Abstract

This essay relates probability, fine-tuning, Providence, and the contingency of beings. It considers how perceptions of fine-tuning in the laws of physics are deployed using probabilities in multiverse and fine-tuning arguments regarding the coming into being of the universe. These arguments lack the probabilistic resources to quantitatively sharpen or blunt such perceptions. Yet the philosophical facts behind fine-tuning--the universe’s being, complexity, contingency, order, and intelligibility open to human minds--may reflect the dependence of what is seen on Providence. Randomness, probability, and mathematics in general cannot create, but presume a backdrop of order and actuated possibilities. Providence, guiding beings to good ends, is beyond the competence of science to detect and establish. Yet it may be recognized, in part, by practical and philosophic reflections on the being, behavior, and minds of self and others. The mind’s road to Providence may be explored from the facts of fine-tuning.