The God Hypothesis qualifies as the best scientific explanation for the origins of existence

Beginning of the universe PRO started off implying a Kalam-esque argument: 1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2) The universe began to exist 3) The universe has a cause.[1] I showed our best physics suggests B-theory, and so P2 is false. PRO accepts this, but says “Just because physicists and philosophers of time believe in the B-theory in survey is NOT evidence or proof that its[sic] true.” Au contraire: consensus of expert opinion is excellent evidence. Across the scales PRO appeals to our folk intuitions: “all of our experiences tell us that the A-theory of time is true” – yet it seems our intuitions regarding the physical world (leave alone the metaphysics of physics) are unreliable (all of my direct experiences tell me the world is not in motion, for example). So my evidence trumps PROs evidence, P2 should be rejected, and the KCA fails. PRO has not responded to my defence of an infinite regress of causes via a hypertask (see my R4). He did talk about BDV theory demonstrating the universe had a past finite boundary, but this isn’t relevant. Hypertasks purport to cram in infinite causal events in a finite length of time, so you can get infinite regresses in finite time, a bit like points in an asymptote. As he didn’t rule this out, no need for a first cause, and the KCA fails. PRO switched tack in R4, talking about explanations rather than beginnings, and LCAs instead of KCAs: 4) All concrete contingent states of affairs have an explanation of their existence (or whatever PSR variant you like) 5) The universe is a concrete object 6) The universe has an explanation for its existence Against this, I’ve argued we should be sceptical about the PSR due to physical (Bell’s Inequality), and philosophical (its dodgy to induct from common course grained experience a necessary truth, or even a truth applicable to all concrete objects) reasons. Pro attacked the physics objections by saying i) Bohm said there could be hidden variables behind Bell’s inequality, and ii) the underlying vacuum these events take place in are not nothing. Neither helps him: even if a vacuum explains why there are these events, the ‘why is there an event here as opposed to there?’ question remains unanswered, and so breaks PSR. And although some physicists are Bohmians[2], it is not the dominant (or even most popular) view, so we should still think it is plausibly the case that some events do not have sufficient explanation. PRO did not respond to my counter-claim that the Universe (for all we know) is metaphysically necessary. Nor did he respond to my undercutting defeater to his “all events we see have explanations, so all events have explanations” move. Both are individually sufficient to defeat the LCA. I’ve also argued that even if we grant the universe had a first cause of explanation of existence, this need not be anything we can recognisably call a god. PRO continues to assert that the only options are abstract objects or disembodied minds. When I suggest that some (mindless, non-naturalistic) ectoplasm of aether could be the ‘pre universe’ stuff, he just begs the question by asserting it would be an ‘abstract object’ (no it’s not!) Or he asserts it is ‘unfalsifiable’. He never argues why we should be popperian falsificationists about scientific explanations, nor does he show why these others offers can’t be falsified (I noted last round a Dharmic conception of the divine would provide just the sort of mindless non-naturalistic substratum that explains our experiences of the world, and could be falsified by the lack of the right sort of mystical experience. PRO dropped this.) Fine tuning PRO raised an argument about fine-tuning. As he never stated it explicitly, I shall: 7) P(LPU|N) << P(LPU|T) 8) Prime principle of confirmation 9) Theism is confirmed over naturalism[3] [LPU = Life permitting universe, N = Naturalism, T = Theism] The idea is that the fact we live in a world with just the right values for life is much better explained by Theism than Naturalism, and so is evidence for Theism over Naturalism. A multiverse ensemble makes P(LPU|N) high, and no longer much lower (or lower at all) that P(LPU|T), and so defeats this argument. PROs response is inapposite: “Well again, CON has not made the effort to explain how there could possibly be another universe in the first place in-spite of the Space-time theorem. Anyhow, it does not matter because It still would not weed out the God hypothesis as the actual explanation for the fine-tuning of the universes since there has to be an absolute beginning regardless.” The space-time theorem (whatever that is) doesn’t rule out a multiverse. Indeed, one of the accounts of Quantum mechanics stipulates many worlds. It is just wrong to say an absolute beginning somehow guarantees a design argument: a (past finite) multiverse exhausting all possible cosmological constant values makes being in a life permitting universe wholly unsurprising on Naturalism. Even if we rule out multiverses, the design argument still doesn’t work, because we don’t have access to talk about whether the universe really is fine tuned: we lack access into all the infinite ways the laws of physics might have been structured to say life permitting combinations are rare ‘by chance’. PRO again misunderstands the argument: “Well again, these supposed metaphysical universes CON asserts are not falsifiable and he is even admitting it in this quote. The God Hypothesis on the other hand is indeed falsifiable making it a scientific explanation as well as the best one.” A design argument demands we can use these possibilities, even if epistemically. Unless we can say “if the universe had variables like this, it is unlikely intelligent life would arise”, we cannot talk about fine-tuning. The idea that the universe ‘could have been different’ is completely unfalsifiable, so either PRO should dump the design argument or dump his falsificationist philosophy of science. Either way, the argument loses. PRO says that he “was not responding to his objection about omniciensce [sic]”. If so, then my omniscience objection is unanswered: even if there was a cosmic designer, we need not think he is omniscient. Origin of life PRO did not advance this argument after my objections in R2. So I refer readers back to that for my defeat of God as an explanation for abiogenesis. Conclusion PROs arguments lie defeated. I have shown we have no compelling reason to affirm the universe ‘has an explanation’, and expert consensus suggests it did not ‘begin to exist’, deflating both LCA and KCA. I have shown how a multiverse would adequately explain ‘fine tuning’ and, in any case, we do not have access to say whether life permitting universes really are rare in the space of all possible physics. I have pointed to the progress of modern science that neither our natural history, nor our first life form, nor the information in DNA demand ‘God did it’ explanations. And even if we really needed something else to explain these things, PRO never showed this something else had to be God. When I counter-suggested other possible explanations (like aether, like a completed physics of the singularity, a non-omniscient designer) he dismissed them out of a tendentious view of science as falsifiability (a standard his own arguments do not meet, my counter-offers can accommodate, and one we should reject anyway), or just making inapposite objections. For these reasons, PRO has provided no grounds that God is the best scientific explanation of the universe. Vote CON. Enjoy life, Thrasymachus [1] I probably should have introduced the formal arguments earlier. Then again, it wasn’t my job to make these arguments in the first place. [2] It is worth noting PROs assent to the hidden variable view contradicts his own falsificationist views on science. For hidden variables are unfalsifiable: either we find them and confirm it is true, or we don’t find them and just assume they’re out there and we need to look harder. [3] Adapted from Collins (2009)