Hello there. I have recently heard an objection to the fine tuning argument that is pretty interesting. “The fine tuning argument goes against omnipotence because it suggests that God would not be able to create life with these constants being any differently fine-tuned, therefore he wouldn’t be all-powerful”. My response to this would be “It is impossible for life to exist where these constants aren’t finely tuned to the degree and specific ratios that they are, and the inability for God to do logically impossible things is not an inhibition of omnipotence”. Do y’all think this is a good response? And how would y’all respond yourselves?
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Welcome, Richard @Glowingwhitekid, we look forward to knowing you better and hearing your voice. Let us know a bit more about yourself when you are comfortable. Most around here do not bite, and the few that do are on a short leash.
In answer to your question, I think you gave a good answer, and would add that it basically is the same question in my mind as “could God create a rock too big for him to lift” and the answer is that it is a non-sensical question and C. S. Lewis once said, “Nonsense is still nonsense even when said about God.” It is asking if God could create life in a universe incompatible with life, and is like asking if God could create a square circle.
Personally, I am not a big proponent of fine tuning as an apologist argument, as I figure the universe has to be this way or it would not exist, with or without God.
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Others more knowledgable than I will no doubt comment on the science. As to your assertion:
I’d say you are spot on. In addition, God can’t make a flat mountain, a circular square, or 2+2=5.
As to a theological perspective on fine tuning, I always think one must be careful how one uses it. For example: did God tune the conditions to bring about life life on Earth or did he will into existence (through natural or any other means) life that would thrive in these conditions? Theologically speaking, it’s a chicken/egg situation - either could be true or both. The answer to either question does not rule God out as creator, but it doesn’t require God to make sense of fine tuning either. Does that make sense?
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Yes thank ya thank ya
You’re welcome. Oh and welcome to the forum. Great to have your voice. 
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Hi Richard. I’m curious for your own take on the fine tuning argument. As one of a small handful of openly non believing members here I can tell you these sorts of arguments don’t carry any weight for me. But I don’t think any considerations about how the universe began work against the existence of a divine creator either. Seems to me if such a being exists he pretty clearly prefers to remain hidden and is content to let us know only as much about her methods as we are able to deduce on our own.
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My response is a little different…
Omnipotence DOES NOT mean being able to do anything by whatever means one chooses! The kind of omnipotence that embraces logical inconsistency is the empty kind of omnipotence in dreams, where nothing has to make any sense because it isn’t real! It is the logical coherence that makes this real and not just a dream. So that sort of power isn’t omnipotence at all, and in fact, anybody can dream nonsense – it is not any great accomplishment.
No, because we don’t know that this is true. We don’t know that there are no other possible laws of nature with other constants which makes life possible. I do think that life requires fixed rules of some kind. But that doesn’t really help the fine tuning argument.
And this is part of an even larger problem with the fine tuning argument. We just cannot prove that the way things are means that had to have been designed that way by the intention of a deity. There is no way to know all the possibilities let alone calculate any probabilities of this particular result.
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@Glowingwhitekid Richard
I think that you are on the right track. People tend to see God as one dimensional, usually all powerful, but God is Trinity, Three and One. God is all powerful, all wise, and all loving. The anthropic principle bears this out.
God is loving enough to create a universe4 for humanity, powerful to create it out of nothing, and wise enough to make a universe that has trillions of aspects which work together.
I’m really late to the debat but I’ll still respond.
The argument of fine tuning is not an argument of how the world should work but an observation on how the worlds actually works. Their is no fundamental reason why the equations and fundamental constante wark as they do other than that how god said they would work. He absolutely could create a working universe with a different set of rules and number.
Fine tuning is not the set of rules that God had to work with, it is the sets rules that he has defined.
Now whilst the idea of finely tuned universe would happen can make sense if their is a super intelligent being doing the fine tuning it makes it happening by pure chance insanely unlikely and is their for used as a counter arguments to the non existence of God.
So using the fine tuning arguments you are not saying this is the rules by which god works with we are saying that these are the rules by which the universe must work god or godless, and godless it doesn’t make sense.
Now the godless universe can be resolved this can be resolved by the idea of a multiverse and the Anthropic principal. But since often the people want to argue that they are super rational and believe only in hard evidence and that they don’t use faith this arguments is very uncomfortable because their is no hard evidence for the multiverse.
What fine tuning?
It doesn’t prove fine-tuning, of course, but I like this response to the denialist’s “What fine-tuning?”:
It is written in Christian texts that there will eventually be a new heaven and a new earth. In science, we see fine-tuning as serving a function, similar to the same gene folded differently serves a different function.
The two above, put together suggests that our universal fine-tuning is best to serve the function of this age. A need for a new heaven suggests a different purpose and perhaps likely a different functional environment and parameters to work in. Such as what will be our source of light? A sun or God himself?
This would remove the idea of God being limited to only one way to create a universe, If there is still a problem about a still needing fine-tuning, my thought is if you know the best way to do something, why pick something less desirable even if you can? Why build a fault that doesn’t serve your purpose?
Doing it the best way doesn’t mean we’re limited to only one way.
That’s an oxymoron. You mean codon. In a dynamically folded chromosome.
Nature fine-tunes itself. Self-tunes. It has nothing to do with God even if eternal, infinite nature is in Him.
But the topic was if God, Klax.
Your comment seemed forced, even the gene vs. a more unfamiliar codon seems like you were arguing against the general scientific concept of form = function being described.
We can also design things that fine-tune themselves. The fact they can is not evidence that we were not involved.
Are we triggered by the mere possibility?
If God what?
Show us differently folded genes, with the same 1D linear codon sequence and different 2 or 3D expressions expressing different proteins.
Nature needs no cause but itself. Nothing exploded. Nature abhors a nihilo; utter absolute absence. Adding God as a superset of that isn’t necessary in the slightest, is superfluous, unparsimonious and explains nothing at all (except incarnation) for infinitely more complexity.
They would look designed. Nature isn’t in any regard whatsoever.
No.
The fact that you change the fold breaks its function which was the topic and still valid.
Since you admitted you do this for enjoyment, I won’t play chase the perceived faults to discredit game. They are proper and good to mention, but not to conflate and distract the train of discussion with insistance. Nice try, wink.
I’d still love to see any evidence of the same gene folded differently with different protein expression.