Eric Metaxas, an American author
and radio host, tackled the 1966 Time magazine story, “Is God dead?” and
demolished atheism. His argument goes as follows:
In 1966, TIME magazine ran a cover
story asking, “IS GOD DEAD?” The cover reflected the fact that many people had
accepted the cultural narrative that God is obsolete, that as science
progresses, there is less need for a god to explain universe. It turns out
though that the rumors of god’s death were premature. In fact perhaps the best
arguments for his existence come from, of all places, science itself. Here is
the story.
The same year TIME featured its now
famous headline, the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two
necessary criteria for a planet to support life, the right kind of star and a
planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion planets
in the universe, there should have been about septillion planets capable of
supporting life. With such spectacular odds, scientists were optimistic that
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence known by its initials S.E.T.I. an
ambitious project launched in 1960s would sure to turn up something soon. With
the vast radio telescopic network, scientists listened for signals that
resembled coded intelligence. But as the years passed the silence from the
universe was deafening. As of 2014 researchers have discovered precisely nothing.
What happened?
As our knowledge of the universe
increased, it became clear that there were in fact far more factors necessary
for life, let alone intelligent life, than Sagan supposed. His two parameters
grew to 10, then 20 and then 50 which meant that the number of potentially life
supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand
planets and kept on plummeting. Even S.E.T.I. proponents acknowledged the
problem. Peter Schenkel wrote in a 2006 piece for SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, a
magazine that strongly affirms atheism “In light of the new findings and
insights, we should quietly admit that the early estimates may no longer be tenable.”
Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to
support life, every single one of which must be perfectly met or the whole
thing falls apart. For example, without a massive gravity-rich planet like
Jupiter nearby to draw away asteroids, Earth would be more like an interstellar
dartboard. Simply put, the odds against life in the universe are astonishing.
Yet, here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account
for it? Can every one of those parameters have been perfectly met by accident?
At what point is it fair to admit that it is science itself that suggests that
we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence
created these perfect conditions in fact require far less faith than believing
that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds? But
wait, there is more.
The fine-tuning necessary for life
to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the
universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values
of the four fundamental forces, gravity, the electromagnetic force and the
strong and weak nuclear forces were determined less than one millionth of a
second after the Big Bang. Alter any one of these four values ever so slightly
and the universe as we know it could not exist. For instance, if the ratio
between the strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force had been off by
the tiniest fraction of the tiniest inconceivable fraction, then no stars could
have formed at all. Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions
and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical
that the notion that it all just happened defies common sense. It would be like
tossing a dice and having the same number ten quintillion times in a row. I
don’t think so.
Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term Big
Bang, said that his atheism was greatly shaken by these developments. One of
the world’s most renowned theoretical physicists Paul Davies has said that the
appearance of design is overwhelming. Even the late Christopher Hitches, one of
atheism’s most aggressive proponents conceded that without question the
fine-tuning argument was the most powerful argument of the other side. Oxford
University Professor Dr John Lennox has said, “The more we get to know about
our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator gains in
credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.” The greatest miracle
of all time is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that inescapably
points to something or someone beyond itself.
