Hi Matthew (pevaquark),
I am new to this forum, but a friend invited me to read your post, so I decided to offer a couple of comments, hope that’s OK.
There is much in what you say that I agree with. (1) I think a lot of christian apologetics is very poor, especially that trying to defend 6-day creationism, etc. (2) I observe that some christians believe because of an experience of God, some because of faith, some because they believe what they are told, and some because of evidence and apologetics, and that is all OK. (3) And I agree with you that many christians claim too much certainty. Our knowledge is always incomplete because we are human.
But there are 3 areas where I see things differently, and I thought they might be worth sharing.
“Now I hope that you could see why such a statement is nonsense, because nobody knows what’s range of values these constants can take and with the probabilities of getting each of those values even is.”
I don’t have the background in science that you do, but I have read Luke Barnes’ blog for years and read the Lewis & Barnes book you reference. When they show that graph, they are talking science, cosmology, which is their field of expertise, not apologetics. They say they have selected the ranges of the values allowed by theoretical physics. That is, using the best knowledge we have, those ranges are theoretically possible. If our knowledge changes, then we’ll change our theories and the possible ranges. But until then, if someone wants to limit the ranges, the authors say they need a good hypothesis, some good data and some good arguments. And as they say, it would take absolutely massive changes in these ranges to change the basic fact of the improbability of our universe by chance.
“a God of the gaps argument that all the best apologists use”
“God of the gaps” is a scare argument that I think we need to think a bit more about. Gaps in our understanding are the places where we look to advance our knowledge. That’s what science does - find an apparent anomaly and see why the current understanding cannot explain it, and look to extend our understanding to find why this anomaly occurs.
So when we consider all that we know, there are questions that science doesn’t seem to be able to answer. If we can see that a little more work is likely to give us an answer, then let’s do that work. But if it seems like the question is fundamental and unlikely to be answered by science, then it is quite reasonable to look to answers from philosophy.
In the case of fine-tuning and the beginning or cause of the universe, we can see why science is unlikely to find answers. No matter what question science answers, we can always ask: ”Why is it so?” If the multiverse is the explanation of fine-tuning, we can then ask how the multiverse got to be so fine-tuned that it produces zillions of universes, each with different parameters? And so on.
So I think we should treat “god of the gaps” objections with a little scepticism. If an apologetics argument claims God as the answer, but it turns out to have a scientific answer, then we update our understanding, just happens in science generally as one hypothesis replaces another. I don’t think it’s a big deal.
“I personally think that natural theology can only ever bring someone to perhaps a deist position, and anything beyond that also enters this realm of what I’ve discussed as personal experience and faith in a ‘brute fact.”
I agree that science + apologetics can only take us so far - to deism, and I think to theism. But as a christian, I also have history, and the historical analysis of the New Testament gives me an objective basis for believing in the christian God.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.