Hi all your, neighbourhood friendly atheist here.
On his excellent YouTube channel Capturing Christianity (apologetics and Christian philosophy Chanel), Cameron hosted a discussion about the fine tuning argument.
As the argument was being laid out the notion was advanced that the presence of conscious beings is very unexpected on naturalism but very expected on theism, indicating that our presence is evidence that strongly favors theism over naturalism.
My worry here is that I'm struggling to see how conscious beings are more probable on theism defined broadly. We can imagine, as billions have, that a deity would want conscious beings to exist for a myriad of reasons. Maybe it wants them to worship it, or to be in relationship with it, to believe in it, to be subjects to its plan of moral progress etc.
Conversely it seems to me that we could equally imagine a deity that has no wish for conscious creatures. They would be inferior unfit for relationship, they would be imperfect and sully the perfection of its domain, they would be aggravating and wayward.etc.
We can conjure up infinite reasons on both sides of that question so it seems to me that general theism just doesn't make the existence of conscious beings more probable.
That said, it is of course the case that the Christian worldview has the resources to tip that scale. If one accepts the accounts of the Bible, then the deity is clearly motivated to make conscious creatures.
This leads me to think that the order these arguments are often presented is flawed. We often hear that the cumulative case for God begins with making the general theism case and indeed the fine tuning argument is often one of the first bricks in the road. We are told that once general theism has been established, that we can go on to wonder about the specific nature of the deity.
But based on my analysis here, it seems to me, that unless you have already established the truth of something like the Christian worldview, that general theism doesn't have the resources to escape from skeptical theism as it applies to the cosmic fine tuning argument. This suggests to me that if one wanted to deploy the fine tuning argument, one would first have to demonstrate the existence or likely existence of a personal God.
Thoughts?
Peace
Athee
On his excellent YouTube channel Capturing Christianity (apologetics and Christian philosophy Chanel), Cameron hosted a discussion about the fine tuning argument.
As the argument was being laid out the notion was advanced that the presence of conscious beings is very unexpected on naturalism but very expected on theism, indicating that our presence is evidence that strongly favors theism over naturalism.
My worry here is that I'm struggling to see how conscious beings are more probable on theism defined broadly. We can imagine, as billions have, that a deity would want conscious beings to exist for a myriad of reasons. Maybe it wants them to worship it, or to be in relationship with it, to believe in it, to be subjects to its plan of moral progress etc.
Conversely it seems to me that we could equally imagine a deity that has no wish for conscious creatures. They would be inferior unfit for relationship, they would be imperfect and sully the perfection of its domain, they would be aggravating and wayward.etc.
We can conjure up infinite reasons on both sides of that question so it seems to me that general theism just doesn't make the existence of conscious beings more probable.
That said, it is of course the case that the Christian worldview has the resources to tip that scale. If one accepts the accounts of the Bible, then the deity is clearly motivated to make conscious creatures.
This leads me to think that the order these arguments are often presented is flawed. We often hear that the cumulative case for God begins with making the general theism case and indeed the fine tuning argument is often one of the first bricks in the road. We are told that once general theism has been established, that we can go on to wonder about the specific nature of the deity.
But based on my analysis here, it seems to me, that unless you have already established the truth of something like the Christian worldview, that general theism doesn't have the resources to escape from skeptical theism as it applies to the cosmic fine tuning argument. This suggests to me that if one wanted to deploy the fine tuning argument, one would first have to demonstrate the existence or likely existence of a personal God.
Thoughts?
Peace
Athee