God, fine-tuning, and the problem of old evidence

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (2):405-424 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The fundamental constants that are involved in the laws of physics which describe our universe are finely-tuned for life, in the sense that if some of the constants had slightly different values life could not exist. Some people hold that this provides evidence for the existence of God. I will present a probabilistic version of this fine-tuning argument which is stronger than all other versions in the literature. Nevertheless, I will show that one can have reasonable opinions such that the fine-tuning argument doesn’t lead to an increase in one’s probability for the existence of God.

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
1,473 (#6,962)

6 months
143 (#21,261)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Bradley Monton
Wuhan University

Citations of this work

Epistemic Probabilities are Degrees of Support, not Degrees of (Rational) Belief.Nevin Climenhaga - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (1):153-176.
Multiple Universes and Observation Selection Effects.Darren Bradley - 2009 - American Philosophical Quarterly 46 (1):72.
Four Problems about Self-Locating Belief.Darren Bradley - 2012 - Philosophical Review 121 (2):149-177.

View all 28 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The Design Argument.Elliott Sober - 2019 - Cambridge University Press.
The Existence of God.Richard Swinburne - 1979 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Theory and Evidence.Clark Glymour - 1981 - Philosophy of Science 48 (3):498-500.
Universes.John Leslie - 1989 - New York: Routledge.

View all 27 references / Add more references