Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism

210 J.J.C. Smart
question. In a review in which he has many disagreements with me, William
Lane Craig justly remarks, ‘It is a testimony to the power of the new theological
argument that a naturalist like Smart should adopt an ontology so
bloated and so little warranted scientifically as the World Ensemble in order
to avoid theism’. 19 I agree that the multiple universe hypothesis is little
warranted scientifically. Carter’s hypothesis in particular looks ad hoc. Still,
in various forms, multiple universe hypotheses have a little bit (even though
little) going for them. Cosmology is a conjectural business. (Even though it is
far more testable than it was. An outstanding example of this was the rejection
of the steady state theory in favour of the big bang theory, which came
about by the discovery in 1964 of the cosmic background radiation.) Physicists
seek symmetry and the multiple universe hypothesis restores symmetry.
Similarly Linde’s inflationary universe with different regions with different
symmetry breakings and (so different fine and not so fine tunings) not only
restores large-scale symmetry but has some independent theoretical motivation.
So also does the also very conjectural theory of L. Smolin according to
which baby universes, with their own separate space–times are spawned
out of black holes. 20 Smolin holds that there is a Darwinian selection for
more complex universes, because it is part of his theory, in perhaps an unclear
way, that the baby universes differ from and yet resemble their parent ones,
and the more complex universes are more prolific of suitable black holes.
So the multiple universe theories (including ones in which the ‘universes’ are
part of one huge space–time or of one topologically complicated space)
are not entirely ad hoc to explain the fine tuning. They have some independent
motivation.
Still, I largely concede William Lane Craig’s point here. Rather than
having to believe in multiple universes I would hope for some future physics
which will directly explain the fine tuning. Though, as I suggested, on FE
p. 26, this may be a forlorn hope. Certainly, in FE I was trying to do my best
for the theist’s use of the fine tuning argument and to concede that it has got
a lot going for it. Nevertheless no less than the multiple universe hypothesis,
it also has a lot going against it. 21
The multiple universe hypothesis restores symmetry in the super-large.
We are familiar with our universe (or sub-universe) and the other members
of the multiplicity are in a sense more of the same, their differences being
due to the breaking of symmetry in more fundamental laws. The hypothesis
of creation by a Deity is not more of the same: it has an obscurity and
mysteriousness which may lead an impartial theist to be sceptical of it. (This
is no conclusive objection, of course. The world as revealed to us by quantum
mechanics is a rum place anyway by common-sense standards, and we
should not expect theology to be commonsensical either.) Thus the notion of
God’s creating the universe out of nothing, even though consistent with his