Over the past few days I have been addressing the arguments and counter arguments presented by Dr. Hugh Ross in his lecture. The second rebuttal Dr. Ross says he received to his argument from design is:

“We wouldn’t be here to observe the universe unless it had the characteristics we see.”

For illustration he quotes a theological philosopher Richard Swinburne, who equates the argument with the following scenario:

We could take everybody in the audience and put them in the chairs in the front row and give them high powered rifles with telescopic sights. And then we can take one remaining individual in the room and put them right by the podium. And then we instruct all of of you to look down your telescopic sights and kill her by putting a bullet through her heart.

Well, she survives the event and look up at all of you in the front row and says “Well of course, I wouldn’t be here to observe all of you unless you all missed.”

Dr. Ross asserts it’s not rational to believe everyone intended to miss, that somebody “purposed” that the individual would be alive. Somebody designed the universe for the observer to make that observation. This, of course, ignores numerous possible explanations.

Firstly, as I previously demonstrated, the universe is simply the way it is. The mathematical models we use to describe its behaviour have no bearing on the universe itself. The universe would continue to be what it is without any mathematical frameworks to describe it. It does not need underlying mathematics to work or function. It does not need anything to create these mathematical models for it to adhere to. The universe can simply exist according to its own nature.

Secondly, the fact humans are here to witness the universe and try to make sense of it in no way proves an external entity wished it to be this way. Energy, quantum foam, atomic structures, chemical bonds, biochemical reactions, self-replicating molecules, and evolution are natural occurrences. We are the natural product of natural process which have been in motion for at least 14.7 billion years. Conjuring a supernatural entity of account for these events is not a view which can be verified one way or the other, by definition.

Third, some modern cosmological hypothesis postulate a multiverse in which every possible potential combination of values for the cosmological constants exist. While this is an enormous mathematical space in which countless universes do not have the values required for the qualities we see in our own universe (indeed only our universe has these qualities), there are almost certainly other configurations which would support complex structures. It must be said that until these hypothesis can produce a prediction we are capable of actually testing, then believing in such notions is really a matter of faith. I remain agnostic on the situation.

Really, this refutation and Dr. Ross’s reply are no different to the first. The universe doesn’t have cosmological constants – it just is. We determine these values in an effort to understand reality. As such, we are the creators of the cosmological constants.