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How not to be generous to fine-tuning sceptics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2018

NEIL A. MANSON
NEIL A. MANSON*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Religion, the University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi, 38677-1848, USA
*
e-mail: namanson@olemiss.edu
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Abstract

The fine-tuning argument for the existence of God requires that the probability that the universe is life-permitting if God exists is not nearly as low as the probability that the universe is life-permitting if God does not exist. Recently, some proponents of the fine-tuning argument have reasoned as follows. ‘Stipulate that the probability that there exists a life-permitting universe if God exists is one in a billion. Only the most hardened sceptic would refuse odds like that, right? So one in a billion is more than just fair to those sceptical of the fine-tuning argument. It is generous. Even on that generous assumption, the fine-tuning argument is very strong.’ This article explains why the assumption is not, in fact, generous.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 303 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018

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