Apart from the rational and theological arguments posting the existence of God (all of which I have learned from my study of philosophy and theology), is there scientific plausibility to prove God’s existence?
Fr. Robert Spitzer, a Catholic priest and scientist, says yes.
Fr. Spitzer is a Jesuit, former President of Gonzaga University, and currently the President of Magis Center of Reason and Faith and the Spitzer Center for Ethical Leadership. He is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, and has appeared on many television series including the Larry King Show confronting the late Stephen Hawking – as well as PBS, the History Channel, and the Today Show.
To start with, Fr. Spitzer discloses that according to the survey made by the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, 66 percent of the world’s young scientists under 40 declare themselves as theists or believers in God.
On the scientific evidence of the existence of God, Fr. Spitzer lays down his arguments by debunking the naysayers’ objections to the theistic position that God exists because a “universe that is fine-tuned for life requires a fine-tuner (or God).”
The “fine-tuned universe” thesis states that the physical constants of our universe and the conditions of the early universe are exquisitely fine-tuned for life. In other words, as we human beings sit roughly midway between the infinitesimal small atoms and the immensely large galaxes, our universe is so perfectly structured for us to exist or live – with the fundamental constants set just to the right values.
But agnostics, naysayers and atheists are putting God out of the picture in our fine-tuned universe, giving other explanations like the existence of “bouncing universes,” a “multiverse,” or by pure chance.
Basically, the “multiverse argument” is stated thus: “In a multiverse setting, there are many other (infinite) universes in addition to our own. Each of these universes have different values of the basic constants of physics, such that some of these universes would have gravity set just right to form stars, but many universes would not. Only a few universes would be suitable for life, such as ours, because we couldn’t survive in the others. If the number of these universes is extremely large, it would not be surprising that one of them would happen to provide the specific conditions for life.”
But Fr. Spitzer argues that neither “bouncing universes” nor a “multiverse” would work.
“In trying to find a natural explanation for the numbers of constants in the initial conditions of the universe, some scientists are searching for bouncing universes. But bouncing universes won’t work because they require more fine-tuning, as Sean Caroll wiped that out long ago, that the idea of expanding and contracting effect cannot explain fine-tuning. (And) the string universe, in the higher dimensional space of string theory, is not going to work either because when these things are nucleating, they actually are going to increase an entropy and fine-tuning is going to be harder to explain,” Fr. Spitzer explained.
Neither by pure chance that our exquisitely fine-tuned universe can be explained. “The odds against that our fine-tuned universe happened by pure chance are 10 secondary and second first exponent raised to the 10, again to 125 and to 1. The point is the odds of having life in our universe by pure chance are the same adds as a monkey typing the entire corpus of Shakespeare, Milton, Spencer, and Elliot by random tapping of the keys in a single try,” Fr. Spitzer said.
Needless to say, not at all by pure chance is the phenomenon of our fine-tuned universe but by a precise super-calculating cause or source.
Fr. Spitzer goes on to argue that even Stephen Hawking in the late part of his life tended to put a closure to the “infinite multiverse” postulation.
“Stephen Hawking, whom I thought was leaning toward the other side, in his last academic paper in the Journal of High Energy Physics in 2018, basically put a closure to the ‘infinite multiverse’ explanation of our fine-tuned universe with his partner, Belgian physicist Thomas Hertog. In their paper, they showed a separation between quantum physics and relativity physics. And there’s this indeterminacy zone, wherein you can’t get a universe like ours with our quantum and relativity theories,” Fr. Spitzer explained.
“What Hawking and Hertog tried to predict in their paper is that if a multiverse does exist, if at all, it would have to be a very finite (not infinite) number of bubble universes, and these bubble universes would be very much like our own universe. Furthermore, the multiverse that generates this universe must have a beginning,” Fr. Spitzer added.
Hence, if the infinite multiverse theory is dead, Fr. Spitzer argues that “the only one option that’s left is that God did it, a really super smart and intelligent God did it.”
In conclusion, Fr. Spitzer succinctly points out: “It seems to me that there are no blind forces worth speaking about. It seems to me that there must be some super calculating, super intellect that has monkeyed with the constants of physics, chemistry and biology. I consider this to be beyond the shadow of doubt now. Our young physicists are looking at this and they’re getting it hard to resist the idea that there’s not only a God out there, not only a conscious and thinking God, not only a super calculating and super intelligent God, but a God who really likes us, who made a universe that’s habitable for life.”
Amen to that, Fr. Spitzer. Benedictus Deus!
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