personally if his theorem required a beginning. His e-mail reply: “No. But it proves that the expansion of the universe must have had a beginning. You can evade the theorem by postulating that the universe was contracting prior to some time.”
⁴⁵
This is exactly what a number of existing models for the uncreated origin of our universe do.

The final argument for a beginning made by Craig is a mathematical one. He claims that the universe cannot be eternal because it would take an infinite time to reach the present. Implicit in Craig's argument is that the universe had a beginning and so an eternal universe would take an infinite time to reach the present from that beginning. However, recall that I agreed with Craig and his reference to mathematician Hilbert that actual infinities do no occur in the physical world. They simply appear in abstract equations that describe but do not constitute reality, at least as far as we can know. However, an eternal universe is not an infinite universe. In an eternal universe time is endless and beginningless. It did not have a beginning an infinite time ago. It had no beginning. The time from any moment in the past to the present is finite.

The Argument from Fine-Tuning

The cosmological constant problem described above is used by theists as the prime example of the fine-tuning of the universe that they claim as evidence for God. However, Don Page, the evangelical Christian cosmologist previously quoted, has pointed out that the apparent positive value of the cosmological constant is somewhat inimical to life, since its repulsion acts against the gravitational attraction needed to form galaxies. If God fine-tuned the universe for life, he would have made the cosmological constant slightly negative!
⁴⁶

We can use established physics to put to rest the argument from fine-tuning. Again, fine-tuning is a God-of-the-gaps argument. Anyone using this argument must do more than just point to a gap in scientific knowledge. He or she must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that science can never fill the gap. This is not an impossible task. Let us consider a mundane (noncosmological) example of a God-of-the-gaps argument that could be proven beyond
a reasonable doubt. If it could be shown by careful, repeated experiments that the pope can cure illnesses with his prayers and no one else can, science would be hard put to provide a plausible scientific explanation.

Barring such a case, we can defeat any proposed God-of-the-gaps argument by simply providing a
plausible
natural explanation consistent with our best existing knowledge to fill the gap. That argument need not be
proven
. In the case of fine-tuning, this can be done.

The simplest explanation for the anthropic coincidences is that our universe is part of a super-universe called the multiverse that was mentioned above. We just happen to live in that universe suitable for evolving our form of life. Such a multiverse is suggested by modern cosmology.
⁴⁷

Some theists and scientists have objected to the multiverse hypothesis as being nonscientific, since other universes are unobservable and nonparsimonious, because the hypothesis violates Ockham's razor. But these objections are not legitimate. Science talks about the unobservable all the time, such as quarks and black holes. They are components of models that agree with observations.

Wlliam of Ockham (ca. 1285–1349) was an English theologian and logician. He is frequently quoted as having said, “Entities should not be posited without necessity.” However, this statement does not appear in his works, and the notion that we should always seek the simplest explanation probably goes back to an earlier time. In science, Ockham's razor is usually interpreted to mean that a theory should not contain any more premises than are required to fit the data. It does not mean that the number of objects in the theory must be minimum. The atomic theory of matter introduced a trillion-trillion more objects in a gram of matter than the theories that considered matter in bulk, yet it was more parsimonious with fewer premises and agreed better with the data.

Furthermore, proposals have been made for the possible verification of and even possible evidence for multiple universes.
⁴⁸
The basic idea is that gravitational interaction with an outside universe might produce a detectable asymmetry in the cosmic background radiation in our universe.

Finally, there are some speculative theoretical arguments for multiple universes. As proposed by the eminent physicist Leonard Susskind in his 2005 book,
The Cosmic Landscape
, string theory has some 10
⁵⁰⁰
possible solutions, each of which could correspond to a separate universe within the multiverse.
⁴⁹
Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg supports the notion: “Just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the wonderful adaption of living forms could arise without supernatural intervention, so the string landscape may explain how the constants of nature that we observe can take values suitable for life without being fine-tuned by a benevolent creator.”
⁵⁰

While the notion of multiple universes should not be dismissed, no evidence for fine-tuning exists even when considering our universe alone. So we do not need multiple universes to refute the argument from fine-tuning.
⁵¹
Let us focus on the five anthropic coincidences that have been proposed as being so exquisitely fine-tuned that life of any sort would otherwise have been impossible.

1. The ratio of the electromagnetic force to gravity

The number 10
³⁹
is often quoted as the factor by which the strength of electromagnetism exceeds that of gravity. However, this is not a general statement. This number is just the ratio of the forces between an electron and a proton. It will be different for different pairs of particles since it depends on the charges and masses of the particles. There actually is no way to define a universal strength of gravity, either absolutely or relative to the strengths of the other forces of nature.

The smallest “natural” mass that can be formed from fundamental constants alone is the Planck mass, 2.18×10
^–8
kilograms. The equivalent rest energy is 1.22×10
²⁸
electron-volts. Compare this with the rest energy of the heaviest quark, the top quark, which is 1.72×10
¹¹
electron-volts. The gravitational force between two Planck-mass particles with the same charge as an electron would be 137 times
stronger
than the electromagnetic force.

So the puzzle is not why gravity is so weak but why the masses of elementary particles are so low compared to the Planck mass. This is explained in the standard model of elementary particles and forces. The masses of all particles are intrinsically zero and their observed masses are small (compared to the Planck mass) corrections that, in the model, arise from their interactions with other fields.

2. The ratio of the numbers of protons to electrons in the universe

If the universe came from nothing, then the law of conservation of charge would say that the universe currently has zero total electrical charge. It then follows that the number of protons and electrons will be exactly equal, to balance their positive and negative charges.

3. The expansion rate of the universe

Theist literature that attempts to use science to prove the existence of God almost uniformly refers to that statement by Stephen Hawking on pages 121–22 of
A Brief History of Time
, quoted earlier, that says the expansion rate is fined-tuned to “one part in a hundred thousand million million.” However, the theist literature also uniformly ignores Hawking's explanation given a few pages later, on
page 128
:

The rate of expansion of the universe would automatically become very close to the critical rate determined by the energy density of the universe. This could then explain why the rate of expansion is still so close to the critical rate, without having to assume that the initial rate of expansion of the universe was very carefully chosen.
⁵²

As we saw above, the inflationary model gives us a universe that has an exact balance between positive and negative energy. This is the critical density spoken of here.

4. The mass density of the universe

As shown previously, the mass density of the universe is related to the expansion rate. At any given time, it can be calculated. So both of these parameters are fixed.

5. The cosmological constant

The huge discrepancy of 120 orders of magnitude between the vacuum energy estimated from theory and its empirical value has to be the worst calculation in physics history. The multiverse is the currently favored solution to the problem among physicists.