A popular response to the argument is the postulation of a multiverse. The idea is that if there are an limitless number of universes, each with different conditions, then eventually a universe like ours would arise by chance. Therefore, no designer is required. But is the multiverse a feasible explanation for the skeptic to embrace? For a handful of reasons, philosopher Adam Lloyd Johnson doesn't think so. He writes:
"It seems a bit of a stretch, in an attempt to dismiss the idea of one unobservable being who designed the universe, to propose an infinite number of unobservable universes. One intelligent, powerful being seems to be a much more plausible explanation than an infinite number of universes. First, I think there's more evidence for God than there is for a multiverse. But even if there is a multiverse, it would require a first cause unless we're willing to accept an actual infinite regress of causes. A multiverse would still seem to require fine-tuning in that there'd be some sort of universe factory that itself would seem to require fine-tuning in order to produce fine-tuned universes. The worst problem, though, with the multiverse explanation (or multiverse objection) is that it proves too much. It's like a multiverse of the gaps argument. You can explain anything away with a multiverse objection. For example, let's say, hypothetically, that every single day the clouds formed a message all around the world in different languages that says, 'Here I am, I am God, believe that I exist.' Well, if that happened, with the multiverse objection we could just say that if there was an infinite number of universes, then certainly everything that could happen must happen in one of those universes, and we just happen to be in the universe where that happens. The multiverse objection is just too strong. It would dismiss any sort of potential evidence for God or anything like that, so I think the multiverse objection just accomplishes too much."2
The irony of the multiverse explanation is that, in one sense, it accomplishes too little, while in another, it accomplishes too much. On the one hand, it fails to explain the origin of the multiverse itself or why the laws and conditions necessary for a multiverse to exist are in place. On the other hand, as philosopher Adam Lloyd Johnson points out, the multiverse explanation can be so broad that it becomes a “multiverse of the gaps” argument. If an infinite number of universes are possible, virtually any observation can be explained by simply claiming that we happen to inhabit the universe where that observation occurs. In that sense, the multiverse explanation accomplishes too much: it could potentially explain away any evidence for God before that evidence is even considered. Rather than providing a compelling alternative to theism, the multiverse may simply push the explanatory question back a level while making the possibility of evidence for God virtually impossible to establish.
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnote:
1. For a brief introduction to the fine-tuning argument, go here.
2. Andrew Drinkard, ed., Debating God’s Existence: Believers and Skeptics in Friendly Conversation, 32.
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