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Before looking at the apparent fine tuning of the Universe, it might be useful to first look at what is known as the cosmological argument.

The cosmological argument

The cosmological argument sets out to logically infer the existence of God based upon the knowledge that the Universe had a beginning. A form of the argument recently made popular by the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig is known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. This can be stated simply in just a few steps:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

In order for something to bring the Universe into being, it must exist independent of the Universe, i.e. the cause must exist outside of both space and time. This cause must be beginning-less and itself uncaused. Lane Craig also argues that this cause must be personal. We only know of two types of immaterial object as described here, a mind, or abstract objects such as numbers. Numbers cannot directly cause things to happen, therefore the cause must be an intelligent mind.

4. There exists a personal creator of the Universe who is time-less, space-less, beginning-less,  uncaused and enormously powerful.

The rise in popularity of the cosmological argument can partly be attributed to advances in scientific understanding.  Up until around the 1930’s, the majority of physicists believed the Universe to be eternal, and so would have disputed point 2 in the above version of the argument. Over the past 80 years more and more observational evidence has accumulated showing that the Universe did indeed begin to exist at some point in the finite past (~13.7 billion years ago). In order to avoid the conclusion of a creator, some people have recently moved on to dispute point 1, that whatever begins to exist has a cause. The debate is too complicated to detail here however, and does not affect what is perhaps one of the most interesting problems to arise from modern cosmology: Why does the Universe appear to be so ‘finely tuned’ for life?

Fine Tuning

The laws of physics that govern the behaviour of our Universe can only really be understood when parameterised and expressed as mathematical equations. These equations often contain physical constants,  an example can be seen in the well known E=mc2. Here we have as variables E (energy) and m (mass), however c (the speed of light in a vacuum) is a constant. There are over 20 such constants in modern physics, the majority of which have arbitrary values; there is no known reason why they have the values they do. A common hypothesis is that these parameters may be somewhat random. This may not at first seem very interesting, but if some of these constants were significantly different then the Universe would be a very different place.

In his book ‘Just Six Numbers’, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees discusses six constants that are fundamental to the present structure of the Universe. These numbers have to be almost exactly what they are in order for us to exist. Different values for just one or two of these parameters could have led to a universe full of black holes and nothing else, or maybe just a vast cloud of protons and electrons, neither of which would allow for the evolution of life.
The Universe appears to be finely tuned or designed in such a way that it is inhabitable. Why is this the case?

There are two main ways of answering this question:

Multi-verses and the Anthropic Principle

The Anthropic Principle states that the Universe, with all its different laws and constants, must be the way it is for us to exist, and so since we exist, we should not be surprised to observe what we do, no matter how unlikely. If the Universe were different, then we would not be here to see it. 
While this is certainly true, it does not mean that we should not be surprised to be here at all. A very popular way of explaining away the improbability is by speculating that there are many universes (maybe an infinite number), each with a different set of random physical constants. In this model, there will be at least one universe that just happens to be ideally suited for life.

Some theories exist suggesting that the Universe is in fact oscillating in a series of Big-Bangs, where each time it expands, then re-collapses and starts again. These theories can be ruled out based on scientific observations demonstrating that no re-collapse can happen to our Universe. 
 
An alternative has been suggested to allow many universes, even though there appears to be only one. In this theory there are many different universes all existing at the same time (The Multi-verse). Theoretically, this is a nice way of solving the fine tuning problem, since one of these universes is bound to appear like our own. But there is no evidence to support the idea, and even if it were true,  there appears to be no way of ever proving it. This fact alone puts the idea well outside of what can be called science, it is really just speculation. For many people, scientists included, there is another explanation that fits better with what we see around us.

Conclusion

Based on the information that we have looked at, it seems that taken on face value there is a very strong case to be made for the existence of God. There certainly seems to be a design to the universe that we are in, and it seems that unless you have a prior commitment to naturalism, (that God can’t possibly be the answer) the most probable explanation of our existence in this finely tuned universe is that there as an intelligent designer, who created the universe we live in. This goes some way to explain why the apostle Paul was able to say that the existence of God was clear for all to see, (Rom 1:20) so that we can’t claim to have an excuse that God has not provided enough evidence for us.

From here the question becomes not ‘Does God exist?’, but ‘Who is God?’. At this point, it is worth looking at the identity of Jesus Christ. He made some astonishing claims which any thinking person must surely consider, but that is for another article.

Other useful articles: 

What does it mean to become a Christian?

Who made God?

Hasn’t the theory of evolution shown the bible to be false?

How does modern science show there is a God?

For anyone who watches the news on a regular basis it seems like our world has a considerable amount wrong with it; pain and suffering seem to surround us on every side. Broadly speaking we find the roots of suffering in two places; due to the choices of fellow human beings, and natural disasters like that recently experienced in Haiti. We will have much to say on both of these in subsequent articles, but for now I intend to tackle the issue at hand. Does the very existence of suffering lead us to atheism; that is to conclude that there is in fact no God in control of this world that we inhabit?

Whether it has come from an emotional or intellectual source, I’m sure that anyone who has ever given any consideration to world events has felt a strong sense that ‘the world is not as it should be’. It somehow seems out of sync with a world that a loving God could have made. This is entirely normal and leads us to question how this could be.

18th century philosopher David Hume spoke for many when he summarised this argument:

‘Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?’

This sounds very convincing on face value doesn’t it? However, it makes a  considerable assumption in the process; that we are able to determine what good and evil are, quite independently of God.

The problem of defining good and evil

Former atheist CS Lewis realised the difficulties with this line of enquiry:

‘My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?… Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too–for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies…consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.’

In short, if we take God out of the equation then the idea of ‘evil’ becomes meaningless. Hume’s question falls apart.  If we assume that there is no God then there is no standard by which we can say that anything is objectively wrong. All we have is subjective preferences (for more on objective moral values click here).  As I mentioned earlier though, if we’re honest we all know that internal tug deep within us, that tells us ‘this is not how it should be’. ‘The world should be just, it should be fair’, and ‘people should not have to suffer’.

If we take God out of the equation then we have to accept that pain, suffering and evil are inevitable and are just part of our world, an inevitable by-product as part of naturalistic evolution. There is no reason why we should feel any sense that things OUGHT to be a particular way at all. We are just mistaken if we think that, it is just our senses messing with us.

Richard Dawkins summarises this rather depressing and hopeless viewpoint:

‘….some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.’

Is that all our lives are though? Pitiless indifference and purposeless? It seems to me we don’t live that way (for more on the origins of meaning, click here), we live as if there is purpose to our existence. As humans we even try to look for purpose in the midst of suffering. Why does it happen? This is something we will look at in the next article.

Conclusion:

Although at this stage we have not looked at why God may allow suffering, one thing is clear: the existence of evil in our world does not prove the absence of God, it merely makes us question why he allows such suffering. It only needs to be possible for God to have a good reason for allowing suffering and evil (even one that we may never know) for this argument to be defeated.

Tim Keller cites that it is almost universally accepted in academic philosophy circles that the argument from evil is not a good argument for atheism. It seems that one of the key reasons for this is that the very definition of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is so tied up with the need for a divine yardstick that the question becomes incoherent without God.  As a human race we feel a strong inner sense that the world ‘ought’ not to be this way,  that seems to transcend mere preference. This if anything seems to provide a stronger argument for God’s existence than his non-existence. Far from the universe being purposeless and indifferent, in a christian worldview it is possible to find great purpose even in pain and suffering, which we will look at in the next article.

In answering this question I’d like to take two approaches. In the first I’ll look generally about what the Bible says about God’s gender and then specifically at what it means to have been made in God’s image and what this says about us. All of this should help us understand what Genesis means when it says that Eve was made from Adam’s rib and how we can better understand God.

What is God’s gender?
God is without beginning and without end; He is completely different to humans in every conceivable way. Isaiah 55:8 says; “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. In spite of this he has chosen to reveal himself to us and explain to us aspects of his character. In doing so he has chosen, through the Bible and through Jesus, to describe himself to a human audience.  As such he explains himself in many different ways and through many different analogies.

He is described, among other ways, as a father, warrior and king. When looked at collectively, the weight of these descriptions have a masculine connotation and critically this is also how Jesus chose to reveal God. When teaching the disciples how to pray he said: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…”  . As such we understand that when praying and describing God it is right to refer to him using a masculine pronoun, though obviously this does not make him a man.

The Bible is here to help us to understand something of his nature and though most of the language is male, this is not always the case. In Isaiah 49: 15 God describes himself in the following way “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”

In which God is comparing himself to a nursing mother as the most fitting description of his feelings. This example clearly shows we are to understand the gendered language of the Bible in terms of self explanation and this specific passage certainly deepens our understanding of him.

What does this say about us?
Genesis 2: 22-23: “when the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman, for she was taken out of man.’”

To dispel a myth, men and women both have the same amount of ribs and this passage doesn’t say that we should expect this to be different. If I lost a finger it doesn’t mean that my son wouldn’t have one either, so what does this passage mean?

I think that the following verse makes clear that was is being described is a unity between men and women and that they are fitted to each other. If Man is made in the image of God and Women of Man then they are both representative of his likeness. Genesis 1: 27 sums this up when it says: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

This doesn’t make God both male and female but it does mean that both explain something of what God is like. We are made in his image, not He in ours.

In summary, though masculine language is used in description of God it is for our benefit to better understand his character. Similarly both genders were made to demonstrate God’s attributes to mankind and the Bible uses both to describe his character.