In fact, one possibility—suggested by the mathematical string-theory that many think will be the key to an adequate cosmology—is that what existed from the beginning was not just our universe but an infinite multitude of universes, a "multiverse,” each specified by a different set of constants relevant to the emergence of life. It seems highly probable that at least one of this infinite set of universes would have constants with values needed to produce life. We may be inclined think that it would still be highly improbable that our universe would be such a universe, so that we still need an explanation for this fact. But this improbability is comparable to the improbability of winning a lottery. My winning a billion-dollar Powerball drawing wouldn't support that claim that someone had rigged the outcome. The highly improbable event would need no explanation beyond the luck of the draw. The same holds for our universe's being one that allows the emergence of life.
The second difficulty also concerns the fine-tuning argument's assumption that mere chance can never be an adequate explanation of an improbable event. It's reasonable to exclude chance when we've learned from our previous experience about causes that could plausibly explain the event. To use philosopher John Leslie's example, if I've been sentenced to execution by a firing squad of expert marksmen and all the shots miss me, there's reason to think, from what we know about guns and the people that fire them, that this was intentional and not mere chance. But when it comes to the origin of the universe, we have no relevant previous experiences. Our data about the Big Bang are all we know about this apparently unique event; we have no experience of any similar event. So we have no basis for judging what might be plausible in this unique situation. In particular, we have no basis for thinking that intelligent design is better than chance as an explanation of why organisms exist. [...]
But this effort to turn cosmology against religion is no more effective than the fine-tuning effort to support religion. A major failing is the assumption that we could have any plausible sense of how a divine designer would be thinking. A being with knowledge and power utterly exceeding ours might well be aware of possibilities beyond our feeble capacities. But even from our merely human standpoint we can suggest reasons why our apparently ordinary place in the universe might not count against a privileged relation to the creator. Why should an essentially spiritual status have to be reflected in the physical world? Might God not have created the universe precisely as an object of knowledge and awe for us? And why should our privileged relation to God exclude similar relations for other sorts of creatures? Scientific cosmology is an endlessly fascinating study in its own right. But, on reflection, it seems to have no particular significance for fundamental questions of religious belief.
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