Notebook 3 — The Physico-Theological Argument

With God’s help

The Physico-Theological Proof – A Systematic Analysis

Michael Abraham

Contents

Chapter 1: The Physico-Theological Proof among the Proofs for the Existence of God

Chapter 2: The Physico-Theological Proof

Chapter 3: The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy as a Quantitative Measure of Order

Chapter 4: Initial Objections to the Physico-Theological Argument

Chapter 5: God Is Not an Explanation: On Two Types of Explanations

Chapter 6: The Objection from Evolution

Chapter 7: The Argument from the Laws

Chapter 8: Is There a Random Component in the Evolutionary Process?

Chapter 9: What Is Complexity?

Chapter 10: The Anthropic Principle

Chapter 11: Teleological Conduct in Physics

Chapter 12: Some Concluding Remarks: On the “Church of Science”

1. The Physico-Theological Proof among the Proofs for the Existence of God

Types of proofs for the existence of God^[1]

Kant, in his great book Critique of Pure Reason, divided the proofs for the existence of God into three types: the ontological proof, the cosmological proof, and the physico-theological proof. An ontological proof is one based on a purely logical argument, without assuming any factual premise whatsoever. The next two types include proofs based on arguments whose foundation includes some factual premises.

Beyond these three kinds of arguments, there are other ways of arriving at faith. Some see it as a simple intuition that requires no proof—something like an axiom. Others arrive at God on the basis of the moral proof (also presented by Kant, in another of his books). Others reach Him through tradition, which transmits to us the information about God’s revelation to our forefathers or to some previous generation. Later on, we will note that each such argument assumes a different definition of the concept of God.

In the discussion of the ontological proof, we pointed to the logical difference between these three kinds of proofs. The ontological proof is a purely logical argument, that is, a logical argument based on conceptual analysis. True, we saw there that underlying the proof are assumptions, but they are not factual in character. Most of the criticism of that proof focused on this logical character. The cosmological and physico-theological proofs do assume factual premises, and on their basis build a logical argument leading to the factual conclusion that God exists.

As we saw there, there are two ways to attack such an argument: either to challenge its basic premise, or to challenge the validity of the argument itself (that is, whether the conclusion follows from the premises). In any event, unlike the ontological proof, which aspired to be a purely logical proof, a logical structure such as that of the other two proofs does not claim the crown of certainty. The premise underlying it is factual, and as such it is open to challenge.

For this reason, the debate here will not be between rationalists and empiricists. Once one proceeds from a fact, there is no principled barrier to deriving another fact from it. Even an empiricist can agree to such a structure. Even so, it is important to understand that even in the empiricist picture there are moves of thought that go beyond observation. Scientific generalization is a procedure that takes us from particular observations to a general law, a step that is plainly not empirical.

The uniqueness of the physico-theological argument

At least one of the factual premises here is trivial: that our universe is complex. It is hard to see anyone disputing that, although it is difficult to measure complexity, and it is impossible to determine which degree of complexity already raises a difficulty and which does not. Another premise in the physico-theological argument is the principle of causality (in a somewhat different form from the principle that underlay the cosmological proof and which we discussed in the previous notebook). Although it is not purely factual, it is again hard to see anyone disputing it. Therefore this is a proof of no little force, even if not with the certainty of a purely logical argument. It is no wonder that this is the most common proof in theological literature, and apparently among believers generally as well.^[2]

And yet, the logical move of the physico-theological argument resembles the cosmological argument in several of its central components. Some of the objections to it also resemble objections raised there, and naturally some of the answers given there are relevant to the discussion of this argument. In such cases, I will not repeat what was said in that notebook, but will refer back to it. Here we will deal only with the aspects unique to the physico-theological context.

Finally, I will only note here that in the next notebook a different version of the physico-theological argument will be presented, from the opposite angle.

1. The Physico-Theological Proof

Introduction: What is the physico-theological proof?

The physico-theological proof is based on the assumption that complex or designed things do not come into being spontaneously, that is, by themselves. In the formulation of the nineteenth-century clergyman Paley, so beloved of atheists: when we see a watch lying on the ground, we do not assume that this watch formed itself in some natural process; rather, it is obvious to us that there is a watchmaker who designed and made it. So too with our world, which is an object far more complex than a watch, and therefore it is not reasonable that it formed itself. The conclusion is that someone made it.

A similar formulation was proposed by the famous astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, who argued that the chance emergence of life is less probable than the chance that a tornado sweeping over a junkyard would assemble from the scattered parts a complete Boeing airplane. Again, his claim is that life is far more complex than a Boeing airplane, and therefore it is reasonable that it did not arise through a random and blind process. Perforce, there is someone who intentionally created it.

In discussions of God and evolution, many refer to Hoyle’s argument by the unflattering (but very self-assured) label “Hoyle’s fallacy.” This is part of atheist demagoguery, which prefers labels and defamation to systematic arguments (as does its religious counterpart). Later I will try to explain where and why they themselves are mistaken, and why Hoyle was in fact quite right.

More generally, we should formulate the physico-theological argument in the following structure:

Premise A: There exists a universe with a certain special structure.

Premise B: A thing with a special structure does not arise spontaneously (on its own; not through someone).

Conclusion: There exists something that created this special structure. We will call it God.

Here, of course, the immediate objection will arise that the creator of the structure is itself presumably special, and therefore itself requires a cause for its existence. This objection returns us to the detailed discussion we conducted in the notebook on the cosmological proof through all the issues of infinite regresses. Everything is very similar here as well, so here we will spare ourselves that process and immediately revise premise B accordingly: a thing with a special structure, of the sort that in our experience does not arise spontaneously. We will now conclude that there is a cause for the universe, and distinguish between a cause that belongs to the kinds of things known from our experience—in which case the process must continue—and a cause that can be the first link in the chain. That link will be defined here as God.

And yet, a difference from the cosmological argument: lex specialis

The assumption that a complex thing does not arise by itself is an assumption of common sense (in the next chapter we will see that it is actually a probabilistic calculation), and therefore at first glance it is valid with respect to any reality, not only one that fits our experience. This assumption is not drawn from experience but from reason, and as such it is relevant to all objects. If so, here one may still insist and say that God too is not exempt from this requirement: if He is complex, then something else must create Him.

On the other hand, if we apply that requirement to God as well, we are back to the problem of infinite regress. For if every complex thing requires something no less complex to create it, then what got everything started? But on the other hand, if we stop the regress and assume the existence of a primary link which, despite its complexity, does not need a cause to create it, then we have abandoned the assumption that every complex thing requires a maker, and thus the physico-theological argument has collapsed.

It seems to me that there is no avoiding a more complex picture. When I have two conflicting principles, both of which seem reasonable to me, I will prefer to qualify one or the other rather than wholly abandon one of them. In our case, I am not willing to accept an infinite regress, but it is also very reasonable to assume that every complex thing is created by something or someone else. But these two conflict, and therefore apparently I must give up one of them. Again, I will prefer not to give up either, but to qualify one and leave both in force. In our case, I choose to continue holding the assumption that every complex thing requires a maker, but to qualify it. There is apparently something that is complex and nevertheless does not require a maker (otherwise I again slide into infinite regress). That something is the primary link in our causal chain, and I call it God.

Why did I choose precisely this way out? In my book Sciences of Freedom I explained the principle jurists call lex specialis (preference for the specific). When two principles conflict, and one of them is more general than the other, the more specific one prevails. For example, if in Jewish law murder is forbidden, and at the same time there is an obligation to execute Sabbath desecrators, these are two conflicting principles. I cannot discard either of them entirely, for the Torah explicitly commanded both. Therefore I qualify one, thereby allowing the other. It is impossible to qualify the obligation to execute Sabbath desecrators, for such a qualification would abolish it altogether. This is a specific principle. But one can qualify the obligation not to murder and make an exception to it for Sabbath desecrators. In such a situation, both the command to execute Sabbath desecrators and the prohibition of murder remain in force (though the latter is qualified).

So too in our case: I qualify the principle that every complex thing requires a maker (excluding from it the first link—God), and in this way leave in force both that principle (though qualified) and the assumption that an infinite regress is impossible.

The definition of God for the purpose of the physico-theological argument

We already noted in the two previous notebooks that every argument proving the existence of God assumes some definition of Him, and in each argument it is a different definition. In the ontological proof, the existence of the most perfect being that can be conceived was proved, and therefore there God was defined as the perfect being. In the cosmological proof, the existence of a being that is the cause of reality was proved, and thus He was defined there.

There are several shades of physico-theological arguments. All begin from some assumption about a certain character of the existing universe, and prove the existence of whoever is responsible for it. The proof from design begins from the apparently designed character of the universe and proves from it the existence of a designer. The proof from complexity proves the existence of a builder or engineer responsible for the world’s complexity. The proof from fittingness proves the existence of an engineer who ensured and ensures the fit between different parts of our universe. All these arguments resemble one another and have the same logical structure, and therefore in what follows we will generally not distinguish among them.

The question of the relation between the beings whose existence these proofs establish will be discussed later in another notebook. In general, there need not be any connection among them, nor must everyone accept all the proofs together. For our purposes at present, each proof stands on its own, and each proves the existence of the relevant being from its own standpoint.

To summarize, in the physico-theological argument we prove the existence of a super-engineer who is responsible for the special structure (the complex, coordinated, or designed structure) of the world. Therefore here God is defined as that super-engineer who designed and assembled the world as it is.

The option of an eternal universe

Of course here too, as in the cosmological argument, the option of an eternal universe stands in the background. If this world has always been as it is, there is no need to assume the existence of a creator. This is not really an objection to the argument. In fact, it merely exposes another hidden premise in the background of the physico-theological argument—namely, that the complex reality of which we are speaking came into being at some point (that it is not eternal). The objection from eternity is really asking: what is the justification for this assumption?

Let us say in advance that even in the present context the picture of an eternal universe—or rather this objection to the physico-theological argument—is rejected in the same way we saw in the notebook on the cosmological proof: philosophically, it is a concrete infinity that is inconceivable; and physically, we already know that the universe has a finite age, about 14 billion years, and is not infinite. That is the justification for the assumption that our world is indeed not eternal. We will not repeat the entire discussion here.

Even so, there is one important point that we should sharpen דווקא in the context of the physico-theological proof. The claim is that even if we assume that the picture of an eternal universe is possible, this does not necessarily undermine the physico-theological argument. In the notebook on the cosmological argument (at the end of Chapter 6), we pointed to the distinction between the principle of causality and the principle of sufficient reason. We saw there that the principle of sufficient reason is relevant even to eternal beings (which were never created). We also saw there that when we are dealing with complex and special beings, the principle of sufficient reason is demanded all the more. When we see before us a complex and special entity and ask who created it, or why it is as it is, the answer that it has been here from eternity does not provide a sufficient response. The question still remains: why is it so special as it is? After all, it could have had countless other forms, certainly less complex ones as well. So what is the sufficient reason for its being as it is? We also mentioned there the question of the reason for the specialness of the laws of nature, to which we will return later.

A fuller formulation of the physico-theological argument

From the discussion thus far we arrive at the following formulation of the physico-theological argument:

Premise A: We know that the universe has existed for some finite length of time, and therefore it was created (it did not always exist).

Premise B: We know that it is complex/coordinated/designed.

Premise C: We know that it is (or: that its complexity is) of the sort that does not arise spontaneously.

Conclusion: There was some other thing or person that created it, that is, designed and assembled it.

It is important to note that the principle of causality we assume here (Premise C) is not entirely identical to the principle assumed by the cosmological argument. There we assumed that every existing being of the sort known in our experience has a cause that created it. Here, by contrast, we assume that if the existing thing is complex/coordinated, then someone is responsible for that complexity and coordination. One can say that he is the cause of the world’s complexity, but on closer inspection it seems that we are really dealing here with a somewhat different principle. To sharpen this point, let us take a short pause to present the second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy.

1. The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy as a Quantitative Measure of Order

Introduction

Although later it will become clear that there is no need for the second law of thermodynamics in order to discuss the physico-theological argument, since it comes up frequently in these discussions and sharpens an important aspect of the argument, we will present it here briefly.

The second law

Thermodynamics, the theory of heat, is one of the foundational fields in physics. The second law of thermodynamics states that in a process taking place in a closed system (one without outside intervention), entropy never decreases over time. To understand the meaning of thermodynamic concepts such as entropy (and even temperature), one can ground them in a microscopic statistical analysis, what is called statistical mechanics. This analysis shows that entropy is a measure of the degree of order in the system. Thus, for example, we are familiar with processes in which a flowerpot standing on the roof falls to the ground and shatters into pieces. But we are not familiar with a process in which a collection of shards on the ground rises to the roof and arranges itself into a complete flowerpot. Nor, if you like, are we familiar with such a process occurring on the ground itself (without taking off upward). One of the basic cases analyzed by statistical mechanics is what is called there an ideal gas, that is, a collection of point particles contained in a sealed vessel. Let us suppose that at some stage we concentrate all of them in one corner of the vessel. Everyone understands that within a short time they will be dispersed rather uniformly throughout the vessel. By contrast, once we have reached a state of uniform distribution of the particles in the vessel, we will never see them all concentrate in one corner of it, even for a single second.

How is all this connected to the second law and to entropy? We mentioned that entropy is a measure of order in the system. This means that in a natural process the order of the system only decreases (and certainly does not increase), that is, entropy does not decrease. The state of a complete flowerpot is more ordered than that of a shattered flowerpot. Likewise, the state in which the particles are all in one corner of the vessel is more ordered than the state in which they are uniformly dispersed throughout the vessel. If so, in an uncontrolled process, without outside intervention, disorder always grows. If someone comes and arranges the pieces of the flowerpot and glues them, he will of course increase the order in the system. But this is done by intentional intervention and not in a spontaneous and natural process. Therefore the second law

What is entropy, and how is it related to order?

How do we define order in this context? Many will say that a state of uniform distribution in a vessel is actually more ordered. For our purposes, order means uniqueness. An ordered state is a unique state. How can one quantify the uniqueness of states? The physicists’ measure of the order/uniqueness of a state is the number of microscopic states equivalent to that macroscopic state. The more equivalent microscopic states there are, the less unique each of them is, and therefore the less ordered the state is.

To understand this, let us look at an example. Think of a vessel in the form of a chain of cubic compartments, inside of which there is an “ideal gas” of cubic particles, each the size of one compartment. We will represent the cubic particle as follows: , and the whole chain as follows: . For purposes of illustration, let us assume that our “gas” has 3 particles, and the “vessel” is a chain of length 10 cells.

We will now define two kinds of states:

Macroscopic state – this is a description that tells us how many particles there are in each place in our “vessel.” We will describe such a state in the form of a vector of ten positions (representing positions in the chain), and in each of them there is a number between 0 and 3 (the number of particles in that place). For example, the vector (1,0,0,0,0,2,0,0,0,0) describes a macroscopic state in which there is one particle in the leftmost position and two particles in the sixth position from the left. This state is macroscopic because it does not enter into the question of the state of each individual particle, nor of which exact particle is in each position. It is a description of the state of the “gas” as a whole, not of the state of each “particle” within it.

Microscopic state – this is a detailed description of the state of each particle. To describe it, we will use a vector of three positions (for particles 1, 2, and 3),^[3] where in each such position there is a number between 1 and 10 that describes the location of that particle. For example, the vector (1,6,6) describes a state in which particle no. 1 is in position 1 (the leftmost), and the next two particles are in position 6.

Now it is easy to see that there are several microscopic states that give us the same macroscopic state. For example, the following microscopic state (6,1,6) also corresponds to the macroscopic state described above. We simply exchanged the positions of particles 1 and 2. At the macroscopic level there are still two particles in position 6 and one particle in position 1, and therefore the macroscopic state of the chain did not change בעקבות this microscopic exchange. The same is true of the microscopic state (6,6,1). If so, in this case there are three microscopic states corresponding to the same macroscopic state.

When the three particles are distributed in three places in the chain (in the space of the vessel), for example, the vector (0,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,0,1) describes a macroscopic state in which there is one particle in position 4, one in position 7, and one in position 10. We then obtain the following macroscopic state: . How many microscopic states correspond to this macroscopic state? Exactly 6 states. In position 4 there may be any one of the three particles, in position 7 one of the remaining two, and in position 10 the third. For example, the microscopic state (4,7,10), or the microscopic state (10,4,7), and so on.

We can now understand the concept of order, or uniqueness, and the connection between them. Let us consider the state in which all the particles are in the rightmost compartment, that is, the macroscopic vector is (0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,3). The graphic description of this state is the following: .

How many microscopic states correspond to such a state? Only 1, of course—just this one: (10,10,10).

If so, the state in which all the particles are concentrated on one side of the vessel is more ordered, that is, more unique, than a state in which they are distributed throughout it. When they are distributed, we have 6 equivalent microscopic states, and therefore each of them is less unique.

What happens when we have 10 particles in such a chain? The most disordered (least unique) state is when they are all distributed uniformly, that is, one in each cell. The number of microscopic states that correspond to that macroscopic state is 10!, namely 3,628,800. We have obtained nearly four million different states, all equivalent, and this means that each of them is a very non-unique state. By contrast, in the state where all the particles are concentrated on the right or left side of the vessel (or in any other cell within it), there is only one microscopic state corresponding to that macroscopic state. Therefore this is a much more unique (ordered) state. It is easy to conclude that if there are even more positions and more particles, the level of disorder (lack of uniqueness) goes completely wild when the distribution is uniform, whereas a concentrated state is always ordered (unique). The larger the system, the much greater the ratio between ordered and disordered states; and in an infinite system, disorder is infinite. One can say, then, that in the infinite limit there are only disordered states.

A microscopic explanation of the second law of thermodynamics

We can now understand why, once one connects the order (the uniqueness) of the state with the entropy of the gas, the second law of thermodynamics becomes an obvious consequence. If we begin from a state in which all the particles are concentrated on the right side of the chain, and now release them and allow each of them to move freely among the positions, the macroscopic and microscopic state changes constantly at random,^[4] and the system passes among microscopic states, each of which defines a macroscopic state. Since there are many more disordered microscopic states (those corresponding to uniform distribution in the vessel) than ordered states (those in which the particles are more concentrated), the system will almost always be in a disordered state, that is, approximately uniformly distributed throughout the vessel. With an infinite number of particles and an infinite chain length, one can say that the system will always be in the most disordered state (because the number of its states is enormous compared to any other state). Therefore, in the absence of a directing hand, the system will always move toward disorder, that is, toward uniform distribution throughout the vessel. This is the meaning of the assertion that a system acting spontaneously, without a directing hand, becomes less and less ordered (that is, it occupies less and less unique states). A shattered flowerpot is likewise a less unique state (and therefore less ordered), and therefore a system without outside guidance will pass from the state of an intact flowerpot to a shattered one, and not the reverse. This is a demonstration (somewhat simplistic) of the second law of thermodynamics in a nutshell.

Two remarks to complete the picture

Of course, even in an ideal gas, each particle has additional microscopic properties beyond its location (for example, its velocity), and to analyze this we would have to repeat the process I described here, except that our chain would now really be a six-dimensional table (what physicists call “phase space”) in which each square represents a certain value of position (in three dimensions) and velocity (in three dimensions). There are systems in which additional properties appear, and then the description becomes still more complicated. But the principle we described here on the basis of location alone is valid in the more complicated systems as well.

We should also note here that from another angle one can see ordered states as information-rich states. An ordered flowerpot is a state that contains more information (the information is essentially the specific arrangement of the parts assembled together) than a shattered flowerpot (where the arrangement does not matter, and so there is almost no relevant information), and therefore it has less entropy. The second law states that in a spontaneous process we will not arrive at a state in which there is more information than in the state from which we began. A spontaneous process loses information rather than accumulating it. Information accumulates only through intentional action, whereas forgetting—that is, loss of information—can also occur on its own. The connection between information and entropy is far deeper, and here I cannot enter into it (nor is there any need to do so).

Back to the physico-theological argument

Structures such as living organisms, and our universe בכלל, are very complex structures (rich in information). We must remember that above we already rejected the option of an eternal universe (at least of our complex world). The Big Bang theory teaches us that in the beginning there was a point of matter, in which there was no life and no complex structures, and this is an utterly simple state, almost devoid of information.^[5] By contrast, we now see around us a complex and coordinated universe with an enormous variety of life forms. This means that the general entropy of the world has decreased over time (order, uniqueness, or information have increased). In simple words, the world is becoming more ordered and more complex over time; that is, our shattered flowerpot is slowly being rebuilt from its parts. But according to the second law, a process of decreasing entropy is impossible in a closed system, and therefore this means that the universe is an open system, that is, there is an outside factor acting in it and affecting it, and it is this factor that reduces its entropy. In fact, this factor is responsible for the formation of order or information. It is what imposes order on the natural chaos that should have prevailed here. In this terminology, the physico-theological argument basically infers the existence of this external factor—God—from the order that has come into being in the universe.

Here we arrive once again at a substitute for the principle of causality in the context of the physico-theological argument (Premise C in the final formulation above). At first glance, this is not the principle of causality (that every occurrence has a cause), but something a little different. We are not speaking here of a cause of an occurrence, nor of a cause of the existence of beings (on that distinction, see the notebook on the cosmological argument). We are speaking here of the existence of a factor responsible for the special structure of something. The second law teaches us that the emergence of order requires a factor that creates the order, and that factor occupies here the logical place that the principle of causality occupied in the cosmological argument.

Even so, here too, as in the notebook on the cosmological argument, one can say that this is a particular case of the principle of causality. For if, as we saw, this complexity was indeed created, or is being created (it was not always there), then that very coming-into-being is itself an occurrence in the world, and as such it requires a cause according to the principle of causality. The principle of causality deals with every occurrence, and states that an occurrence requires a cause. In the cosmological argument, we saw that the principle determining the existence of a cause for beings in our world (and for the universe itself) is also a particular case of the principle of causality, since the coming-into-being of those beings is an occurrence. Here we see that in the context of the physico-theological argument, the second law plays that role, and it too is a particular case of the principle of causality. It states that there is a cause for occurrences of a certain kind: the emergence of complexity, coordination, or order.

The role of the second law in the physico-theological argument

Precisely because of what we have just seen, in the discussion of the physico-theological argument there is no real need to use the second law of thermodynamics. What is required for the argument is nothing more than the simple intuition that lies behind it: that a complex thing does not arise spontaneously (on its own). This was apparently understood long before anyone dreamed of thermodynamics, and the mathematical version we used here (the second law) is nothing but a mathematical and scientific garment for this simple intuition. In fact, the physico-theological argument assumes that complex things do not arise by themselves, or that complexity does not arise spontaneously. Once one understands the meaning given to it by statistical mechanics, one sees that there is nothing in the second law beyond this intuition. At most, it sharpens and quantifies it.

To sharpen this still further, let us look at one implication of this distinction. The second law speaks of the increase (or non-decrease) of the total entropy of the system under discussion. There is no scientific obstacle to entropy decreasing in a certain region of the system, or the vessel (because that region is an open system with respect to influences from the rest of the vessel), so long as this is compensated by an increase of disorder in other regions of it. There can be certain regions in the system in which entropy decreases at the expense of other regions. Thus, houses can be built in one region by quarrying stones in another. In such a case, in the region of the houses order of course increases, but it decreases in the quarry region (where disorder increases). Therefore the total order in the universe may be preserved, and yet within it complex and information-rich structures (such as living creatures) may arise. If so, the second law does not prevent the emergence of living creatures; it merely states that such emergence comes at the cost of increasing the noise and turmoil in the environment (in the rest of the universe).

Does this fact undermine the physico-theological argument? Certainly not. If the argument were based on the second law, it might be that we have here an alternative proposal that renders unnecessary the conclusion about God (the external factor). Processes within the system can cause the emergence of life at the expense of disorder in its other parts. But when one looks at it philosophically, it is still clear to any reasonable person that life does not simply come into being by itself. Not even at the expense of disorder in the environment. This philosophical intuition remains intact, and it is the true basis of the physico-theological argument.

We should recall that in the cosmological argument too we did not use the law of conservation of matter, but rather the philosophical intuition that the existence of beings (of the sort given to us in experience) has a cause. So too, the physico-theological argument does not really assume the second law of thermodynamics, but the philosophical intuition that underlies it.

This is another example of the fact that when conducting a discussion of a philosophical issue and focusing on the scientific plane, we are liable to go wrong. Scientific laws are a lower threshold—a necessary but insufficient condition. Beyond them, there are philosophical intuitions that must also be taken into account, especially when one is engaged in a philosophical discussion. I will note here that we saw another example of this in Chapter 5 of the notebook on the cosmological argument, where we dealt with Anaximander’s theory of the world’s formation out of opposites. There too we saw that in such a process no conservation law is violated, and therefore the process is scientifically possible. But the philosophical intuition still says that it is improbable that such a thing would happen, and this is not contradicted by the scientific possibility. There we called this the law of conservation of being, which is a law in philosophy and not a law in physics. Also in Chapter 7 there, we pointed to a similar phenomenon in the discussion of vitalism. See also the last section of that notebook (before the conclusion), in the discussion of belief in God as a scientific claim.

1. Initial Objections to the Physico-Theological Argument

Introduction

As stated, the physico-theological argument is very ancient and very widespread. It is no wonder that objections to it have also multiplied, some from the philosophical side and others from scientific angles (for example, the objection from the second law of thermodynamics, which allows local decreases of entropy, discussed in the previous chapter). In this chapter we will present some of the more common ones.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster and other imaginary friends

One of the first questions that always arises when the physico-theological argument is presented is: why is the conclusion specifically that it is God whose existence we have proved? The external factor that ensured and ensures the complexity and coordination in the universe could just as well be the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or any other entity. All of these are creatures of the imagination, and therefore atheists tend to treat belief in God as belief in an imaginary friend. He is one among a whole host of fictional entities whose existence can supposedly be proved in the same bizarre way.

Another question is why assume there is only one God. Why not four gods, or a thousand? Yet another question that arises is why not assume that He is not infinite, but merely possesses very great powers (this is part of Kant’s own objection to this proof)? All we know is that God created the complexity and coordination of the universe (and also the universe itself, according to the cosmological argument). Are infinite abilities required for that?

All these questions, which also arise regarding the cosmological argument, testify to a misunderstanding of these arguments (the cosmological and the physico-theological). All that the cosmological argument proves is that there exists some entity that is responsible for the existence of the world (its cause), and what the physico-theological argument proves is that there exists an entity responsible for the complexity and coordination that prevail in it. One may call this entity the Flying Spaghetti Monster, God, Yekum Purkan, or any other name one chooses. One can even announce a prize for whoever proposes the most attractive name. One may assume that there are twenty-eight such beings, and place on each one’s head its own special crown. None of this has anything to do with the physico-theological proof itself. It claims only the following: there is some entity (at least one) that created/manages the world, and from this it follows that it also has the abilities (not necessarily infinite) to create such a world and such complexity. That is all. These arguments do not say what this entity is called, or that it is one entity, what exactly its characteristics and abilities are (apart from the lower bound that it is capable of creating the world and the complexity within it), and certainly do not claim that it expects us to put on phylacteries, honor parents, go to church every even-numbered day, or once every jubilee. Nor do these arguments say that this entity revealed itself to someone in this world (whether at Mount Sinai or upon the waters of the Kinneret), or that it acts rationally—or perhaps not. All these arguments teach is that there exists some entity about which we know nothing, except a lower bound on its abilities and power (the ability to create our universe and everything in it).

By the same token, the suggestion that the laws of nature themselves might be the first link in the chain—that is, the cause that produced this complexity—does not solve the problem. As we saw in the notebook on the cosmological argument, the laws of nature are not beings but descriptions of the operations of beings. Therefore they cannot cause anything; at most they describe the process of causation. At the beginning of the chain there must stand some being, and if the laws of nature are beings, then for our purposes they are God. As stated, we have said nothing about the nature and character of this being, other than that it exists and that it caused everything we see in our universe. Later we will return to the question of the laws of nature as generators of complexity from another angle.

Who created God?

This is another common question, and we already dealt with it in the notebook on the cosmological argument. There we saw that if one continues along this line of thought, one reaches an infinite regress. In other words, those raising the objection also offer no answer to this difficulty, and therefore it is not relevant to our discussion. On the contrary, the only possible conclusion is that at the beginning of the chain there is one link that does not fall under the assumption that there must be a cause for its existence or for its special character. Above, we already revised the wording of the proof in order to deal with this objection, and said that the assumption that complexity does not arise spontaneously is relevant only to beings of the sort given to us in experience.

True, one can formulate this objection in a way that is unique to the physico-theological argument. We saw above that complexity does not arise spontaneously. The factor that creates this complexity in effect invests in it information that exists within it, and thus creates it. A non-intelligent factor cannot produce a complex and coordinated thing, and that is precisely the body of our argument. But if that is so, then this factor itself must possess complexity at least equal to that of the thing it designs and assembles, for the information found within it is the basis of the complexity in the being it created (the universe). If that is the case, then again we are back at the same question: God is a complex creature (there is in Him immense information), and the question is what created that complexity? The question “who created God?” is translated here into the terminology relevant to the physico-theological argument.

But again, the answer here will be the same answer. If one continues this further, one reaches an infinite chain, or rather the conclusion that this information is primordial (eternal). It has been there from eternity. Where was it? After all, we already saw that according to modern physics our universe is not eternal. So where was this information? The place in which it was will, for us, be called God. Who or what created Him? No one. The assumption that complexity does not arise by itself, or that there is no primordial complexity, is true only of our universe and the beings within it about which we have experience. We should not apply it to other beings. On the contrary, there must be a being to which it does not apply, for otherwise we necessarily fall into an infinite regress. Exactly as we saw in the parallel discussion in the notebook on the cosmological argument. The second law of thermodynamics, which is part of physics, is also not applicable to beings that are not part of physics, and the intuition at its base is likewise not relevant to transcendental beings, nor can it be applicable to them (if we wish to avoid an infinite regress).

One can formulate this more precisely: God has always existed, and therefore the principle of causality does not require us to posit a prior cause for His complexity. There was no change of entropy over time. This complexity was always there. True, the principle of sufficient reason is relevant even to beings that have always existed, but it speaks of beings and not of complexities. And in particular, it speaks of beings that require a reason outside themselves (that are not a reason for themselves), but God is not such a being. He is His own cause and the reason for His complexity.

Objections concerning the nature of logic: begging the question and lack of certainty

There is another objection to the physico-theological proof that we must discuss. The physico-theological argument assumes that every complex thing has a creator. But, so our determined objector claims, this is nothing but begging the question. If we do not assume this premise, we will not have to arrive at the conclusion that God exists.

This claim expresses a deep misunderstanding of the nature of logic. First, every logical argument is based on premises. The only question is whether the premises are reasonable or not. Moreover, as we saw in the notebook on the ontological proof (see there in Chapters 2 and 11, and in the sources to which I referred there), every valid logical argument begs the question. Begging the question is a מצב in which the conclusion of the argument is already present in its premises. The validity of a logical argument is a result of the fact that there is nothing in the conclusion beyond what is already contained in the premises; otherwise the conclusion would not necessarily follow from the premises, that is, the argument would not be valid.

Let us now return to our discussion. At the basis of the physico-theological proof there really does lie the principle that every complex thing in our experience has a cause. This premise indeed contains within it, in the logical sense, the claim that the world has a cause (for it too is among the things given to us in experience). But as we saw, this is true of every logical argument. If so, at most there is here an accusation against physico-theological reasoning that it is a logical argument. A relevant objection to a logical argument cannot suffice with the fact that it is based on premises; it must claim that at least one of the premises is not reasonable.

If so, what remains for the objector to claim is that the assumption that a complex thing does not arise spontaneously is not reasonable in his eyes. But that is a problematic argument, because this is an entirely reasonable assumption, and it seems to me that in every other context almost everyone accepts it. There must be some special reason to qualify this principle and say that it is not relevant to a certain context. In any event, it is true that the physico-theological proof addresses only those who accept this assumption.

From this it is also clear that this argument cannot lead with certainty to the conclusion that God exists. An argument based on premises is never certain. Already in Chapter 1, we pointed out that the cosmological and physico-theological arguments are not mere conceptual analyses (as the ontological argument purports to be), and therefore they do not even pretend to be certain. Acceptance of the conclusion is conditioned on adopting the premises of the argument.

A logical objection to the structure of the argument

There are atheists who will say that the thesis about God is no more reasonable than the opposite thesis. True, we have no explanation for how this complexity arose, but in their view the explanation of God is not plausible, and therefore they prefer to remain with the question. Some will say that they are condemned to remain in wonder—which fits very well with the value placed in our world on skepticism and perplexity.

But there is a problem here. After all, the sum of the probabilities of all the possibilities must be 1. In this case there are only two possibilities: either there is a God responsible for the complexity in the universe^[6] or there is not (that is, there is some other explanation, whatever it may be). We have already seen that the probability of spontaneous emergence is negligible (see further below). The probability—or more accurately, the plausibility—of the existence of God cannot be calculated, since we have no space of possibilities and no tool with which to assess it in itself. One can only offer one speculation or another, in a believer’s direction or an atheist one. Whatever is said on this matter will not amount to much.

If so, the only way to calculate the chance that God is the one responsible for the complexity in the universe is in the following indirect way: the chance that God exists is exactly 1 minus the chance of spontaneous emergence (about which we at least have some intuition).

But perhaps there is still a third possibility? As stated, that is impossible. For our two possibilities were either that there is God or that there is spontaneous emergence. Someone or something else that created the world will also be called God for our purposes. We have already seen that the physico-theological argument does not enter into the identity of the external factor of which it speaks.

A note on the celestial teapot

It is worth briefly mentioning here an argument in favor of atheism raised by Bertrand Russell. Many quote it, because it has a very persuasive and rational ring to it. Imagine a situation in which a person appears before us and informs us that there is a small transparent teapot circling the planet Jupiter, and because of its size and transparency it cannot be observed in any way. Would it be right to say that since we know nothing about this teapot, our stance toward it should be one of doubt? Russell argues, rightly, that a rational person should not think so. We have no reason at all to accept even this possibility, and therefore it is reasonable to reject it out of hand.

If so, Russell continues, the claim that there is a God, who is not accessible to empirical-scientific tools because of His abstractness, is a similar claim. Here too it is wrong to hold even an agnostic (skeptical) stance; rather, one should reject it out of hand and maintain a decisive atheism.

This is an argument of which at least some uses are problematic. The reason for skepticism regarding the teapot is that we have no indication whatsoever (independent of the testimony in its favor) of its existence, and to the best of our estimation the speaker himself has no better information. Regarding such a teapot, I too would be an atheist. But with respect to belief in God the situation is entirely different. Here, after all, there is the physico-theological argument, which grounds the hypothesis of His existence, or at least rules out its absurdity. If someone now comes and claims that God exists (for example, he claims to have met Him at Mount Sinai), we will not be able to dismiss that out of hand. This is already a hint at the continuation of the path, from the philosophical God to the religious God, but I will deal with that in another notebook later on.

1. God Is Not an Explanation: On Two Types of Explanations

Introduction

In this chapter I would like to deal with a different kind of objection to the physico-theological argument. Even if the conclusion is indeed that God exists, this does not constitute an explanation of who created the complexity in our universe. Others go even further and claim that the conclusion that God exists in fact says nothing at all. So long as we have not defined what we are talking about, this is a kind of nonsense.

The objection: is God an explanation?

I will present this common argument in a formulation taken from an article by Eliyahu Leibowitz:^[7]

The main weakness of the idea of intelligent design lies in the fact that one cannot see in it any explanation at all of the phenomenon it purports to explain. The central argument underlying it can be presented as follows: no sensible person would think that the marvelous paintings painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel came into being as a result of random processes, without intention and without intelligence. The same is true of an F-16 aircraft. All the more so, such an explanation is required for biological systems in the world, whose complexity is incomparably greater.

Yet this inference is based on a foolish a fortiori argument. The supposition that an intelligent creature designed the F-16 is indeed a satisfactory explanation for the existence of this complex system, because we know of the existence of aeronautical engineers independently of our acquaintance with the airplane itself. The thought that an intelligent human hand painted the Sistine Chapel explains the paintings only because we have prior knowledge of the existence of creatures that can design and execute such paintings.

With respect to the natural world and the universe, we have no prior knowledge of the existence of an intelligence capable of designing it. Inferring from the existence of the complex and wondrous world to the reality of an intelligent designer is not an explanation of the phenomenon, but a psychological result of it.

The problem of grounding the familiar in the unfamiliar

At first glance, his claim is correct. How can one treat an argument that proposes unfamiliar beings as producing the familiar phenomena as an “explanation”? When we want to explain something we do not understand, we try to ground it in familiar things. But here we are grounding the familiar (the universe) in the unfamiliar (God).

First, it is important to note that we are not looking for explanations. The physico-theological claim does not offer an explanation for anything; it simply derives from its premises the conclusion that there is an intelligent factor in the background. Even if this did not explain anything, if the argument is valid then that is still the conclusion that follows from it.

But Leibowitz’s more fundamental mistake lies in the fact that he does not distinguish between two kinds of explanation. An explanation in the everyday context (and sometimes also in the scientific context) is indeed a “reduction to the familiar.” When we want to understand why a plane fell, we look for some malfunction in its systems. If there was a crack in the wing, that explains the crash, because the not-yet-understood phenomenon (the crash of the plane) is explained by means of a familiar phenomenon (the laws of nature). So too an explanation of the tides in terms of gravitational force. By contrast, when Newton first explained the tides, he did not yet know the force of gravity. He needed a kind of explanation that uncovers a new scientific law, and such an explanation is by definition the opposite of the usual explanation: grounding the familiar (the tides) in the unfamiliar (gravitational force). The philosopher of science Carl Hempel describes the construction of a scientific theory in the deductive-nomological scheme, according to which a scientific explanation of a phenomenon contains a general law from which one can derive, by deductive means, the phenomenon as a particular case of the general law. This is precisely a grounding in the unfamiliar, which is the lifeblood of science.

When we explain the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by saying that someone painted it, this is a grounding in the familiar. We know that there are people who are capable of painting, and therefore we succeed in grounding the phenomenon before us in a familiar law. But if we were not acquainted with any painter, what would we have to do? Would we have had to assume that these paintings created themselves? Certainly not. In such a case, we would assume that there is some factor unknown to us that painted them. This is an explanation that grounds the phenomenon standing before us (the familiar) in a claim about something unfamiliar.

Explanations that ground the unfamiliar in the familiar characterize a situation in which the inference does not add new knowledge. In the terms of Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy of science, this is a state of ‘normal science,’ in which the existing paradigm rules and succeeds in supplying reasonable explanations for all the relevant phenomena. By contrast, at the stage where the existing paradigm fails, we look for a new paradigm (a scientific revolution, in Kuhn’s term). In such a situation, only explanations that ground the familiar in the unfamiliar can succeed. We seek a new, unfamiliar paradigm that will explain things with respect to which the existing paradigm has failed. That is precisely how science advances: from the familiar to the unfamiliar. If all our explanations were merely grounds in the familiar, how would science ever advance? The stages at which science progresses are precisely those situations in which we propose an unfamiliar explanation for the phenomena before us. Once the unfamiliar law has been proposed, one can base explanations of additional phenomena on it, and now they already have the character of grounding in the familiar.

In the yeshiva where I studied, there was a young man who came down with jaundice. After about half a year of intermittent hospitalization, they brought him a “sorcerer” who placed pigeons on his navel. One after another they died, and lo and behold, after a few days he returned to the yeshiva healthy. When I told this to my parents, they mocked the mysticism and irrationality of yeshiva boys, and warmly recommended that I abandon that way of thinking. But as I told them, in my opinion in this case they were mistaken. A rational person should not cling to what he already knows or thinks, but should be open to accepting new facts and thinking about them in order to build for himself a broader and more updated picture of the world. A rational person should be prepared to accept new explanations that ground the familiar in the unfamiliar.

What my parents represented in our debate was not rationality but rationalism. A rational person accepts facts and then thinks about them. By contrast, a rationalistic person is unwilling to accept facts that do not fit his paradigm. “This is metaphysics,” he claims, or a grounding in the unfamiliar. He is not willing to accept metaphysical explanations even where they are called for, despite having no other explanation. If Newton or Einstein had been such rationalists, instead of being rational, we would never have discovered new scientific worlds. We would always demand explanations that ground the unfamiliar in the familiar, and persist in the existing paradigm without any willingness to depart from it. Such conservatism and mental rigidity are usually attributed to religious thinking, but it turns out that they appear no less, and perhaps more, in the domains of the atheist.

Comparison to scientific explanation

The physico-theological argument is structured as follows:

Premise A: The world is complex.

Premise B: None of the factors known to me can create such a world.

Premise C: A complex world does not arise by itself.

Conclusion: There apparently exists some other factor, unknown to me, that created it. Let us call it “God.”

A parallel argument concerning gravitational force (in Newton’s time, when it was not yet known) is structured as follows:

Premise A: I see before my eyes phenomena such as tides, or the falling of objects to the earth.

Premise B: None of the forces or factors known to me can produce these phenomena.

Premise C: Physical phenomena must have a cause (they do not just happen by themselves).

Conclusion: There is apparently some factor not yet known to me that produces these phenomena. Let us call it “gravitational force.”

In Leibowitz’s eyes, the second argument is an explanation, whereas the first is not. But what exactly is the difference between them? In both cases, we are offered something unfamiliar that explains things for which we have no other explanation. The logical structure of the physico-theological argument meets the same logical standards met by a scientific theory. It too proceeds from the familiar (the universe) to the unfamiliar (God). To remove any doubt: I am not claiming here that belief in God is a scientific theory. As we saw at the end of the notebook on the cosmological proof, the claim that God exists is not subject to empirical falsification, and therefore it is not a scientific claim. But as we saw, the path to it has the same logical structure as any proposal of a new scientific law.

And yet, a scientific claim

Perhaps one can even say more than this. If the complexity of the world really does point to the existence of an external factor responsible for it, then we are dealing with a scientific claim. It is just that the experiment that puts it to a falsification test has already been carried out: look at the universe and see whether or not it is complex and coordinated. We have already done that, and therefore we have also already inferred the required conclusion (that God exists). The matter is similar to the claim that the crow I saw yesterday is black. Is that a scientific claim? It cannot be put to a falsification test, for any crow I see today, even if it is found to be white, is not necessarily yesterday’s crow. Does that cast any doubt on the truth of that claim? Its falsification test was already conducted yesterday, and it passed it successfully. So too, the falsification test for the theory of God’s existence has already been conducted, and therefore the fact that no further test can now be conducted (apart from closing our eyes and opening them again to see whether the world is still complex—but even that would only refute the existence of God at this very moment, whereas a moment קודם He existed) changes nothing.

What must stand the falsification test here are the premises of the argument: 1. that a world exists. 2. that the world is complex/coordinated. 3. that a complex thing of this sort does not arise spontaneously (if it arose), and is not spontaneously there without sufficient reason (even if it was never produced). All these premises are reasonable, and every reasonable person accepts them as true. In particular, premise 3, which is the one most attacked, certainly stands up to all the falsification tests constantly being applied to it in physics (= the second law). The existence of God is only a specific application of this law, and therefore it need not itself stand falsification tests. When one calculates a particular solution of a known equation in physics for a specific case, no one demands that this solution stand a falsification test. At most, the theory at its base (the equation) stands such a test: if the solution does not fit what actually happens, then apparently the theory (or the equation) is incorrect.

To summarize, the existence of God is not a theory. The relevant theory is that complexity does not arise by itself. God is a particular case that applies this theory to the universe as a whole, and that is all. Whoever claims that this theory is not valid regarding the universe as a whole—this we already dealt with in the notebook on the cosmological proof when we spoke about pantheism.

What is the meaning of the concept “God”?

A claim similar to the previous one concerns the meaning of the concept of God. In fact, we have not defined it, and therefore it tells us nothing. We know nothing about Him except that He solves for us the problem of the emergence of the universe’s complexity. But such a thing is not a real solution. When we have some problem, it is not enough to say that there is a solution without describing that solution; but apparently that is exactly what is done in the physico-theological argument. We had a problem—where did the universe’s complexity (entropy) come from, or how was it created?—and the answer is that there is something, about which we can say nothing, that created it. Have we thereby said anything at all? Is this not just wordplay?

Here too, it seems that this objection suffers from a basic misunderstanding. The physico-theological argument does not come to say anything about the essence of that factor. It merely infers the necessary conclusion from its premises. If every complex thing must have some external factor that creates it, and our universe is complex, then there must be some external factor that created it. Whether one calls it God or any other name is really unimportant. Just as we saw regarding the claim about gravitational force. If we were to see the paintings in the Sistine Chapel and had no acquaintance with painters, that very fact would teach us of their existence. What would we know about the concept “painter”? Nothing, except that it has the power to paint. The existence of the painting proves that there is someone who can paint it. This is so even if we cannot say anything else about him: what is his name? How does he behave? Whether and what he wants from us? And so on.

Imagine that you are walking along the seashore and find strange tracks in the sand, something you have never seen in your life. Would you not infer from this that something or someone walked there and left its mark in the sand? True, you cannot say anything about it except that it has such-and-such a shape of tracks, and apparently you have said nothing beyond the fact that these tracks have a cause. Is this necessary? Certainly not. Is it scientific? Also not (because we do not know how to propose a prediction that would follow from the suggestion that someone was here leaving these tracks in the sand). And yet, it seems a very logical and plausible conclusion to any rational person. If so, we can now return to Fred Hoyle’s airplane or to Paley’s watch described at the beginning of the notebook, and see that their arguments are entirely plausible and sensible.

Two further remarks

To conclude the chapter, I will bring here two claims that appeared in the comments to my series of articles in YNET-Science, because they are typical and express kinds of misunderstanding that are important to remove.

One of the respondents there (Dan from Tel Aviv) claimed that science does not assume the existence of causes, but at most conjectures their existence and looks for them. But in my view Dan is factually mistaken. I invite readers to conduct an experiment. Tell a scientist who studies some phenomenon that he is really wasting his time, because these phenomena simply happen by themselves, without any cause. According to Dan’s view, the scientist ought to answer: “It is certainly possible that you are right, my dear friend, but let us check and see—perhaps, surprisingly, we will nevertheless find some cause.” By contrast, I claim that an ordinary scientist will say something like: “Don’t confuse me with your mystical hallucinations. Nothing in the world happens without a cause.”

It seems to me that this is how rational and scientific thought operates. In the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, we assume that things happen because of someone or something that produces them. Apart from some esoteric cases in quantum theory (and even there it is not clear whether there really is no cause; see below, Chapter 11), the facts are that we always attribute events and things to causes.

Moreover, as I already mentioned in the notebook on the cosmological argument, we do not find causes but automatically assume their existence (for every connection that appears causal to us can be interpreted, as Hume suggested, as mere temporal succession). We regard it as a causal connection because of the a priori assumption of our rational thinking that, generally speaking, things do not happen without a cause. I remind the reader again that I am not speaking here about certainty but about plausibility.

Another respondent (Asaf from Haifa) argued there: “The assumption [=of scientific rationality] is not ‘physical phenomena must have a cause (they do not happen by themselves),’ but rather: ‘systems in nature operate according to certain laws’…” But Asaf is mistaken in that he confuses two different concepts: the law of gravitation is a mathematical description of physical events. But the force of gravitation is an entity that produces those events. Physicists assume not only the correctness of a law of gravitation but also the existence of a gravitational force. As I already mentioned, the law does not cause anything. In order to offer a causal explanation of any phenomenon, there must stand some entity in the background. By the way, physicists assume this even before they have observed this force or its consequences.^[8] This is another indication that we are dealing with an a priori assumption of rational thought. Only afterward do they approach the task of examining the predictions of the proposed theory.

The conclusion is that the physico-theological argument is entirely parallel to scientific inference and fits the scientific way of thinking perfectly. A person may disagree with it, and with scientific thinking generally. But I find it difficult to understand someone who attacks it in the name of scientific thinking itself.

1. The Objection from Evolution

Introduction

The eternal debate between those called creationists and neo-Darwinians creates the impression that there is at least one point on which both sides agree: that there is a contradiction between belief in God as Creator of the world and acceptance of the neo-Darwinian picture (evolution). In this chapter I will show that both sides are mistaken about this. I note that I devoted an entire book to this question, God Plays Dice, Yediot Sefarim 2011,^[9] and therefore here I will suffice with a summary of the important points.

The neo-Darwinian picture in a nutshell

In the beginning there was the Big Bang, from which the universe began to expand (with the kind assistance of the symmetry breaking of the “divine” Higgs). After that, the expansion creates stars and galaxies (gravity overcomes the other fundamental forces). This is accompanied by cooling to a temperature that allows our existence. At the next stage, either randomly (a lucky accident, in Dawkins’s opinion), or as a result of abiogenesis (the emergence of life out of inanimate reality, a field currently under intense research though so far without clear results), the initial protein chains were formed. From there on, the name of the game is evolution. In this process, from those initial protein chains are formed living creatures of various kinds, which continue to improve and diversify.

It is interesting to present this thesis דווקא in the language of Rabbi Yosef Albo, author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim (who was active in Spain at the beginning of the fifteenth century). In Chapter 1 of the Third Treatise of his book he writes:

When we examined the matter of the forms found in matter and all the lower beings that come into being, we found that all of them proceed along the path of perfection, some from others—that is to say, the later form is more noble than those that preceded it, and it is as if matter is always moving in receiving forms from the level of deficiency to the level of perfection. For it first receives the basest form, and then the more noble form, ascending level after level… to the most perfect… And just as in one motion each part is for the sake of the part that follows it, so it seems that this is the case with the lower generated beings, that each part is for the sake of the part that follows it… generation rises level after level, until in the end it is elevated to the human form… And what indicates that matter is always moving from deficient existence to perfect existence, in accordance with the refinement of the mixture, is that we find coral, which is like an intermediate between the inanimate and the vegetative; and we find the sea sponge, which has only the sense of feeling, and is like the intermediate between the vegetative and the animal; and we find the ape, which is like an intermediate between the species of animals and the human species.

But this is of course only an anecdote, since no one will seriously claim that Rabbi Albo knew the theory of evolution in the fifteenth century. It is a successful intuition, apparently based on the facts and on the biblical description at the beginning of the book of Genesis, where creation is presented as a gradual process that begins with the inanimate, passes to the vegetative, then to the animal, and finally reaches the human being.

To present the evolutionary stage in a more concrete and scientifically precise way, let us say that in the neo-Darwinian picture the development of species and living creatures proceeds through two-way relations between genotype (the genetic structure of the living being) and phenotype (its external form as determined by the genetic structure). This process is made up of three elements:

1. The formation of mutations. The genetic structure of the protein chain undergoes various changes for various reasons (usually regarded as random), and thus protein chains with different structures are formed. Each such chain (genotype) develops into a somewhat different living creature (phenotype).
2. Natural selection. All the different creatures produced by the process of mutation formation undergo a struggle for survival with the environment. The result is that only those that are better able to survive (the fitter ones) survive, while the rest become extinct.
3. Genetics. The creatures that survive the process of natural selection pass their traits on to their offspring, and thus the fitter traits are transmitted to the next generations.

This three-stage process is really one link in the evolutionary process. The new chains formed through this link of course undergo שוב and again the same three-stage processes—mutations, natural selection, and genetic inheritance—and so on, over and over.

Thus the living world continues to develop and becomes more and more fit and sophisticated. Once the Big Bang succeeded, by some process (chance, or abiogenesis), in reaching a simple and initial protein chain, this three-stage process repeated itself countless times in many places and times in the history of our universe. Every stage continued to develop in the same way, and thus different and varied genetic chains were formed, each of which developed correspondingly different and varied creatures. The process, of course, continues even today, onward and onward.

Where exactly is the collision?

The question asked here is: what does the entire neo-Darwinian picture have to do with belief in God? In what way is this fascinating scientific description relevant to our discussion? Indeed, in what sense does evolution contradict His existence more than gravity, chemistry, or the theory of electricity? The truth is that there is almost no connection. The fact that there is a theoretical description of the process of the development and increasing sophistication of life says almost nothing about theological questions. In principle, God can of course create these processes, and even manage them on an ongoing basis by operating the biological laws. The fact that we know how to describe the modes of occurrence (which can be the very modes of operation of God Himself) has nothing whatever to do with the question of God’s existence. Therefore it is quite clear that there is no contradiction at all between neo-Darwinism as such and belief in God. The fact that I know how to explain how some system works does not mean that it has no designer or manager. If we explain how a factory works, or a machine such as a washing machine, does that necessarily mean that no one created them or manages them? An explanation in terms of laws merely describes the mode of operation of the creator or manager.

So what is all the noise about? Are all these people making so basic a mistake? We must remember that both sides—the fundamentalist creationists no less than the atheist neo-Darwinians—share the conception that there is a contradiction here. They disagree only over which horn of this dilemma to choose and which to reject. Both agree that one cannot hold both, and therefore believers choose the horn of faith and cast away evolution, while among atheists the opposite is the case. As stated, we will immediately see that both are mistaken in this.

The only place where such a conflict can apparently arise is not at all on the plane of faith itself (as we saw above), but solely on the plane of the ways of arriving at it. Believers can arrive at faith in God in many different ways. The first wing consists of those whom tradition brings to faith. In the second wing are those moved by religious intuitions or religious feelings. In the third, the biblical wing, are those who find in Scripture insights and an impact that cannot be ignored. The fourth wing, the historical one, is made up of those impressed by history (in the Jewish case: the history of the people of Israel, such as its survival and its return to its land). The fifth wing speaks of God as the guarantor of morality, and proves His existence from morality (this is the fourth proof in the Kantian classification that accompanies us throughout). And in the sixth and last wing are those who arrive at faith by means of various philosophical arguments (proofs). Our concern here is only with those who belong to the sixth wing, the philosophical one.

But even here our narrowing-down is not complete. This wing, like its companions, is divided into different parties, and we have already seen throughout the notebooks עד here that they number three. Immanuel Kant, in his book Critique of Pure Reason, divided the variety of philosophical proofs for the existence of God into three central types: ontological proofs—conceptual a priori arguments that prove the existence of God by means of logical-conceptual analysis; cosmological proofs—which prove the existence of God from the mere fact that the universe exists; and physico-theological proofs—which prove the existence of God from the design, coordination, and complexity of the universe. Again, we are focusing here only on the third category (the party), the physico-theological one, and only on it.

But even here we are not done. This party, like the others, is itself divided into factions. Physico-theological arguments rely on the fact that the universe around us is very complex, or bears the appearance of something designed, and from this infer the existence of a designer or assembler. One may divide these kinds of complexity according to scientific disciplines: there are complexities of the inanimate world, described by physics and chemistry. Others belong to the world of living things and plants, and are described by biology, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. We are concerned only with the faction of arguments that relies on biology. These are the physico-theological arguments that depend on the greatest complexity in the universe—life. Out of the entire theological map we are focusing only on this faction, the life-sciences faction, within the physico-theological party in the philosophical wing. Here, and only here, is there a point at which the neo-Darwinian objection can acquire significance. Evolution, and the neo-Darwinian picture in general, actually refute the premise of the physico-theological argument of this sort.

A bird’s-eye view of the conflict: the theological irrelevance of evolution

As remembered, Dawkins claims that the assertion that God does not exist is a scientific conclusion. By contrast, those of a fundamentalist religious stance hold that from the perspective of commitment to faith, evolution cannot be correct.

But if we summarize what we have seen so far, first of all it is clear that both are mistaken. There is no contradiction at all between belief in God as such and neo-Darwinism, contrary to the agreement of both sides (as noted, both agree that such a contradiction exists). As we saw, neo-Darwinism at most refutes one of the ways of arriving at faith in God, but not necessarily the conclusion itself. Moreover, even among the ways of arriving at faith in God, we saw that the conflict arises only in the philosophical wing (which is one among many ways to faith). And even in that wing, the conflict exists only in the physico-theological party (which is at least one of three in Kant’s classification). And even within it, the conflict can arise only in the faction of formulations that tie the physico-theological conclusion to the emergence of life and not to other complexities (of inanimate things). Every such wing, party, and faction contains several different formulations and nuances, so the number of ways of arriving at faith in God is very large. It should be remembered that this is not science, though it does involve facts. Categorically speaking, the existence of God is a factual claim. A believer does not merely report feelings and sensations, but makes a factual claim: God exists. The claim may be true or not, but categorically it is a factual claim. And since this is not science (for belief in God predicts nothing and is not subject to empirical falsification), in this matter each person may hold to his own way.

If so, even if we accept the atheist claims, it is important to understand where at most they can take us: out of the multitude of ways of arriving at faith, neo-Darwinism disqualifies the way based on philosophical arguments of the particular physico-theological type, and within it only the formulations based on the complexity of life. Evolution may at most neutralize one out of 119 ways to faith. Not terribly significant, is it? This is the first plane on which the theological irrelevance of evolution is demonstrated.

Now let us assume, only for the sake of discussion, the worst possible assumption—as though this were the only way to arrive at faith. Even then, neo-Darwinism at most pulls the rug out from under the proof in an argument of this kind. Does that necessarily invalidate its conclusion (that there is a God)? Certainly not. At most it means that at the moment we have no proof for the existence of God. And what of someone who does not need proofs? If someone sees the existence of God as a basic intuition, no less good than the principle of causality or induction and the foundations of scientific thought in general (which are all a priori), or if he arrives at it in one of the other 118 ways, has anything happened to his faith? The fact that some argument is invalid, or that one of its premises turns out to be false, says very little about the truth of its conclusion. This is the second plane that demonstrates the theological irrelevance of evolution.

It is not clear, then, in what sense neo-Darwinism turns atheism into a scientific claim. After all, it does not even turn it into a true claim. One can embrace neo-Darwinism whole, lock, stock, and barrel and remain a devout believer. By the same token, it is not clear why fundamentalist believers feel such a strong need to reject neo-Darwinism out of hand (it is important to note that this is not done only because of the first plane of conflict, namely, the contradiction with the biblical description). Dawkins, his friends, and their opponents will have to explain.

In truth, I could have ended the discussion here. The question is removed from the debate in disgrace. And yet, for the sake of readers who belong to the philosophical wing, and within it to the physico-theological party, and within it to the faction that bases its arguments on life, I will continue and show a third plane of the theological irrelevance of evolution. It turns out that even the members of this faction need not resign. As we shall see immediately, this faction too—to which I humbly have the honor to belong—has an honored place in our philosophical parliament. This is the third plane of the theological irrelevance of evolution, and because evolution concerns only it, I will devote the remainder of my remarks to it. Later I will try to show that even this minor result the objection from evolution fails to achieve.

I already mentioned that there is one point regarding which a marvelous consensus prevails between those who hold the neo-Darwinian philosophy (the atheists who base themselves on neo-Darwinism) and the creationists, and that is that there is a contradiction between the neo-Darwinian scientific picture and belief in God as Creator. Regrettably, I am forced to spoil the joy aroused by this small agreement. Neo-Darwinism does not succeed in causing even this small theological damage, and indeed, contrary to the above consensus, it does not touch the theological discussion at all. On the contrary, we will see below that the physico-theological argument probably even receives some strengthening in light of the findings of neo-Darwinism, again contrary to the conception of creationists and neo-Darwinians alike. Bottom line: in the next chapter we will see that there is no obstacle whatever to holding belief in God simultaneously with a neo-Darwinian scientific picture, and in fact this is even called for.

Rejecting the Objection from Evolution: There Is No Full Scientific Explanation

To save time, I will deal with this whole package together, almost without going into the scientific details. As a first step, one could raise the claim that a full materialist picture must address all stages of the process, from the Big Bang onward, and not only evolution. For example, it must describe and explain how the first protein chain was formed without a guiding hand. Here, of course, there is no evolutionary solution, since evolution exists only from the moment there are already protein chains that change and produce phenotypes that undergo natural selection and heredity, as I described above. As noted, there is intensive research on abiogenesis, and Dawkins argues that this was a one-time successful event. But all these are assertions, not proposals. If, in the domain of the evolutionary process, there really is a scientific picture that serves as an alternative to the creationist claim about the hand of God, all this is currently still a scientific work in progress. To mount a real challenge, the challenger must offer a concrete proposal that can actually be addressed.

One can add here another claim made by many creationists, namely that there are gaps in the evolutionary process itself. There are certain jumps in the process that the theory does not succeed in explaining, and apparently cannot explain either (these are the missing links, or the missing stages in the scientific account of the development of species). There are many different kinds of gaps, and quite a few arguments for why they cannot be filled, but we will not go into all that here, because as we shall immediately see, the issue of gaps is not important at all for the theological discussion. In any case, the creationists argue that at least at those points of gap, where we have no scientific explanation, we should infer the involvement of an external factor: God. The controversy surrounding these jumps is fierce and nasty, cynical, and above all dishonest. Each side recruits partial quotations to its cause; both sides conceal relevant information so that, heaven forbid, it should not reach the opposing camp and the public; and in the final analysis it seems that although some of these gaps can indeed be explained, a scientific theory never reaches a state of complete perfection. There will always be, and perhaps always will be, such gaps. This brings us to the issue of God of the gaps.

god of the gaps

As for the objection from abiogenesis, perhaps one could still argue that the scientific solution is no longer far-fetched, and therefore the necessity of the physico-theological argument no longer exists. This is of course not a scientific claim, since one could have made it even three thousand years ago: perhaps a scientific explanation will be found that makes the conclusion about God unnecessary. The same can be said on the level of the gaps in the evolutionary process itself: just as we have closed gaps in scientific knowledge in the past, it is likely that these gaps too will gradually be closed, and therefore nothing should be proved from them.

This is essentially the common claim about God of the gaps. Many atheists argue categorically that one must not prove the existence of God on the basis of gaps in scientific knowledge. Such gaps should be reduced through research, not turned into conclusions. In the past we lacked a great deal of scientific knowledge; was God’s existence therefore more necessary? The fact is that scientific knowledge advances and expands, and who knows what the future holds?! One cannot know in advance what explanation will be found and what will not. If Newton, Pasteur, Lavoisier, Edison, or Einstein, who stood before phenomena they did not understand (gaps in the scientific knowledge of their time), had been satisfied with the conclusion that God did it and had not carried out scientific research, today we would still be at Adam’s level of scientific knowledge. A gap in scientific knowledge is a reason to deepen research, not to draw theological conclusions.

Let me say in advance that I fully accept this claim (and later we will see that it too is not important for the discussion). But I cannot refrain from noting that atheism does allow itself to make claims on the basis of gaps, or despite gaps. Just as one cannot know in advance that research will fail to understand something, so too one cannot know in advance that it will succeed. Therefore a claim in favor of atheism on the basis of gaps in scientific knowledge is equally puzzling. For some reason, atheists do not always take this symmetry as their guiding light (nor do creationists, of course, only on the other side). On the contrary, one might have argued that if at present we do not know something, then the given situation is that the knowledge does not exist, and therefore the burden of proof is on the one who claims that this gap will be closed in the future. But all this is idle hair-splitting. Personally, I tend to accept the claim that nothing should be inferred from ignorance, or from a lack of scientific knowledge, neither one way nor the other. Perhaps because the gap in knowledge will be closed, and perhaps even if it is not closed, that is only our problem. Maybe the information exists, but for various reasons we will not succeed in discovering it.

Well then, how do we proceed? Is the physico-theological argument itself not an inference from ignorance, even if only temporary?

1. The argument from the laws

Rejecting the objection from evolution: Shakespeare and other animals

Now we will see that our discussion has no need for any of this. For the sake of the discussion I am prepared, already now, to accept the hypothesis that science will succeed in finding a satisfactory explanation for the origin of life and for all the stages of the process from the Big Bang until our own day. And as noted, I too agree that nothing should be inferred from ignorance that may be temporary. My main claim is entirely different: by the very definition of science, every scientific explanation for the development of the world is given to us within a system of natural laws. The explanation describes how the explained process occurs according to the natural laws known to us. This is unlike mathematics, which is nothing but universal logical-conceptual analysis. The laws of science differ from the laws of logic and mathematics precisely at this point. The laws of mathematics and logic are necessarily true and do not depend on observation. They could not have been otherwise than they are. By contrast, the laws of science are the result of observation. There certainly could have been a different reality, in which the laws of science were completely different.

But precisely for this reason, scientific explanations are irrelevant to the theological discussion. An explanation could have theological significance, that is, serve as a relevant alternative to the theological proposal that God is responsible for the complexity with which we are dealing, only if it did not require natural laws, but instead followed from logical-conceptual analysis alone (as with the ontological proof). But that is, of course, impossible. If natural laws were the product of purely logical-conceptual analysis, that would mean that physics and biology and all the other sciences are branches of mathematics, or of logic. Of course, in such a case science would not be empirically falsifiable, nor would it contain information about the world (see the notebook on the ontological proof, chapter 14).

I will clarify this through a common example. To sharpen the physico-theological argument, creationists ask: what is the probability that a monkey jumping on a keyboard would randomly produce the phrase "To be or not to be" beneath its feet? Very small, of course. And if we speak of a full Shakespeare sonnet, the probability of course drops dramatically. As for the complexity of the world in all its fullness, the probability of accidental emergence is virtually zero.

Now in an article published in the 1980s in Scientific American, a "decisive" answer to this claim was published. Someone anonymous (the argument is so foolish that mentioning his name would amount to slander; you can find him on any atheist website) reported the results of the following experiment. Take the 14-letter Hebrew string corresponding to "to be or not to be." The probability that a random draw of strings of that length would produce that sequence is negligible, since there are 22¹⁴ possible combinations. At the speed of his computer, such a string would be expected to appear only after about 200,000 years.

But that clever anonymous writer performed a different experiment: he drew the letters one by one, and each time he reached a correct letter he "froze" it, and then continued drawing. In other words, the computer begins by drawing single letters (not strings). When it reaches the correct first letter, it is immediately frozen, and then the computer continues drawing the next letter. When it reaches the correct second letter, that too is frozen, and it continues onward. And so it proceeds until it reaches the full string. Guess how long it took the computer to finish this way? 90 seconds. An entire Shakespeare play came out in four and a half days. The Flying Spaghetti Monster had wrought a miracle, and for the atheists there were light and gladness, joy and honor. The claim was that the creationist argument about monkeys randomly producing a Shakespeare sonnet is irrelevant because the evolutionary process (the analogue) is not random. It has a direction of continual improvement through the three-stage process described at the beginning of the chapter: mutations, natural selection, and heredity, and then the cycle repeats. True, there is no guiding hand in such a process, but this is not an arbitrary and directionless process. Its success is not such a great miracle as creationists think. The illustration is the controlled monkey dance described in the computer experiment above. From 200,000 years we moved to a few dozen seconds. So in 14 billion years, such a controlled dance can create a world and diverse life forms such as we see. Therefore, the neo-Darwinians argue, there is no need to infer the existence of a guiding hand in order to explain the complexity created in this process.

I assume that the physicists and mathematicians among us are rubbing their eyes in astonishment, not at the results, but at the folly. One could have reached this result in a few minutes with pen and paper by a simple probability calculation, and thus spared the readers their time, the electricity required to run the computer in that experiment, and the ecological damage to the forests of Brazil caused by printing the article. What this fascinating simulation revealed to us is nothing more than the amazing discovery that if the process is not random, but rather there is an external factor that makes sure the correct results are obtained, then the probability of obtaining them rises dramatically and the time it takes correspondingly falls. I can think of a more sophisticated experiment that would do this even better: write a program instructing the computer to print the string "to be or not to be." In that case the result would be obtained within millionths of a second, because a not especially complicated calculation would show that in one pass we would get the desired result (if not, the computer’s non-intelligent programmer should be fired). In general, if there had been computers in Shakespeare’s day, he could have saved himself quite a bit of time…

Implications for the theological discussion

Ironically, this foolish experiment, which is hard to believe is quoted so often on atheist websites, is actually a demonstration in favor of the physico-theological argument. The creationist claim is that the probability of the accidental formation of a complex thing is negligible. The neo-Darwinians respond that the process is not accidental, because there are factors that dramatically improve the chances of accidental formation (the laws of evolution: feedback, natural selection, etc.), or in Dawkins’s phrasing, they "make the slope of Mount Improbable less steep."

But the physico-theologian asks himself: if such an improbable process did in fact happen in so short a time, does that not mean there was a programmer here who tampered a bit with the randomness of the process? If we were to see a computer that produced the string "to be or not to be" within a few seconds, would we not infer from this the existence of a programmer and the fact that the process is directed rather than random?

In other words, the physico-theological argument asks what the sufficient reason is for those constraints that improved the process. Just as in the example one must ask who the programmer was (or whether there is a programmer), so in the analogue we must ask who it was that intervened in the random process of the formation of the universe and the life within it, and made sure that it would safely reach its goal. An explanation by means of natural laws is merely an analogue to the constraints that improved the performance of the computer program described above. Therefore any explanation by means of natural laws that explains why an extremely rare process in fact has a reasonable probability is irrelevant to our discussion. The physico-theological question remains exactly where it was, except that instead of being directed at the origin of life it will be directed at the laws that govern it.

Let us continue the analogy and take as an example a not especially long protein chain, about 300 codons. Since there are about twenty kinds of amino acid, the number of possible combinations of such chains is 20³⁰⁰, an immense number by any standard. The question now arises: how did precisely the "living" chains come into being, that is, those that replicate in the life process? Is it plausible that this happened by chance, like the monkeys jumping on the keyboard in the example above, or is it more plausible that there was a "computer program" here that ensured it would happen more quickly? The physico-theological argument claims that it is more plausible that such a program indeed exists. The atheists argue against it that this "program" is simply the laws of nature. These are the "constraints" on the drawing in the evolutionary process, what makes sure to freeze successful results and continue onward, and thus the process is broken down into small stages whose probability of occurring is higher. But if so, then there is no disagreement at all: the physico-theological argument does not deny that there are laws guiding the process, but as we have seen more than once, laws are not a cause of anything. They are a description of some mode of operation. The question is who the lawgiver is who made the laws exactly as they are (the programmer who set the rules of the draw that led so quickly to the string "to be or not to be")?

Stephen Gould, one of the best-known researchers of evolution, also tried to demonstrate how a random process may lead to a special result without assuming the involvement of any external factor. Think of a drunk who leaves a tavern and begins staggering randomly along the sidewalk. On his right there is a wall and on his left a ditch. Despite the randomness, and despite the lack of involvement of any external factor, Gould argued, at the end of the process it is clear that the drunk will be lying in the ditch. Here, then, is a random process that leads to a special and predetermined result, without a guiding hand. And again, this example is identical to the dancing-monkey example discussed above, and therefore the same mistake is present here as well. This is precisely the physico-theological proof of the existence of an external factor. There was someone here who created the circumstances that led the drunk, against his will, into the ditch. The one who built the wall and the ditch along the exit from the tavern is the one who led the drunk into the ditch. This did not happen randomly and without a guiding hand. The guiding hand used some mechanism in order to carry out its purposes.

If so, the question with which the physico-theological argument is concerned is: what is the sufficient reason for the existence of these laws? How were they created? Why are they as they are? What is now unique and ordered is not reality itself, but the laws that govern it, yet the same physico-theological question remains in place: if there are such special laws that efficiently and reliably lead to the desired result (the creation of life in all its forms), then there is some factor that constitutes a sufficient reason for them, and that is God. This is essentially a physico-theological argument that again leads us to an intelligent factor, or a guiding hand. The example of the computer program merely demonstrates and illustrates the power of the physico-theological argument.

Within the laws and outside them: the argument from the laws

The critical point here is the distinction between an argument conducted within the laws and one conducted outside them. There is a process whose probability of occurring is, a priori, negligible. We now find laws, or constraints, that significantly improve that probability (freezing the correct letters, or the laws of nature). The argument within the laws says that the process is now plausible, since the laws allow the spontaneous emergence of life, and therefore it rejects the physico-theological argument that is based on the improbability of the process. But the argument outside the laws says that the laws themselves are what require us to posit the intervention of an intelligent factor. What is improbable here is not the process within the laws, since within the laws this is indeed what is supposed to happen. What is improbable is the emergence of the laws themselves, which turn an improbable process into a probable one. They are what ensure that instead of 200,000 years, the process is completed within a few dozen seconds.

Someone who accepts the principle of sufficient reason (and therefore advances the physico-theological argument) is not satisfied with an explanation in terms of laws. And someone who does not accept the principle of sufficient reason does not need the objection from evolution at all (that is, an explanation in terms of laws), because from the outset the argument does not convince him. The conclusion is that explanations in terms of laws (within the laws), including the explanation from evolution, are in no way relevant to the physico-theological discussion.

Take as an example a washing machine. We see a machine operating in a coordinated and amazingly complex way directly toward the desired result. Now the atheist comes and says that there is a set of laws and rules according to which the machine is designed, and therefore there is nothing remarkable in the fact that it does its job. There is no need to assume that a guiding hand is involved here. The updated physico-theological argument will ask: and who wrote the laws? Who designed the machine according to those laws so that they would cause it to operate in that way? The description in terms of the laws is irrelevant to the question whether some further factor is involved, responsible for the machine’s special operation.

The same applies to a complex factory that operates in astonishing coordination among all its departments and workers. The believer will come and infer that there is probably someone responsible for this complexity; there is a planner and manager for this factory. The atheist will argue against him that on the wall there is written a series of laws that instruct every worker and every department what to do in every situation, and therefore there is nothing remarkable in the fact that the factory operates in coordination. There is no need to assume the existence of a manager and planner. But this is of course absurd, because that is an explanation within the laws. The question is who wrote the laws, and who enforces them and constantly ensures their observance and prevents deviation from them. Every set of laws has a lawgiver and an executor.

Of course, here too one may raise the possibility that these laws have always existed. They are built into the nature of things, and so it has always been. But we have already seen that such an answer is not sufficient, because the question of sufficient reason remains in place: why are the laws exactly as they are? They could have been entirely different. Almost any system of laws of any type whatsoever would not have led to the formation of life. So why is the system of laws that has always existed here the way it is? Why is there not some other, simpler system here? What lies at the basis of the uniqueness and order within it?

This is a somewhat different updated version of the physico-theological argument. It may be called "the argument from the laws." In a world in which there is such a special system of laws, some external factor is probably responsible for it (the lawgiver). This system of laws describes the way it operates, but it cannot be a substitute for the assumption of its very existence, just as the rules on the wall in the factory are not an alternative to the assumption that there is a planner and manager for that factory. He is the one who wrote the rules, and they merely describe his mode of operation. Quite the opposite: the very existence of such rules is the best proof of his existence.

Are Paley’s watch and Hoyle’s airplane arguments arguments of "God of the gaps"?

Paley’s watch argument operates on the same logical basis. The probability that something as complex as a watch arose by chance is negligible. The world and life are far more complex, and therefore the probability of their spontaneous emergence is certainly negligible. The common rejection of this argument is that our world is not like a watch (because a living creature undergoes evolution, unlike a watch).

The same applies to "Hoyle’s mistake." Hoyle likened the probability of the accidental formation of life to the probability that a passing tornado over a junkyard would create from it a complete Boeing airplane. It was argued against him that he does not understand the laws of evolution and their significance, since they ensure that the process is not directionless, thereby greatly improving the chances of its occurrence.

Even when I brought Gould’s example (the drunk in the ditch) and its significance, I was accused of not understanding that it bears no resemblance to the evolutionary process. But here too the lack of understanding is on the part of the accusers. They are looking for an explanation within the laws, while I argue that the only relevant plane of discussion is outside the laws. Who legislated them? (Or: who created the wall and the ditch?)

In essence the claim is that the laws of nature act to increase the probability of the "spontaneous" emergence of life (like the computer program that ensured the creation of the desired string, or like the wall and the ditch that ensure that the drunk reaches the ditch). But this is an argument within the laws. If there had been different laws, or no laws at all, life would not have arisen. So now the question of sufficient reason outside the laws arises: can these constraints themselves (= the laws of nature) be understood without a guiding hand? Why are the laws דווקא such laws? To return to Dawkins, the question is: who is the watchmaker, and can he really be blind? The perceptive reader surely notices that the logic of the dispute is the same. Within the laws the objectors are right, but Hoyle’s and Paley’s arguments are right outside the laws, and that is the relevant plane of discussion. The discussion within the laws is a scientific discussion; the discussion outside the laws is the relevant one on the theological-philosophical plane.

Therefore those who think that the "God of the gaps" objection can be raised against these arguments are mistaken. In a scientific discussion, nothing can be learned from the existence of a gap. At most we must intensify our research efforts and try to understand and close that gap. But in the philosophical-theological discussion conducted outside the laws, this is not a gap in scientific knowledge. It is a question about science, not within science. The question is philosophical: how can it be that the laws of science are specifically such laws? But this is not a scientific discussion, which deals only with the question of what the laws of science are that describe the process.

In another formulation, let us put it this way: the gap on which the argument from the laws relies probably cannot be closed. It is not a scientific gap but an essential one. When we ask why the laws are such and not simpler, a scientific explanation can at most propose another system of laws that explains this system (since every scientific explanation is always within laws). But then we will ask how it came about that the more basic system of laws is as it is and not otherwise, simpler. By definition, science cannot give a final answer to these questions, because they are philosophical rather than scientific questions. The maximum one may hope for from scientific research is that we will arrive at a theory Einstein called "the unified field theory," which subsumes all of physics, and perhaps all of science altogether, under one supreme law. But we can still ask: what is the source of that supreme law? Why is it so special, and why does it cause the emergence of life and complexities and the reduction of entropy? This is a question that can never receive a scientific answer, and therefore it is legitimate to address it on the philosophical plane and find answers there. This is not at all "God of the gaps."

Fine tuning

A sharper formulation of the argument from the laws is based on what is called fine tuning.^[10] The essential content of the laws of physics is concentrated in the physical constants. Everything beyond the constants is a mathematical form of behavior, and is usually derived from conceptual analysis. What requires measurement is the values of the constants that appear in those equations. For example, the fact that the force of gravity decreases in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between two masses can be derived (at least in a certain sense) from a conceptual analysis of space. But in front of the value of that force stands a constant, G, which determines, given the distance and the values of the two masses, the strength of the force between them. This constant is measured experimentally, and thus its value was determined. The same applies to the speed of light in a vacuum, which is also one of the constants of physics, or the dielectric constant that determines the strength of the electric field in a given medium, and so too with several other constants. There are six or seven such constants, and everything beyond them consists of mathematical forms and structural relations among physical quantities.

The fine-tuning argument is based on the fact that the values of the constants are what actually govern the shape of our world. Slightly different values of one of the constants would prevent the emergence of chemistry, and certainly of biology, and therefore also the emergence of life. In such a state, our entire universe would basically be a lifeless and simple lump. The synchronization among the values of the constants is extremely precise, and only it made possible, and still makes possible, the special forms created in our world (chemistry and biology, and therefore also plant life and living creatures).

The argument from the laws can now be formulated as follows: such perfect coordination among the laws of physics, so that life can exist, must have a cause (or a reason). This unique coordination cries out for explanation, and it too apparently requires an explanation of why it is as it is. This is really another form of the question of why the laws are as they are, on which the argument from the laws is built.

On empirical testing and its significance: the example of abiogenesis

To sharpen even further the meaning of the distinction between discussion within and outside the laws, let us think about another objection to the physico-theological argument. I already mentioned that in these years intensive scientific research is being conducted in the field of abiogenesis (the emergence of life from inanimate matter). There is preliminary evidence that in certain situations (similar to what is called the "primordial soup") life can arise spontaneously. Many see this as an objection to the physico-theological argument, since it assumes that life does not arise on its own (and therefore an external factor is required to account for it). Neo-Darwinians and creationists alike share this view, and therefore they fight fiercely to prove that abiogenesis is not scientifically possible (here again there is, of course, a "God of the gaps" approach).

But here again the same mistake appears. Suppose that spontaneous emergence of life is indeed found in the laboratory. More than that: suppose we also understand the laws that govern the process and find a scientific explanation for it. Does that prove anything? Nothing at all. A scientific explanation takes place within the laws, and there we look for the laws that govern the phenomena under discussion and explain them. But in the theological discussion our concern is with the laws themselves. Even if we found a system of laws that allows the spontaneous emergence of life, the question is who legislated those laws? Who is responsible for there being a spontaneous mechanism that produces such complexity? The laboratory experiment that created before our astonished eyes life out of nothing is itself taking place on the basis of the same natural laws that prevail in the world. And again, the argument from the laws will say that God is responsible for the fact that those laws exist and operate here. The laboratory too is part of our world, and its laws apply there as well (otherwise it would be pointless; the laboratory is meant to teach us about the world). Therefore, by definition, no scientific experiment, however successful, can have any bearing whatsoever on the physico-theological discussion. These are two parallel planes of discussion, and there is no connection between them.

Summary: philosophy and science

Science has taught us that in the beginning there was a singular point, and from it the universe and everything in it arose by itself: countries and cities, seas and mountains, animals of every kind, human beings, trees, plants, galaxies and stars, suns and moons. Each of these is complex, and very many are coordinated and refined down to the last detail. For some reason (some sufficient reason), in the background there is a system of four precise laws (the fundamental forces of physics) that ensures that all this will happen. Common-sense reasoning says that there is a guiding hand here. This is the argument from the laws, which is a corrected version of the physico-theological argument.

I explained that this is a philosophical consideration, not a scientific one. Science and philosophy operate in two separate spheres. Our relation to the physico-theological argument is determined by philosophical considerations (the principle of sufficient reason and its applicability). Our relation to evolution is a matter for scientific investigation. There is no connection between these two planes of reference. Criticism of evolution does not strengthen faith (as creationists think), and validating evolution does not weaken it (as atheists think). For someone who thinks the physico-theological argument is plausible, evolution does not undermine that at all (it merely shifts the discussion from looking within the laws to looking outside them, and from seeking a sufficient reason for development to seeking a sufficient reason for the laws that govern it). And if, in someone’s opinion, this is not a plausible argument, because he does not accept the principle of sufficient reason (the assumption that at the basis of a complex and special system there must stand some factor responsible for its existence and operation), then he has no need for evolution either. In sum, science in general, and evolution in particular, have no role whatsoever in the physico-theological discussion.

Questions of improbability within the laws (as asked by creationists who look for God in scientific gaps, God of the gaps) belong to the domain of science. And in this the neo-Darwinians are right with their God-of-the-gaps claim. If a theory is scientifically unsatisfactory, another should be sought (other laws), and this must be done with scientific tools. By contrast, the questions outside the laws (why the laws are as they are, fine tuning) are philosophical questions, and only they are relevant to the theological discussion. The gap of which they speak is one that no scientific research, at least as far as we know today, is supposed or able to close.

1. Is there a random component in the evolutionary process?

Introduction

In this chapter we will strengthen the argument from the laws a bit further, by comparing three situations: logical-conceptual laws, natural laws, and random behavior.

Between the laws of nature and the laws of logic

In the previous chapter we saw that if the laws of nature were the result of conceptual-logical analysis, there would be no room for the argument from the laws. If the laws of nature are a necessary product of logic, there is no point in asking why they are as they are. Thus too we do not ask why 2+3 is specifically 5 and not 17. It is 5 because when one analyzes 2 and 3 and the operation of addition, that is what comes out. There is no observation here, and it could not have been otherwise. Likewise, there is no point in asking why two quantities equal to a third quantity are equal to one another. That is simply how it is. It cannot be otherwise. Any explanation we might offer for these laws would not improve our situation, because if we do not accept logic as a sufficient explanation, what could the explanation that we would be willing to accept rely on? Only laws of nature, which are the result of observation and not of pure logic, require explanation. Such laws could also have been different, and therefore they, and only they, raise the question why they are specifically as they are. Only from the uniqueness and complexity of such laws can one derive the conclusion that in the background there is some external factor responsible for their being so.

Random behavior

In this chapter we will deal with a third type of behavior: random behavior. We will see that even if the behavior is random, one still cannot ask why it is such and not otherwise, and therefore again there is no basis for the argument from the laws. As we shall see, we must ask ourselves whether the neo-Darwinian picture contains a random component, because if it does, it may indeed constitute an alternative to the physico-theological argument and render its conclusion unnecessary.

Take as an example the tossing of a coin. Suppose it is a fair coin, and therefore the probability that it will fall on either side is 1/2. We now get a series of five heads in a row and then another five tails. Does that prove anything? As long as the results fit the statistical distribution, no conclusion should be drawn from this. And what if we got ten tails in a row? If these were the only tosses, that really would be surprising, and might require us to suspect that the coin is not fair. But if there have already been one hundred thousand tosses, and this orderly series appeared somewhere in the course of that process, then the result has no significance. It is likely that in the course of one hundred thousand tosses a sequence of ten identical outcomes in a row will also occur. Random behavior, too, offers its own explanations for special outcomes. We will return to this point later when we deal with the anthropic principle.

Let us now return to the emergence of species in the evolutionary process. If life were a result that fits the randomness of the evolutionary process, at least if one takes into account the number of attempts made along the way, then the fact that at some stage we obtained a special living being (low entropy) does not prove much. Statistically this was to be expected, and therefore there is no reason here to assume the existence of a guiding hand.

The neo-Darwinian atheists argue that although the result, namely the existence of different living creatures, is highly special and ordered, once one considers the probabilities of the various stages in the evolutionary process, and takes into account the number of attempts at change (mutation) made on each protein chain and the number of chains themselves, overall this is a statistically possible result that does not compel the conclusion that there is an external factor responsible for what we got.

What is random in evolution? A preliminary discussion

Above we saw that the basic unit in the evolutionary process is made up of three consecutive stages: the formation of mutations, natural selection, and heredity.

The formation of mutations is seen by evolutionary researchers as a process that is random to a considerable extent. It is a result of environmental conditions, such as heat or cold, that damage and alter the protein chain. But the damage done to the protein chain by heat or cold, and especially what exactly that damage will do to it, are random matters.

And what about natural selection? This is a complex process, because a creature produced in the evolutionary process may end up in an area where there are predatory tigers and become extinct, or in a less challenging area and survive. What determines whether the environment in which the resulting mutation must struggle will be challenging, and how much? Seemingly, this too is a random matter. Is it born into an area with tigers or without them? The same applies to whether in that area there will be drought, freezing cold, natural disasters, and so on. All these random variables are what will ultimately determine the outcome of natural selection.

The third stage, heredity, is ostensibly a deterministic process governed by clear laws (the laws of genetics). But that too is not so simple, because there is a clear random component in genetic inheritance. The laws of genetics determine only the general final result, or the probabilities of each outcome, but not the result of the specific process of inheritance in which we are interested. When the parents have certain traits, one can say what the distribution of those traits will be among their offspring, but one cannot say what will emerge in each specific offspring. Here too there is a random component.

If so, in each of the components of the evolutionary process there is a significant random component. Where does this leave us with respect to the physico-theological argument? We will now see that the random component in the evolutionary process does not undermine the argument from the laws, and we will do this on two levels: first, we will argue that even if there is randomness here, it is randomness within the laws. Second, we will challenge the very assumption that there is any random component at all in the evolutionary process.

Randomness within the laws

To illustrate the first point, let us return for a moment to the computer experiment with "to be or not to be," and to Gould’s example of the drunk. The drawing done by the computer is indeed random, but it operates within an envelope of rigid laws. The framework is dictated by the program, which freezes every "correct" letter. Therefore, although there is clearly a random dimension here, this should not be seen as completely free and random behavior. The same applies to the drunk who indeed moves from side to side in a completely random way, but the wall on one side and the ditch on the other in fact dictate the result.

Think of a biased coin, built in advance so that the probability of getting "heads" is 70%. We now toss it a million times. Each time one cannot know what the result will be, because there is a significant element of randomness here. And yet it is clear that after a million tosses we will get about 700,000 heads and the rest tails. What dictated that was not the randomness but the rigid framework within which it operates (the structure of the coin, which dictates its "unfairness"). The randomness does not affect the result on the macro level at all; it affects only the result of each single toss separately, on the micro level. So the random dimension, which of course exists here, is not really important for analyzing the result on the macro level. That is determined by the envelope dictated in advance, in which there is no randomness at all.

Similarly, one may ask what dictates the outcome of the evolutionary process. A specific evolutionary process that begins from one given protein chain and proceeds according to the stages we described may indeed fail or succeed according to the distribution of random probabilities and according to circumstances determined randomly. If so, the randomness really is responsible for the outcome of each one of the evolutionary processes. But there are very many such processes. Every protein chain in nature undergoes such an evolutionary process, and branches into many chains that come from it (that is, its offspring, which themselves undergo evolutionary processes). Therefore macroevolution, meaning the product in the form of the diversity of life throughout the universe, is dictated by the laws of nature and not by the circumstances surrounding a particular protein chain. The envelope of laws steers the small processes, each of which is random, in a very clear and predetermined direction: whatever the circumstances surrounding this chain or that may be, in the end, on the macro level, a diversity of living beings will arise, that is, a decrease in entropy.

And from another angle, all the random components in the evolutionary process described above operate within the framework of the laws of nature. They are what determine the "bias" of the process, that is, what controls it. If there were no natural laws in the background, no physics, chemistry, and biology (and also psychology and social laws), there would be no evolution. At most our universe would contain chaos that leads nowhere. The laws of nature are what determine that a predatory tiger will prey on a weaker creature, or that heat or cold will affect a protein chain or some living organism in one way or another. Therefore they are what determine the impact of the circumstances (the randomness) on each protein chain, as well as what the outcome of inheritance processes will look like on the macro level (even if on the micro level there is randomness). The random component moves within the framework dictated by the laws, exactly like Gould’s drunk, and only this combination creates the life and diversity we are discussing. Therefore the evolutionary product is not a random product of probability alone. Without the laws of nature that determine the envelope for all this, that product would not be obtained. Imagine that completely different laws of nature prevailed in the universe. For example, that every particle always doubles its speed every second, and after ten seconds returns to its original state. A nature like that would not create protein chains, and certainly would contain no evolutionary process. No life would be formed in it, no chemistry, no biology, and no evolutionary development taking place within physics, chemistry, and biology.

If so, the argument from the laws is not damaged by the fact that there is a random component in the evolutionary process, so long as the results on the macro level are dictated by the laws of nature and not by probability alone. In such a situation, the question why the laws are as they are, that is, why there are laws here that create special things (ordered things), remains exactly where it was. The laws steer the process toward very special products (such as life), and this raises the question who the lawgiver is who thought of this and created laws that would direct these "random" processes toward his desired destination (the creation of the diversity of life).

Up to this point we assumed that there really is a random component in the evolutionary picture, but that it operates within an envelope of rigid natural laws, and therefore the argument from the laws remains valid. We will now continue and show that even this is not true. There is no random component at all in evolutionary processes. True, this does not affect the overall picture, because as we have seen, even if there were such a component, the argument from the laws would remain standing, but later in the chapter we will nonetheless see that this step too has philosophical implications.

Two kinds of randomness

The question with which we will begin the discussion is whether there is any genuine randomness in our world at all.^[11] What are we thinking of when we talk about randomness? For example, rolling a die or tossing a coin. But if we think about tossing a coin, we immediately understand that there is nothing random here at all. If you give me the exact structure of the coin, its weight, its shape, the density of the air, the initial velocity, the initial height of the trajectory, one can determine the outcome of the toss by a completely deterministic calculation. These are simply Newton’s laws. The same applies to rolling a die. Here too precise information will give us the face on which the die will land at the end of the process.

So why do we use probabilistic tools in analyzing such contexts? Simply because this calculation is very complicated, and also because we do not have all the required data with precision (it is very difficult to collect them), and the result of the calculation sometimes depends very acutely on those data (high sensitivity to initial conditions and environment is defined in mathematics and physics as a chaotic state). Conveniently enough, it turns out that even in entirely deterministic processes (with no random component whatsoever), it is possible and useful to use probabilistic tools.

It is important here to distinguish between two situations in which probabilistic tools can be used. There are situations in which there is an ontic gap (in reality itself), and situations in which there is an epistemic gap (in our knowledge of reality). To sharpen this distinction, we will present it on the halakhic plane.

According to halakhah, if we do not know whether a piece of meat we found on the street is kosher or not, the ruling is determined according to the ratio between the number of kosher and non-kosher butcher shops in the city. If there are more shops in the city that sell kosher meat, then it is permitted to eat that piece. The assumption is that it is kosher. If most of the shops sell non-kosher meat, it is forbidden to eat the piece, because the assumption is that it is not kosher. This is a statistical ruling in a situation in which we lack information. It is clear that this piece came from some particular shop, but we do not know which one. In a situation in which we lack information, we use probabilistic tools. If we had the full information, there would be no need for them. To sharpen the point, one could say that God, who knows everything, has no use for the tools of probability and statistics in such contexts. They are intended for those who lack information.

By contrast, in the halakhic world there are situations in which one follows the majority or the rules governing doubtful cases not because of a lack of information. One could say that in such situations even God Himself, so to speak, faces an indeterminacy. Take, for example, the issue of betrothal that does not permit consummation (Kiddushin 64b).^[12] Think of Laban having two daughters, Rachel and Leah. Now Jacob comes, takes a ring, hands it to Laban, and says: one of your two daughters is betrothed to me by this ring. If he said that Rachel is betrothed to him, but after some time he forgot which of the two he betrothed, this is a situation of missing information. God knows who it is, but Jacob lacks the information. This is an epistemic (cognitive) doubt. But what if Jacob never specified which of the two? He merely stated that one of them is betrothed to him without determining who it is. In such a case there is ontic doubt. Reality itself is not fixed, and it is not merely that Jacob lacks information about it. Reality itself does not determine which of the two is betrothed to him. Therefore here the betrothal is doubtful with respect to each of them, but the indeterminacy is in reality itself and not merely in our knowledge of it. Here even God Himself is, so to speak, in doubt. The use of probability and doubt in such situations is not merely a way around the real calculation. Here there is no real calculation. In cases of epistemic doubt there is a correct answer, but we do not know it. In cases of ontic doubt there is no clear correct answer at all. The ambiguity is in reality itself. In our book, Fuzzy Logic in Talmudic Thought, which is the twelfth in the Talmudic Logic series, in the first part we dealt with this distinction and showed that for treating the first type of case (the epistemic one) one uses probability, whereas for the second type (the ontic one) one uses fuzzy logic (fuzzy logic). By the way, in the fourth chapter there we also commented on evolution.

Is there genuine randomness in nature?

In nature too one can ask, in every case where probabilistic tools are used, whether this is epistemic or ontic indeterminacy. As in halakhah, so too in physics, in most cases this is a situation that is deterministic in itself, but we lack information about it. These are the cases of tossing a die or a coin described above. We saw that in such cases probability is a tool for dealing with and analyzing situations about which we have partial information, and it really serves only as an indirect way of carrying out the deterministic calculation (according to the laws of nature), whose execution is complicated and sometimes perhaps impossible (because of the complexity of the calculation or the strong dependence on data whose precise values are not available to us). But on the principled level, in these cases there is a deterministic calculation that gives the correct result. It is determined unambiguously by the laws of nature, but the explicit calculation is difficult to perform for various reasons.

Another situation in which probabilistic tools are used is one in which there is genuine indeterminacy in nature itself (and not merely a lacuna in our information about it). This is ontic indeterminacy (in reality itself), as opposed to the former, which was epistemic indeterminacy (in knowledge). In these cases the laws of nature do not determine the outcome at all, and therefore there is no deterministic calculation that reaches it. In such situations probability is not a way of bypassing computational difficulties but the only way to deal with them. Reality itself is determined only statistically, not deterministically.

Are there בכלל such situations in our universe? The principle of causality states that every occurrence must have a cause, and therefore a random event, that is, an occurrence without a cause, is impossible. The meaning of the principle of causality is that there is no possibility whatsoever of randomness in our nature, and therefore the use of probabilistic tools always comes only to cover for missing information. That is all.

And yet there is one exception to this deterministic picture, namely quantum theory.^[13] According to central interpretations of its findings (though these are not entirely agreed upon), it emerges that in quantum contexts there is genuine randomness in nature. When we look at the path of an electron, there may be situations in which it passes through both slits at once. It is important to understand: this is not a matter of our lacking information, that is, our not knowing through which slit it passed. Quantum theory states that it passed through both slits at once. Here the law itself is probabilistic, not that probability merely comes to help in a case of missing information.

To be sure, the cases in which quantum indeterminacy (of an ontic character) comes to expression are very rare. This happens only in very small systems (those containing a few electrons or a few atoms). We are dealing with scales of about a billionth of a meter. A living cell, or even a protein chain, is vastly larger than what we are discussing here. What happens in large systems? The law of large numbers causes quantum phenomena to "smear out," so that the behavior appears classical (and not quantum), that is, the laws of nature are rigid and deterministic. Situations in which there are quantum phenomena on a macroscopic scale are almost nonexistent. The thought experiment known as "Schrödinger’s cat" tries to propose a kind of experiment that would demonstrate quantum phenomena on large scales, such as an animal. Scientists work very hard to create such situations in the laboratory, and do not succeed. It is important to understand that large scales for this purpose also include an amoeba, or a medium-sized molecule, and not necessarily a cat.

What is random in evolution?

If we now return to evolution, we immediately see that it takes place on scales far larger than the quantum scale, both at the level of genotype and at the level of phenotype. This means that one should not expect quantum phenomena in evolutionary processes. As far as we know, genuine randomness exists only in quantum theory, and therefore in evolutionary contexts one should not expect genuine randomness. The use of probabilistic tools expresses complexity of calculation (epistemic indeterminacy) and not genuine randomness (ontic indeterminacy).

When we look at the evolutionary process at high resolution, we see a protein chain undergo mutation and change, but there is a clear and deterministic cause for this. The phenotype produced here is also dictated unambiguously by the genetic structure. The natural selection it undergoes (encounters with tigers, extreme cold or heat, and the like) are also processes that occur on very large scales, and therefore there is no genuine randomness in them. The tiger decides to come here because there is a deterministic system of causes that led it to do so. The same applies to weather processes (heat and cold), which also do not occur on the quantum scale, and therefore there too the laws of nature determine the state unambiguously, while probability is nothing more than a way around a calculation that explicitly uses the laws of nature, because of its complexity. The assumption that evolutionary processes reflect quantum phenomena is equivalent to saying that we encounter Schrödinger’s cat, whom scientists cannot arrange to meet even in a laboratory they themselves are building, casually and routinely in our daily lives. That is, of course, an utterly implausible fantasy.

If so, the way of relating to evolution as though it contains random components is misleading. In fact there is no genuine randomness there. The laws of nature determine everything that happens in such a process. The use of probabilistic tools is made only because of the complication and complexity of the full calculation.

Randomness and spontaneity in quantum theory

In this chapter we have already touched somewhat on the question of randomness in quantum theory. We saw that, as far as is known in present-day physics, ontic randomness (in reality itself), as opposed to epistemic randomness (our lack of knowledge of reality), exists only in quantum theory, and on the small scales. We also mentioned that this interpretation is not fully agreed upon. Quite a few researchers seek deterministic explanations for quantum theory through hidden-variable theories and the like. This in itself indicates that causal intuition did not die with the discovery of quantum theory. Its findings are still considered troubling, that is, the principle of causality and sufficient reason still stand.

The basic assumption of the physico-theological argument is that every thing (at least every complex thing) must have a cause. In the notebook on the cosmological proof we dealt with the same matter, since there too there is an assumption that whatever exists must have a cause. The problem is that in quantum theory people speak of the spontaneous emergence of particles from the vacuum and of events without a cause.

In that notebook we saw that this is not really a deviation from the principle of causality, because one can still speak of a cause for that emergence. The laws of quantum theory are laws of nature, not laws of logic. We can think of a world without quantum laws, that is, a world not of a quantum character. There is no contradiction in that, and therefore the laws of quantum theory are non-necessary (contingent) natural laws that we learned from empirical observations. These laws reflect a certain character that was given to our world (because it is not necessary), and that character itself is a kind of cause of the causeless events and spontaneous emergences. In a world with a true vacuum, simply empty and without any additional laws prevailing in it and governing it, there would be no such spontaneous emergences. By the same token, in an empty and lawless world there would also be no events without a cause. If so, the quantum character of the world means that it is not really a world that is empty. There is something in it: the quantum laws of nature. The possibility of deviating from causality exists only because quantum theory itself causes or allows this.

As noted, this cause is not an ordinary physical cause, like a force that causes acceleration. In physicists’ terminology we may say that this cause is not "local" (like a force acting on a body), but global: the quantum nature of the world is the cause that generates the processes. One may add here that all of physics, including classical physics, does not speak about causes.^[14] An equation such as Newton’s second law does not state that the force is the cause of the acceleration, as people usually think. It merely establishes a (simultaneous) relation between force and acceleration. Causality is in the interpretation, not in the laws themselves. From the standpoint of the equations of mechanics, force is not the factor that causes the increase in speed; rather, there is an equivalence between two statements: "a force acts on the body" and "the body accelerates." There is no component in the theory that deals with the causal relation between these phenomena. If so, like quantum theory, classical physics too does not describe a process of cause and effect, but only a correlation. Causality is an assumption of reason, not a scientific finding.

In any event, the conclusion is that the laws of quantum theory, too, are not an alternative to the conclusion that there is some external factor that brings about the complexity of our universe. Quantum laws merely describe the way it operates, as we saw earlier with respect to all the laws of nature. As we have already seen, only an explanation that showed that such emergence is a logical necessity (and not the result of an action upon our world that gave it a quantum character) could serve as a meaningful alternative in our discussion.

The significance of the distinction between discussion within and outside the laws

Here one can again see the importance of the distinction between discussion within the laws and discussion outside the laws. The view that this is randomness, even if it is correct (as noted, this is not a fully agreed-upon interpretation of quantum theory), is a way of looking within the laws. But in the last two chapters we saw that randomness within the laws has no significance. Our discussion is conducted outside the laws, and there we ask how emergence out of nothing or complex events without a cause can be possible. Quantum explanations merely push the question one step backward: how can there be laws that allow non-causal emergences and events of this kind? The basic question that will now stand at the foundation of the argument from the laws is: who is the factor that created the quantum laws, and through them the complexities in our world?

Why does this matter to us? Back to the argument from the laws

Throughout the chapter we have seen, and already noted, that even if there were a random component in evolutionary processes, this would not undermine the argument from the laws. So why is it important to understand that in fact there is no such component? The reason is that now we can understand that the full picture not only does not undermine the argument from the laws, but actually strengthens it.

Let us sharpen further the meaning of the picture we have described here. In fact, from the moment the simple protein chain first came into existence, all the evolutionary processes that led the universe to the whole diversity and complexity of life and life forms found in it were deterministic. There was no random component here at all, and the laws completely determined the whole process and, of course, its results.

Let us now return and contemplate the argument from the laws. Think of a situation in which, in the corner of a sealed room, there lies a small lump of modeling clay. We leave the room, and when we return after some period of time (symbolically, something like 14 billion years), we find there a complete zoo. Truly a whole world. We stand astonished before the phenomenon, and then the clear-headed atheist comes and explains to us that in this room there prevails a very interesting system of laws, which takes a lump of modeling clay and, in a deterministic process all of whose stages are defined in advance, turns it into the diversity of life now found in this room. If this were something random, or at least something with a random component, it would be far less impressive. Perhaps there would still be a riddle there, but its answer would be much less clear. But if this happens in a planned and predefined way, with the system of laws built so that this lump of modeling clay turns, through a deterministic and unambiguous process, into a zoo, does that not mean that there is some intelligent factor that established the system of laws in this way so that it would lead the lump of modeling clay and create the zoo from it?

It is important to understand that if we are dealing with a deterministic process, then precisely the longer and more complicated the process is, the clearer it becomes that there is a hand guiding it. The result, after all, was already implicit in this process from its very beginning (since it contains no random components; everything is fixed and planned in advance). This marvelous system of laws, which leads a simple state at the beginning of the process to a complex and special state at its end, cannot be the fruit of chance. It has a sufficient reason, or an external factor that created it, and through it the complexity and specialness in our universe. The laws only describe the mode of operation of that external factor. How it reduced entropy, that is, how it created complexities and regularities in an apparently "spontaneous" process. But it is clear that this is not really spontaneous. There is no guiding hand in the sense that there is no deviation from the laws, and everything proceeds mechanically in accordance with them. But the laws themselves describe the action of that guiding hand. Exactly as we saw above in the examples of the factory and the washing machine. The factory does not operate spontaneously, but according to the rules written on the wall by its capable manager. The rules describe the way that manager operates, and in any case it is clear that they cannot be seen as an alternative that undermines the conclusion that such a manager exists.

Summary: neo-Darwinism strengthens the argument from the laws

The conclusion is that the neo-Darwinian picture not only does not undermine the physico-theological argument, but on the contrary strengthens it. A description of a process in which there is a system of laws fixed in advance (which itself has no scientific explanation, since as we have seen science explains within the laws and not the laws themselves) that leads us from a singular, simple point of matter to the tremendous diversity of life found today in the universe, testifies more strongly than a thousand witnesses to the existence of a guiding hand: the one that legislated those laws.

1. What is complexity?

Introduction

The basic assumption of the physico-theological argument is that our universe is complex/special/ordered, that is, rich in information (with low entropy). So too the argument from the laws assumes that the system of laws governing our world is complex/special. Many challenge this assumption by arguing that complexity cannot be defined. Complexity is in the eye of the beholder and has no objective definition. In this chapter we will examine this objection, behind which stands the question of how complexity is defined at all. In the next chapter we will discuss a similar but not identical argument.

A priori and a posteriori complexity

If someone were to predict in advance (= a priori) that in rolling a die we would get the result 6, and that was indeed the result obtained, then this would call for an explanation. Why was precisely that special result obtained rather than any other? Here the specialness of the result was defined a priori.

But if we simply roll a die and get the result 6, no one will say that we obtained a special result. True, one may say there is something special here because it is one out of six possible results (the chance of getting it is 1/6). If we conducted a lottery among thousands of lottery tickets, the ticket that won would be even more surprising. Its chance of winning is one divided by the number of tickets. So if I won a million shekels in the lottery, can one say that this is surprising, or special? Does my winning call for an explanation? The chance of it is minuscule, and therefore, seemingly, there is something special here that demands explanation. Someone or something caused the fact that דווקא I won and not anyone else. But on second thought it is clear that this is not so. After all, some result had to be obtained in such a roll or drawing, and every result that is obtained is special in the sense that it is one out of several possibilities (and therefore its probability is small). If we did not define 6 in advance, as against all the other options, as the preferred/special result, then after the result has already been obtained such a definition has no significance. Defining complexity a posteriori, that is, ad hoc, after the fact, is not relevant. Complexity must be defined in advance, not after the fact.

Objection to the physico-theological argument

In place of our universe, all kinds of universes and all kinds of life forms could have been formed, and this one of ours was formed. Every one of those universes, if it had been formed, would have been complex and special (that is, unique relative to all the other possibilities, and therefore highly improbable). After the universe was formed, it seems special and ordered to us, but in fact it is not essentially different from any other complex form that might have been formed. The specialness of our universe was determined by us, and therefore this is an a posteriori determination, after the fact. After life was already formed, we decided that this is a complex and special form, but such a definition of complexity (a posteriori) has no significance. It is like marking the target after the arrow has been shot. Therefore nothing can be proved from puzzlement about complexity that is defined ad hoc.

The same kind of refutation can be raised against the argument from the laws. Suppose that we draw systems of laws completely at random. Every system of laws would create its own beings. The system in our universe creates organisms, that is, living creatures, but every other system of laws would create complex beings of different kinds. They would look completely different from those familiar to us here, but they would be no less complex. Therefore the claim that life is something especially complex that leads to the conclusion that it has a creator is incorrect. If every system of laws creates its own complexities, then there is nothing special about our universe that calls for explanation, or for the assumption that there is an engineer who created it. Theoretically, this could be the product of a completely random draw (a draw among systems of laws). I do not mean to say that there was such a draw of systems of laws (see the next chapter), but this is only an indication that such a system of laws does not require a sufficient reason.

The principle of sufficient reason says that a complex thing does not just arise for no reason. We have already seen that even if it had existed from eternity, a sufficient reason would still be needed for why it is as it is and not otherwise. But if we are dealing with a perfectly ordinary result, one among many, it raises no questions and therefore requires no explanation. Thus no one would demand an explanation, that is, a sufficient reason, for why in rolling a die the result 6 came up rather than something else. Nor does the winning of a particular person in a lottery require explanation, since someone had to win it. Only if someone had predicted in advance that a certain person would win, and he indeed won, would this call for explanation, because here the specialness was defined a priori and not a posteriori.

So what is special about our world? Experiments with cellular automata^[15]

We saw an objection claiming that there is nothing special about the system of natural laws in our universe. True, they create chemistry and make biology possible, but every system of laws creates some things. To support this claim, quite a few computer experiments of the type known as cellular automata have been conducted, in which one posits a given system of laws, and sometimes only one simple law, and lets the system run over time to see what emerges from it. For example, a system of squares with the rule that if your two neighbors are black, you become black. As an example, one of the best-known models in this field is Conway’s Game of Life. This automaton operates on a two-dimensional grid of squares, where each square has two states: black (a live cell) or white (a dead cell). A black square remains black in the next generation if it has two or three black neighbors (otherwise it will "die"—of overcrowding when it has too many neighbors, or of "loneliness" when it has too few neighbors), and a white square turns black if it has exactly 3 black neighbors. If one waits long enough, one discovers very interesting and special forms that arise in such a system (see examples in Wikipedia there). After that, one changes the system of laws and again looks at the products. These experiments show that from many and varied systems of laws, after enough time, different and bizarre complex beings emerge. And indeed, it is sometimes surprising to see how very simple systems of laws succeed in creating complex and special products.

And yet, the physico-theological argument

Despite all these experiments, only very specific systems of laws create complex products. The overwhelming majority of systems of laws will produce nothing, but will remain inert without real development. It is true that there are sometimes simple laws that generate complexity, but these are rare systems out of the total set of possible systems of laws. These computer experiments resemble the experiment I described above regarding "to be or not to be." They are based on very special systems of laws (ones that allow combination and development). But these are only a tiny fraction of the total number of possible systems of laws.

To demonstrate this practically (after all, we like facts, not speculations), let us conduct a simple experiment. Let us look within our own universe, where laws of physics prevail that are friendly to the formation of life (chemistry and biology): on how many of the known planets (and there are already quite a few כאלה) have we found that beings have evolved—of whatever type you like—at a level of complexity similar to biological life (and I am not even talking about consciousness, thought, will, and the like)? As far as is known today, the answer is exactly 1. Only on our planet has life and complex beings arisen. And this is within a system of laws that is itself complex and demonstrably capable of producing life (on our planet). So what shall we say about more primitive systems of laws? This is not exhaustive statistics, but it is the kind of statistic available to us, and it points to the probability of the spontaneous formation of any beings whatsoever under random environmental conditions.

Beyond that, even complex beings that are formed in such systems usually vanish as quickly as they came. They arise for a few moments and fade away. That really is chance. But in the case of our universe, complex beings are formed that only continue to become more sophisticated in a very consistent and monotonic way. What is the probability that a random system of laws would produce complex beings that remain stable over time? Apparently very small.

Moreover, in the second chapter we proposed a mathematical definition of complexity through entropy. That is how it is usually defined in scientific contexts, and therefore it is reasonable to use that in our discussion as well. In these terms there is no doubt that the complexity of a living creature is very high, far greater than that of the complex beings produced in computerized cellular-automata dynamics. Therefore, even if we did not define a priori that we were expecting the emergence of living creatures, it is hard to argue that there is nothing special about them because that would be an a posteriori definition. Their entropy is low, and that is a clear measure of complexity and order (or information).

And above all, when we presented the physico-theological argument through the second law of thermodynamics, we focused on the trend of the process. Even if the absolute level of complexity of life cannot be assessed because complexity is a relative matter, the question we asked was how it happened that in a spontaneous process complex and ordered beings were formed when the starting point of the process (the Big Bang) was a simple state with little information. That trend defines complexity in an absolute way. The complexity of the diversity of life that exists today is incomparably greater than the complexity of the initial state (a singular point, or all the states after it that preceded the emergence of life). The question was not about an absolute definition of the complexity of organisms, but about their relative complexity compared to the states that preceded them. The universe becomes more and more complex, and therefore there is no need to define absolute measures for the complexity of a given state. It is enough for us to point to the trend that the level of order rises over time, which indicates the involvement of an intelligent external factor.

The complexity relevant to the argument from the laws can be defined in a similar way. Complex laws are laws that cause a directional, systematic, and consistent process of decreasing entropy, that is, increasing order and sophistication. Looking at the laws themselves will not give us this, because the complexity of laws too is not measured in terms of any absolute metrics (as noted, that too is only in the eye of the beholder). But looking at their products, which continue to become more sophisticated, indicates a complexity and uniqueness embedded in the laws that govern the process. And that is what the argument from the laws uses to infer the existence of an external factor that will provide a sufficient reason for this special system of laws.

SETI

I once read an interesting analogy that clarifies the emptiness of the objection discussed in the present chapter. At the University of California, Berkeley, there is a project whose purpose is to detect intelligent life (!) outside our planet (it is called SETI). They use radio detectors to collect radio signals at a certain frequency, analyze them, and thus check whether there are intelligent beings who created and sent them. It is clear that they have some criteria by which they decide whether the signal they received is special enough to justify inferring that some intelligent factor stands behind it.

Our objector should have dismissed this project outright, and explained to the "fools" who run it that they believe in an imaginary friend, or in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. In essence, their complex radio signal is like a snowflake or a creature produced in the blind process of a cellular automaton. According to our objector’s view, there is no way to infer from any unique findings that the conclusion is that there is an intelligent factor behind them, since in principle there is no definition of complexity and uniqueness. On his view, even a complex message can arise by accidental and blind means (like the frequencies of a pulsar, and the like).

The message we receive from our world is also a kind of SETI project, and the signals received are many times more complex than anything that project dreams of discovering. In our case the project keeps failing, because we explain these complexities by evolutionary explanations and on their basis reject the claim that behind the unique information that appears in our world there stands an entity that is its sufficient reason. Not that the evolutionary explanations are incorrect, but as we have seen, these are explanations within the laws, and therefore they are unrelated to the question whether there is someone who created the laws that brought about these complexities. The signals that will be discovered (if any) in the SETI project are also produced by some technical means (that is, somewhere there is some sort of transmitter/signal generator that produces and sends those transmissions). When special signals are discovered and lead the researchers to conclude that behind them stands an intelligent entity that transmitted them, will our objector tell them that they believe in an imaginary friend, since he has a mechanical explanation for the formation of those signals? He will explain to them how the transmitter that generates them works, and send them on their way. The "believers" in Berkeley will try, probably with little success, to tell him that the transmitter is not an alternative to the existence of an intelligent factor that built it and transmits through it. It is only the way it works. But our extraterrestrial neo-Darwinian will insist that he has an explanation according to mechanical laws for the formation of the signals, and therefore one must not infer from their complexity and information that somewhere there is someone who transmitted them.

Complexity versus "signature"

The objection from evolution is based on the claim that evolution provides us with a mechanism that creates complexity without the intervention of a guiding hand. Hence entities or events that seem to us directed are not necessarily so. For example, a snowflake is a fairly complex object, and yet it is formed in the natural process of water freezing, without a guiding hand. So too a baby is formed from sperm and egg without a guiding hand. From this one might ostensibly infer that there is no necessity at all to see intention in the creation of a complex thing. The appearance of design does not mean that there really is design here.

These objectors argue that we assume some object has a creator not because of its complexity, but because the object bears within it the creator’s "signature" (perhaps this is the difference between the argument from design and the argument from complexity). Let us bring two different examples of this point, one of undesigned complexity and the other of designed simplicity: a. Elia Leibowitz’s claim, brought above in chapter 4, that the paintings in the Sistine Chapel are attributed to Michelangelo only because from our experience paintings are made by painters, and not because of their complexity. His claim was that complexity in itself, when it carries no "signature," does not point to a creator. b. Another example is a simple paper clip, regarding which too we assume there is a creator even though it is not complex at all, and this only because we have experience that metal wires in such shapes are made by human beings. Again, there is a familiar "signature" of the creator here, even without complexity.

Where is the mistake?

It is hard to understand the claim that a complex thing can arise by chance, since it runs contrary to probability calculations. A complex thing is something rare and special, and therefore it is less likely that it came into being without a guiding hand. When we see a monkey jumping on a keyboard and producing a Shakespeare sonnet, which is plainly a special and rare thing, it is clear to us that this is not accidental. Not because we know that sonnet, but because of the complexity. True, there is a tiny chance that it is an accident, but the comparison between these two alternatives decides in favor of the guiding hand. This is the probabilistic principle of sufficient reason.

Even in the example of the paper clip, if we were dealing with a structure so simple that the probability of its spontaneous formation were very high (like an ordinary straight piece of metal wire), then even the signature would not lead us to the conclusion that a human being made it. If so, here too we are dealing with a probabilistic comparison between two alternatives. The mechanism of signature is not essentially different from the principle of sufficient reason.

And what about the snowflake, or the baby? These are plainly complex objects, and yet they arise by themselves. This I already dealt with above. They are not really formed by themselves, but with the kind assistance of the laws and forces of nature. Again there is a confusion between a question within the laws and a question outside the laws (see the previous chapter). From a scientific point of view, the mechanistic explanation is sufficient, and even if it is not, it should continue to be refined with scientific tools. We have already seen that God does not play on the scientific field. But from a philosophical point of view, when we see such an occurrence, it is clear that there is a guiding hand that created laws directing the process toward its unique end. And again, the consideration is something like a probabilistic one, but outside the laws (how many systems of laws would lead from sperm and egg to a baby?).

The questions about the definition of complexity arise from observing within the laws. Within the laws there is a difference between an airplane (which is made by human beings, and it is not plausible that a passing storm would create it on its own) and a snowflake, a monkey, or a baby (where there are known laws that describe this formation). But outside the laws, all these are complex objects, because the definition of complexity is entirely objective and probabilistic. In terms of entropy, there is no dispute that a living body contains enormous complexity, certainly when it is measured against the beginning of the process (a singular point of matter).

In conclusion, I will note that in chapter 11 below I will present another kind of physico-theological argument, one based specifically on the creator’s "signature" and not on complexity.

1. The anthropic principle

Introduction: the number of attempts

In the previous chapter we returned to the fact that the definition of complexity is probabilistic. If so, the conclusion that a complex object did not arise by chance depends on an additional assumption: that the number of attempts to create that object was low enough. If the monkeys jump on the keyboard for 200,000 years, then even without a guiding hand, "to be or not to be" may come out from under their feet. If so, in order to make a physico-theological argument, that is, an argument of sufficient reason about an event or object that is statistically rare, one must verify two things: both that it is a very special object/event, and that the number of attempts relevant to its creation was low relative to its uniqueness (entropy). And in the case of the universe or of life, the claim is that even if we are dealing with a highly unusual and special object or event, perhaps there were many attempts that failed and only one of them succeeded. That is the universe in which we find ourselves, or the forms of life around us. If so, there is no reason to seek a sufficient reason for it. This question is what the anthropic principle addresses.

The anthropic principle: an initial formulation^[16]

The term "the anthropic principle" (anthropos means human)^[17] is used in two opposite senses. Creationists use it to argue that the world’s suitability for human needs indicates a guiding hand. This is a variant of the physico-theological argument, which says that precisely in the universe we inhabit there is enough air, water, and food, suitable temperatures, and other conditions for human beings to exist in comfort. Does this not indicate an intentional hand that provided for all this in advance?

The atheists, by contrast, use that very same name for the objection to the creationist argument. They claim that this argument is based on a misunderstanding: if there were no such fit between the universe and human beings, then we simply would not be here (because without these conditions we would not survive here). Our ability to marvel at this "miracle" is based on the fact that we are here, and we are here because the miracle occurred. It cannot be that we would exist in a universe in which the conditions for our existence do not prevail, since those very conditions are what make our existence possible.

This objection attacks all physico-theological arguments: the formation of the inanimate universe, the first protein chain (abiogenesis), evolution, and in fact also the argument from laws. All these arguments speak of something complex and special (the universe, life, the laws) and claim that at its basis there must be something or someone who created it (a sufficient reason). Before entering into the details, we must examine this pattern of argument itself, and in fact correct it.

Rejecting the Initial Formulation

The atheist anthropic principle in this formulation (despite its popularity) does not hold water. Stephen Hawking describes a man standing before a skilled firing squad, all of whom miss his head, and he remains alive. He argues that the survivor should not marvel at this, since had they not missed, he simply would not be here to marvel. According to this amusing principle, anything strange by virtue of which we were saved is not supposed to surprise us at all, because without it we would not be here. But by contrast, a surprising event that happens to someone else may indeed arouse wonder in us, since in that case we would exist even without it.

This is of course absurd. What difference does it make whether the unique event happened to us or to someone else? The question is whether it is complex or not, not to whom it happened. If the event is sufficiently complex, whether it happened to me or to someone else, it calls for explanation.

Another example is given by Richard Swinburne. Imagine that someone kidnapped me as a hostage, put me in a room containing 100 machines, each designed to shuffle a deck of cards completely at random, and told me: "Press the button that activates all the machines. If all one hundred cards that are ejected, one from each machine, are ‘hearts,’ you will go free. Otherwise, the machines will explode together with you." Suppose I press the button in fear and trembling, and immediately, lo and behold, 100 ‘hearts’ cards are ejected. According to the logic behind the criticism of the anthropic principle, I should not be astonished by this at all, since if those cards had not come out, I would not be alive to discover it.

Anyone sensible understands that this argument is utterly pointless, since the probability of 100 identical cards being produced is exceedingly tiny. When an event of great importance to me occurs and the chances of its occurring are exceedingly small, I cannot ignore that, and I look for some explanation.

 

The Anthropic Principle: A Corrected Formulation

This defective use of the anthropic argument (its atheist formulation) should indeed be rejected. But it can be formulated more properly. Imagine that there had been many executions in which this firing squad did not miss, and that the number of attempts was on the order of magnitude of the reciprocal of the probability that they would all miss. Now the person who survived really should not marvel that it was דווקא he who survived. Statistically, if there were enough cases, then in one of them someone had to survive, and that someone is me. If I had not survived, I would not be here to lament my bitter fate. The same applies to Swinburne’s card case: if millions of people were put into the room and faced with the same choice, then the one who was saved should not marvel. Statistically, someone had to be saved. Similarly, in the previous chapter we saw that one should not marvel that it was דווקא I who won the lottery, or that the die came up דווקא 6. Statistically, someone had to win, and some number had to come up on the die.

If so, the atheist anthropic principle really ought to be formulated differently: if there is a rare and special event, that does not necessarily mean it requires a sufficient reason. If there were countless attempts to bring it about, and only one of them succeeded, that too is a possible explanation for its existence. For example, we tossed a coin and got ten consecutive "heads." This is a surprising event by any measure. Its probability is about one in a thousand. But precisely for that reason, if we carried out several thousand tosses and one such sequence occurred during them, that should not surprise us at all. Thus, for a physico-theological argument to hold water it must assume two assumptions: 1. The event is indeed rare and special. 2. There were not enough attempts to bring it about. Therefore, undermining either one of them is enough to topple the conclusion of the argument.

This is the full formulation, and the only possible one, of the atheist anthropic principle. But then we are really dealing with a claim that is neither new nor especially sophisticated. The formulation that if the experiment had not succeeded we could not be here to wonder is mostly demagoguery. To challenge the physico-theological argument it would have been enough to claim that there were many previous attempts that failed, and therefore it is no wonder that one of them succeeded. We can now add the statement that without the success we would not be here, and therefore we are here. But that is self-evident, and that is not what the dispute is about.

But beyond the problematic way the objection is presented, with respect to the discussion itself there is indeed here an objection that requires an answer. How can one infer from the complexity of the universe that it has a creator and that it has a sufficient cause or reason? After all, it may be that there were many attempts and many universes were created, and only in ours did life arise. Just to sharpen the point, if the probability of life arising is one in a billion, then it is enough to say that there were a billion attempts that failed and one that succeeded. If so, there is no reason to marvel that life arose in it. The probability of any event must take into account the number of attempts. When I encounter a situation in which ten consecutive coin tosses yield "heads," that does not necessarily need to surprise me. If this happens somewhere במהלך a million different tosses, there is nothing astonishing about it and it raises no difficulty that requires an explanation or a reason.

The Anthropic Objection

The process of evolution produces very special creatures. Living organisms have great complexity (they are information-rich, or low in entropy), and therefore the physico-theological argument concludes that there must be an external factor responsible for this. The anthropic objection says that there were countless attempts to create all sorts of protein chains, and the vast majority failed. Only a tiny minority succeeded, and these are the life forms we encounter around us. Think of all the protein chains that were formed throughout history, each of which underwent and continues to undergo processes of reproduction over the years, and each descendant undergoes various mutations, and each of them either becomes extinct or survives. This produces enormous numbers of attempts to create different living creatures, and only a negligible minority among them succeeded. Therefore we should not marvel that such complex life arose, and this does not require us to seek a sufficient reason.

This objection is very weak. First, various calculations that have been made in order to estimate the number of attempts indicate that they are not sufficient to explain the successes. But beyond that, we have already seen that there is no randomness at all in the evolutionary process (it occurs on a scale on which there are no quantum phenomena, and only there is there genuine randomness). The use of probabilistic and statistical tools stems from the complexity of the calculation, not from any genuine randomness in it. In processes that are not random, the anthropic objection has no meaning at all. There are no lotteries here that fail and succeed, but rather one deterministic process that produces living organisms in a way determined by the deterministic laws that govern the process or at least provide its framework. Therefore no statistical explanation will help here. There is a guiding hand that created the laws that lead the system to produce an enormous diversity of living creatures.

But beyond that, the whole evolutionary process begins with the first protein chain. And how did that itself come into being (the process of abiogenesis)? The anthropic objection will say that there were various attempts to create protein chains, only one of which succeeded, and therefore this too should not surprise us. Perhaps there there really were random components, although when we are dealing with a protein chain, however simple and short it may be, we are still dealing with scales that are far beyond quantum theory.

And what about the formation of the universe itself (the Big Bang)? The universe is indeed special, but perhaps there were many attempts and masses of universes were created, and the fact that life arose in our universe should not surprise us.

And what about the argument from laws? It is based on the fact that a system of four fundamental laws of physics with precise and coordinated values of the physical constants (such that a slight deviation in the value of any one of them would have prevented the existence of chemistry and biology, and therefore also life and evolution, fine tuning) is special, and as such it requires an explanation, or a reason. This is the creationist anthropic formulation: that the laws of nature are exactly suited to our coming into being and our existence. The atheist anthropic objection claims that there were countless formations of systems of laws, and therefore it is no wonder that one of them turned out sufficiently complex to create life. And as noted, if one of them succeeded in that sense, then it is no wonder that we are found דווקא in it. In a universe with systems of laws that are the result of an unsuccessful attempt, we could not have existed.

The Atheist Tea Party

The assumption that there were countless prior attempts of universes with other laws of physics is a very problematic assumption. According to this proposal, there are supposed to exist alongside us countless universes different from ours (for the number of possible systems of laws is infinite), each with different laws of physics. None of us has seen them, and apparently no one can see them either. This is an ad hoc invention just to escape the physico-theological straits. This is truly a case of Russell’s celestial teapot (see above at the end of chapter 4), except that this time it orbits the atheist’s star. He invents teapots that no one has ever seen, just to avoid the need to seek a cause for the universe.

In fact, in this way one can dismiss any argument concerning an improbable event. For example, someone who sees the shards of our smashed flowerpot return and assemble themselves into a whole flowerpot, or the miraculous rescue of the condemned man, or Fred Hoyle’s tornado that assembles an airplane from its debris, can always say that there were probably countless attempts that failed (even though we know of none), and we are simply watching the one among them that succeeded. We have no reason to marvel at such events.

Let us now see this from a different angle. In order to answer the argument from laws, the atheist produces countless strange and bizarre universes (or situations), each one governed by different laws of physics, and apparently different and bizarre creatures are formed in them as products (evolutionary?) of those laws of nature. What distinguishes all of them is that no one has seen them, but for an obvious reason: they cannot be observed (they are transparent). The teapots placed on the atheist’s table make possible the Mad Hatter’s tea party of Lewis Carroll. This is the ‘rational’ and ‘economical’ alternative to belief in God.

But even if such strange and bizarre universes do exist, each governed by different laws of nature, what prevents us from assuming that in many of them there arose different beings we have never even imagined—fairies or demons, for example, and perhaps gods. After all, even if our laws of nature do not recognize them and perhaps do not even allow for their existence, the laws in other universes certainly could allow this. It should be remembered that in order to justify statistically the complexity of our universe, we have to assume that countless universes were created with countless systems of natural laws, entirely different from our own. If so, we have completely lost the ability to claim anything about what is possible and what is impossible in our bizarre reality. The atheist is shooting himself in the foot here.

In fact, we know of no mechanism for the coming-into-being of worlds, or of different systems of laws. The anthropic objector not only claims that universes and different systems of laws came into being, but that there is, in general, a mechanism for the coming-into-being of systems of laws or universes. But we know of no such mechanism. Once the possibility of its existence has been raised, we should apply the scientific method to it as well. We can now ask what characterizes it, what laws govern it, and finally step back and ask about it too the physico-theological question: who stood behind the laws that govern the mechanism for creating systems of laws and universes? Bottom line: any proposal other than complete randomness cannot escape the physico-theological argument.

1. Teleological Behavior in Physics^[18]

Introduction

This chapter concludes the discussion of the physico-theological proof. I will present here a somewhat different argument from those we have seen so far, but the reader will be able to see that this is a shade of a physico-theological argument. In the terminology we saw above at the end of chapter 9, here we will speak of a proof by virtue of the creator’s "signature" (as in the stapler example), and not a proof by virtue of mere complexity.

Teleological and Causal Explanations

In the booklet on the cosmological proof, at the end of chapter 6, I distinguished between the principle of causality and the principle of sufficient reason. I mentioned that one of the differences between them concerns the time axis, namely that the principle of causality requires the cause to appear before the effect, whereas the principle of sufficient reason requires reasons and not necessarily causes, and a reason can also appear after the thing explained by it. In this chapter we will deal with teleological explanations, which are in fact better regarded as reasons than as causes.

Aristotle used to explain physical processes in terms of ends. The stone falls to the ground "because it strives" to return to the place where it was formed. Aristotle saw the final cause (which is rooted in the nature of things) as the primary cause that moves things in the world. This conception was very widespread in the Middle Ages, and was then adopted by many thinkers and scientists. They tended to give explanations of physical processes in terms of goals and tendencies that physical objects "want" to attain. The explanations were in terms of "in order to," or "for the sake of," and not in terms of "because," or "on account of."

Beginning with Galileo Galilei and the rationalist philosophers (especially Spinoza), the causal conception began to spread. Today it is commonly thought that modern physics indicates that Aristotle’s doctrine is mistaken also in this fundamental sense. Processes unfold causally and not teleologically, meaning that events occur "because of" events that preceded them, and not "for the sake of" something that will come after them. This causal conception is sometimes called "mechanistic," because the physical process is presented in it as the mechanical result of something that preceded it (its cause).

Even so, to this very day there remains a feeling that as we ascend the hierarchy of the sciences—from the physics and chemistry of inanimate matter toward the biology of living things and human beings, and then to sociology and the social sciences, and so on—scientific explanations become more and more teleological and less causal. In biology, it is still customary to explain the behavior of organs in our body through their purposes. The kidney, for example, is intended to purify the blood. Its existence is explained by its purpose, the purification of the blood. In psychology we explain a person’s action through the goals he wants to achieve. A person acts as he does in order to gain honor, to intimidate, to win favor, to repress, to evade, and the like. But even on the physical plane we say that a person extends his hand to the telephone and dials in order to speak with his friend, and not because his hands received an order from the brain to do so (that order too is given because he wants to speak with his friend). The later event (the conversation) is the cause of the event that preceded it (the dialing), and therefore this is a purposive-teleological explanation. In the social sciences, most explanations are teleological. In economics, for example, rises and falls in stock prices result from people’s and various economic actors’ future expectations and goals. The strategy of a state or a person is often described in terms of what they want to achieve, and not always in causal terms (what caused them to act one way or another).

The Causal Myth

The picture described so far is to a large extent a myth. It involves a certain misunderstanding of Aristotelian science, and a lack of awareness of the meaning of many results of modern physics. In the course of this chapter I will try to refute this myth, and to clarify the deeper implications of these two meta-scientific conceptions.

According to this myth, in our contemporary scientific conception teleological explanations, in the worst case, say nothing, and in the best case are simply incorrect. Sometimes you will hear a partial concession, namely that in some cases there are indeed teleological explanations in science, but it is immediately added that this is of course only anecdotal. The real explanation is the causal one, and teleology is merely a form of phrasing or reference. We have indeed seen that the higher we climb up the slope from the inanimate to the living, from physics to biology, physiology, and then to the mind, that is, to psychology and sociology, the explanations become more and more purposive (teleological). But again, many will tell you that this is only a manner of speaking. When I say that a certain person reached out toward the telephone in order to arrange a meeting with his friend for tomorrow, I have tied the present act to something future. But in their view, everything a person does really has a causal explanation. It is sometimes convenient for us to see this as an action driven by a future tendency or for some future purpose, but that is not the essential truth.^[19]

As a rule, one may say that the scientific trend today is that more and more fields of science are becoming causal, abandoning teleological terminology. A clear example of this process is the theory of evolution, which in its very essence is a reversal of teleological descriptions into causal descriptions. For example, the bacterium’s flagellum (a kind of oar that the bacterium uses in order to move through liquid, and likewise in a sperm cell that advances toward the egg) is described in teleological terms as something that is "intended" to bring the bacterium to food. But in evolutionary theory this is translated into a causal explanation. The flagellum is not "intended for-" but rather "formed by-" or "operated by." We succeed in describing the formation of the flagellum, and also the way it works, in a causal way (chemistry and physics) without resorting to the question of what it was created for, what it is striving toward, or what its purpose is. Thus we can claim that the complex and seemingly purposive structures we see in the world around us are not really purposive, but only appear so. In fact, they are products of a causal process created by evolution. They have causes and not goals. So too a protective device of an animal, which is described teleologically as something intended to protect it, undergoes an evolutionary translation into a mechanism that describes how only the animal that developed this protective mechanism survived. I note that Lamarckism, an evolutionary shade that preceded Darwin, was rejected because it is based on teleological processes and not causal ones. Evolution explains that all apparent teleology is a cover for a causal process, as I described in the chapters above.

I have already remarked, however, that this explanation may be satisfactory on the scientific plane, but on the philosophical plane quite a few difficulties remain as they were. In the example of the factory, although one can offer a causal description of its formation, we will still not refrain from the conclusion that it has an initiator and planner, someone who set that causal process in motion. The initiator sees the future before him and shapes the present in order to achieve that future. As stated, this discussion is relevant to the meta-scientific, or philosophical, plane and not to the scientific plane. In this chapter I wish to go one step further and argue that even on the scientific plane, at least in physics, explanations are not becoming more causal as many people (including most scientists) think, but on the contrary more teleological.

Two Different Meanings of Teleology

We have seen that the closer one comes to the realms of spirit, the more teleological the explanations become. One of the meanings people tend to give this phenomenon is that spirit is not moved causally but teleologically, that is, not "because" but "for the sake of," toward some goal. Therefore, the closer we get to the world of spirit and the farther we get from matter, the more teleological the explanations become. Matter behaves causally, whereas spirit behaves purposively. Spirit is goal-directed and proceeds in a planned and intentional way, whereas matter does not "plan" anything and does not "strive" for anything.

But one must be careful here not to confuse two different meanings of teleology. When we say that the stone "strives" to return to its quarry, we do not mean that it has a will to do so, or that it has the option of deciding not to do so. Aristotle too probably understood that the stone does not decide this of its own free will, since such choice (if we believe in freedom of will and choice, of course) is indeed a property of spirit alone (the human spirit?). Aristotle’s use of teleological terminology regarding processes in the inanimate means that the description of their behavior can be given in terms of ends instead of in terms of causes. The stone indeed has no choice but to "return to its quarry," but it is still convenient and correct to describe its downward movement in terms of "in order to," and not in terms of "because." The law has a teleological character, but it can be completely deterministic, that is, not dependent on decisions of the stone. It is simply that what determines the movement (uniquely and deterministically) is the end and not the cause. The teleological description of the stone’s motion is completely deterministic, except that its character differs from that of a causal description in that it turns to the future and not to the past.

Even so, teleology is generally perceived as a form of explanation connected to non-materialistic conceptions (that is, dualistic ones, which maintain that the world contains matter and spirit), and perhaps even theistic ones (which believe in God). This is probably one of the reasons for the determined war that has been waged in recent generations against teleological explanations in all fields of science, and for viewing causal explanations as the only kind of explanation worthy of the name "scientific explanation." The reason is that even if the stone itself cannot decide where to move, the fact that the description of its fall to the ground is teleological means that there is apparently some other factor that determined or determines the stone’s end. Objects that move toward an end, even if they do so not out of choice (perhaps precisely because they are compelled to), appear as something moved by some external factor. That external factor is what determines their end and causes them (by compulsion) to move toward it. It is natural to call that factor "God," and in my estimation that is the reason people recoil so strongly from teleological explanations.

From another angle, one can say that a material occurrence is supposed to have a cause. An occurrence toward an end ("in order to" and not "because") is an occurrence without an efficient cause, and as such it contradicts the principle of causality. Therefore, even if we offer a teleological description, even a deterministic one, of some natural occurrence, in the background there necessarily lies some cause, and if it is not found in the nature of things, then it is the result of the action of some other factor outside physics. And again, materialists do not like factors outside physics (especially if they are called "God").

A Reminder about the Origin of the Causal Conception

The insistence on causality is all the more puzzling if we recall what we already encountered above (see toward the end of chapter 8): the equations in physics in most cases determine only correlation, or equivalence, but not a causal relation. We saw there that when Newton’s second law determines a direct relation between the force acting on a body and its acceleration, there is not the slightest hint there as to which is the cause and which is the effect. It is simply an equivalence between force and acceleration. This itself is a first remark on the causal myth regarding the causal conception of modern science. It is true, at first glance, that it does not speak the language of ends, but neither does it speak the language of causes. The causal meaning is at most one possible interpretation of the equations (on the philosophical plane), but certainly not a scientific finding. We are the ones who interpret Newton’s second law so that one side of the equation (the force) is the cause and the other side (the acceleration) is the effect. There is not the slightest hint of this in the equation.

To sharpen this further, let us think for a moment of two objects with mass that are at a certain distance from one another. According to Newton’s law of gravitation, they exert force on one another. Newton’s equation determines a relation between the force (and the acceleration it develops) and the sizes of the masses and the distance between them. But the equation here again determines a simultaneous relation, that is, the values of the masses at a given moment determine the value of the force at a given moment. It is difficult to see one as cause and the other as effect. From the standpoint of Newton’s equation, the force could just as well be the cause of the values of the masses. Admittedly, in field theory the situation changes. There they are not willing to accept the notion of action at a distance (=action at a distance), and therefore they describe the development of the force over time. The force advances from each of the masses toward the other, and after a (very short) time it arrives and acts on them. Here the simultaneity of the equation is already broken, and the masses precede the action of the force in time. Seemingly, here one is already led to see the masses as the cause and the force as the result, since it appears later. But even that is not precise, because temporal precedence still does not determine a causal relation. In the fifth chapter of my book The Science of Freedom I explained that a causal relation contains three components: temporal precedence (the cause before the effect), logical dependence (if the cause occurs then the effect takes place), and causation (because of the cause, the effect occurs). Therefore, even if in the equations one sees temporal precedence and logical dependence, the causal interpretation is still philosophical (we decide that the masses are the cause of the formation and action of the force, that is, that there is causation here as well). It does not arise from the equations themselves.

Can a Teleological Explanation Be Translated into a Causal Explanation and Vice Versa?

Many teleological explanations can be "translated" from purposive language into the language of causes, and vice versa. A person extends his hand to the telephone not in order to speak with his friend, but because there existed in him a desire to speak with his friend. The desire to speak, which is a prior occurrence, is what caused the stretching out of the hand toward the device. Thus one can see this explanation as causal and not as teleological. Even so, it is important to understand that this mode too is not suited to the behavior of a material entity. In the final analysis there is here an orientation toward a future goal, an end, something that is not perceived as characteristic of the behavior of material entities. Stones do not develop a desire to do something in the future, and therefore even if we describe some desire as the cause of their motion, this will not be seen as plausible. One can see it this way: true, there is a desire that constitutes a cause of the action, but what is the cause of the desire? What caused it to begin the process of a telephone call? The future event. So even if the physical action has a cause, the cause of that cause (the desire) has only an end. In another formulation, one may say that desire in its essence is the reversal of the end into a cause. If so, saying that what caused me to make the telephone call was my desire to speak, does not solve the principled problem. The question is how desire turns the end into a cause, and whether such a thing can be done by a material entity and within a material entity. And we have not yet spoken about the question of what arouses desire in us. That too must have a cause, and at the end of the process we arrive, one way or another, from the future to the past (for that causal chain begins with the future event).

At the end of the eighteenth century, teleological explanations of physics broke in stormily for a short period. We have already seen that the mechanics of Newton and Galileo is causal in character. There are forces that cause the acceleration of the body on which they act. Motion is the result of a force acting on the body, and not the realization of a "striving" toward something. However, Lagrange, a French mathematician and astronomer born in Italy (1736-1813), developed an alternative formulation of Newtonian mechanics, in which instead of a description of forces that cause accelerations, we use action functions.^[20] These are functions of place and time, from which one can extract the path of motion by mathematical considerations of minimizing those functions. The path traversed by a given body is the path that causes the action function to receive a minimum value. Therefore these are sometimes called principles of "least action."

The best-known and simplest example of such a principle is the principle of Pierre de Fermat in optics. Geometrical optics deals with describing the motion of straight light rays. It turns out that when such a light ray passes from one medium to another, for example when a light ray passes from air to water, its line of motion is bent (see the diagram below).^[21] The law that describes the relation between the angles of refraction is "Snell’s law." This is the "causal" description of this process. If the angle at which the ray enters the boundary line is given, that is, the angle at which it strikes the line of transition between air and water, we can calculate from it by means of Snell’s law the angle at which the ray emerges into the water. In that perspective this is a causal process, since the light ray’s striking the water, and the different character of the medium it strikes (water) as compared with the medium from which it comes (air), "cause" the light ray to deviate from its path.

The refraction of a light ray, described by Snell’s law. n denotes the refractive indices (by how many times the speed of light in that medium is less than the speed of light in a vacuum) in water and in air. The entry and exit angles are denoted by -. P is the point from which the ray departs and Q is the endpoint of the path.

Fermat showed that for that very same process one can offer a teleological description by means of least action. Fermat’s principle states that a light ray will always move between two given points along the path in which its travel time is the shortest. The usual way to illustrate this is to think of a situation in which a lifeguard standing at point P sees a person drowning in the sea at point Q, and he of course wants to reach as quickly as possible from P to the point of drowning Q. It is clear that he should run on the beach and then swim in the sea, and it is clear that his running speed is greater than his swimming speed in water. Therefore it is not right for him to do this along the straight line connecting the two points; rather, it is preferable to move along a path that is as long as possible on land and as short as possible in water. On the other hand, it is also clear that greatly lengthening the path on land lengthens the total length of the path and can increase the time of arrival. It turns out that the path along which the lifeguard should run is a straight line that bends at the waterline, exactly like the red line in the picture above. The angle of refraction depends, of course, on the ratio between the speeds of running and swimming. The faster the running is relative to the swimming, the more the angle will be such that the segment of the path on the beach will be longer.

Fermat’s principle states that a light ray that "wants" to move between those two points will move along a path identical to that of the lifeguard, and the angle will be determined by the ratio between its speed in air and its speed in water (which is lower), and therefore its line of motion will be bent as we saw in the case of the lifeguard. If so, the relation between the angles of motion in the two regions, which in geometrical optics is determined by Snell’s law, can be determined by calculating the path that yields minimal travel time. In this case the time it takes to traverse the path is itself the action function of the problem, and its minimum determines the path. Fermat’s principle is a very simple description, which includes the whole set of the laws of geometrical optics (Snell’s law, the laws of reflection, and the like).

It is important to understand that Fermat’s description is teleological, since the motion of the light is described in terms of a "choice" of the shortest path. And again, the intention is not that the light really "chooses," or that it has the option of deciding to move more slowly, but that its motion is described in terms of ends and not in terms of causes. It moves at these angles "in order to" (to minimize the time), and not "because" (the refraction produced by the impact at the boundary between air and water).

Of course, as we described above, there is also a "causal" description of the motion of light, that is, of the laws of geometrical optics. Light advances in a straight line according to its initial direction of motion, and when it encounters a transition line between media in which its speed of motion changes, the collision with the new medium causes the line of motion to refract. This is a causal description, and it can be proved that it is mathematically completely equivalent to the teleological description. Every path that comes out of a calculation by means of the causal formulation will be identical to the path that comes out of a calculation by means of Fermat’s principle of least action (time, in this example).

That is the situation regarding Fermat’s law in optics. Lagrange proposed a similar teleological description for all the laws of mechanics. Instead of speaking in Newtonian language about forces that move and accelerate bodies, we speak about bodies that "choose" paths in which the action function receives a minimum value. In this case the function is not time but another quantity called the Lagrangian or the Hamiltonian (there are several possible formulations), and it is related in various ways to the energy of the body.

It is true that the teleological flowering in physics was temporary and brief, and immediately afterward this current sank back into the abyss of oblivion. At least on the level of consciousness, causality returned to rule physics with a mighty hand, from then until today. If you ask physicists, they will tell you that this is a mathematical anecdote, nothing more. The laws are causal, but mathematics allows an equivalent teleological description that gives the same results. Certainly interesting, but not essential.

Which of the Two Descriptions Is More Correct?

The fact that some field has been conquered by causal explanations does not mean that the teleological explanation has been rejected. Both explanations exist, but in the absence of compulsion we prefer the causal explanation. This is because of the (philosophical) assumption that inanimate matter is supposed to behave causally and not teleologically. In essence there is here a combination of the principle of causality together with the physical assumption that the cause of a physical process must be a material-physical cause.

At this point the question arises: which description is more correct, the causal or the teleological? As we have already seen, in the physical sense this question has no meaning. The two descriptions are completely equivalent, and the results of the calculation in both are identical. Both have the same explanatory power with respect to the fields under discussion, and their predictions are identical as well. Therefore there is no scientific meaning to the question of which of them is "more correct" physically. However, this does not mean that the question is entirely meaningless. It definitely has philosophical meaning. The significance of the difference between the two types of explanation is mainly in the context of discussions about materialism and theism. As we noted above, from the teleological explanation there arises a "scent" of a factor that directs the "choice" made by the inanimate objects (it chooses for them and directs them).

As stated, among philosophers and scientists it is accepted today that the causal explanation is the more correct one, and the existence of an equivalent teleological explanation is merely a mathematical anecdote. This is another description, fully equivalent, and it has no physical or philosophical significance. On the face of it, it is not clear why this should be so. What is the basis for choosing the causal explanation over its teleological counterpart? Moreover, as we saw in the example of Fermat’s principle, the teleological explanation is simpler and more general, since it consists of one general principle that explains all of geometrical optics. By contrast, the causal description is more complex and cumbersome, since it contains a collection of several laws with no direct connection between them. For some reason, it is דווקא the more complicated explanation, the causal one, that is regarded as true, whereas the simpler explanation, the teleological one, appears to many as a mathematical curiosity.

The examples from evolutionary theory mentioned above are also, ostensibly, examples of the same type. Evolution offers a causal description of what appears teleological. The flagellum is described as a process of cause and effect, and this description is presented as an alternative to the teleological-purposive explanation. However, as we saw there, in the philosophical sense this is not really an alternative. After all, the whole process still requires clarification. How does a blind process assemble stage after stage in a way that creates a well-planned, complex, and obviously purposive factory? We saw that, at least on the philosophical plane, teleology must accompany the causal explanations.

True, unlike the case of optics, in the biological context it is clear that at least on the scientific plane the causal explanation is fuller and more comprehensive, since it offers detailed mechanisms and provides us with predictions about events under other circumstances. In this case the teleological explanation is merely a slogan (the bacterium advances toward the crumb "because" it wants to eat it. There is no explanation and detail here, only a bare assertion). If so, it seems that causality has pushed teleology aside in the field of biology. Even so, on the philosophical plane we have seen that these are two levels of explanation that do not contradict one another. The causal mechanism describes how the goal and purpose are carried out in practice. It is the explanation of how the planner and initiator of the factory builds it stage by stage. We describe the development of those stages according to the laws that the planner himself established. If so, on the philosophical plane—which is the only one relevant to the question of choosing between the two equivalent types of explanation—it is דווקא not reasonable to give up the teleological aspects of the process even in the case of the flagellum. In the field of physics, as we shall see in a moment, the situation is even more unequivocal.

In fact, the fundamental scientific achievement within this confrontation is the discovery of causal explanations for every process that until then had been explained in teleological terms. The very fact that a causal explanation exists is perceived as sufficient, and it renders the teleological explanation an anecdote devoid of real significance. At most it has practical significance, as a kind of useful fiction, but no more than that. However, we must pay attention to the fact that science generally has not proved that the causal explanation is the correct one, just as there is nothing in it that indicates the causal conception as such (the principle of causality). Science has at most proved that there exists a causal formulation equivalent to the teleological explanation, and below we shall see that even this is not so in all cases.

If so, the historical description we proposed above, according to which causal explanations conquer the fields of science one after another, is not a completely accurate description. At most one can say that more and more fields come to receive also a causal explanation equivalent to the teleological explanations. The teleological explanation still has not been refuted, nor has it been shown to be wrong. It is true that in those fields there is now no necessity to accept teleology, and causality can serve as an alternative or a complement.

As we shall now see, דווקא in physics, the science of inanimate matter—the one that supposedly lies deepest inside the causal domain—there are more and more fields in which there is no causal alternative at all, and the teleological description is the only one present on the stage (and not only that it is the simpler explanation, as we saw in the example of optics).

Force and Potential: Classical and Modern Physics

In classical mechanics we are familiar with two types of description of the motion of bodies. The Newtonian description is a description by means of forces that cause accelerations and motions. For example, when a ball rests on a slope, the Earth exerts on it a force of attraction (gravity), and that force moves it downward. This is an obviously causal description. However, alongside this description, every beginning student in mechanics knows the picture of potentials. That same ball moves downward "because" its potential energy at the lower point is less than what it has above, and it "strives" to reach the point with the lowest potential. This is a teleological description, because the ball supposedly "chooses" (of course against its will) to move to the point where it will have the lowest potential.

Many do not notice this, but the picture of potentials is a teleological description of mechanics.^[22] True, here too the picture is still completely equivalent to the causal picture. The force can be calculated from the potential, and the potential can also be calculated from the force, and therefore we have here two equivalent explanations, and it seems that at least scientifically there is no way to decide which picture is more correct, and perhaps there is no meaning at all to the question of which of them is more correct, since in science correctness means predictions that come true, and that happens equally in both formulations. Let us also note that Lagrange’s action function, which is the fundamental building block of the teleological picture in physics, really is based on energies and potentials.

It is true that if we introduce the factor of friction, or what are called "non-conservative forces," we will not have a simple description of mechanics by means of potentials, and we will be forced to speak only of forces. But it is known in physics that frictions appear only at high temperature, whereas at zero temperature, when "pure" physics is the relevant one, there are no frictions. Therefore frictions are not really basic natural phenomena for the purposes of our discussion. The phenomena at temperatures different from zero, called "non-conservative" (of energy), are the result of mathematical averaging of a quantity called the "partition function," which itself is built from a composition of different states of the system at zero temperature (that is, by means of potential and energy, and not by means of forces), and therefore indirectly a teleological description stands at the basis of this phenomenon as well.

The phenomenon becomes even sharper when we continue forward into modern physics. Mechanics is a relatively old field (a few hundred years old, since Galileo and Newton), but quantum mechanics, which was developed in the twentieth century, and field theory (quantum and classical), can be presented only in a teleological description. The physical picture in these fields uses only potentials and never forces. In quantum theory and in modern physics there is no natural use at all of the concept of "force," and it can be described only artificially and only in very specific cases. If so, in quantum theory there appears only a teleological description, and it has no causal counterpart at all.

Considering the fact that, as is currently known, quantum mechanics is the more fundamental one, and the Newtonian theory is merely an approximate application of it to sufficiently large bodies, and considering the fact that, at least in the reductionist worldview, all of reality as a whole (chemistry, biology, and some would also say psychology and sociology) is nothing but an application of mechanics (in the sense of forces and motions) to large and complex systems, we actually discover here that in the past hundred years there has been a retreat in the process by which causal conceptions were taking over physics. Teleology is quietly, quietly taking a central place in modern physics, and in the most fundamental cases we discover that there is not even an alternative causal description. There is only a teleological description, and therefore we do not even need to ask which of the two is more correct. Let us recall that even in cases where a causal option exists, it is only one option out of two, and there is no decision as to which of the two correctly describes reality (this question has no meaning, at least on the scientific plane).

So what is more correct here? Where there is only one option, it is hard to speak of such a question. What is correct is the only thing that exists, namely the teleological explanation. What will the adherents of causality say in these cases? If where there are two explanations they make an arbitrary choice in favor of the causal explanation, and treat the teleological explanation as an anecdote, what can they say in cases where there is no causal explanation at all? If the teleological explanation is only an anecdote devoid of physical importance, a useful fiction, then what is the real description in those cases? After all, here we have no other description.

If so, contrary to the picture we described earlier, the line that separates causal explanations from purposive explanations does not really move all the time from below (the inanimate) upward (to the living and the social). דווקא in the sciences of the inanimate there is an opposite development, even though physicists too do not always notice this phenomenon. The myth of the takeover of causality is very common even among contemporary physicists, but as we have seen here, this is more on the level of consciousness than on the scientific level.

The Existence of God: The Proof from Teleology

In my book The Science of Freedom, the discussion of teleology touched on the question of free will as against causality. If in the human sciences the dominant explanation is purposive, whereas with inanimate objects we speak a causal language, this more than hints that there is in the human being something different, beyond physics. But here our concern is the question of the existence of God. We have seen that over the years the teleological character of physics is gradually being revealed to us. Does this have philosophical significance? Does it indicate something about God?

As I noted at the beginning of the chapter, many people’s aversion to teleological explanations probably stems from the fact that, despite the findings that repeatedly slap them in the face, they are still not willing to give up the principle of causality. Although in various areas of contemporary physics there is no physical explanation but only a teleological description (quantum theory), and in other areas (geometrical optics) there are two options but the teleological one is simpler and more persuasive, they are still convinced that every physical event must have a cause. One is indeed led to agree to that, since as we have seen the principle of causality is an a priori assumption of reason and not an empirical finding. But they also assume that this cause must be physical and not something of another kind, and here we have a problem. In places where we have two explanatory options, causal and teleological, and even when the teleological one is the simpler and more reasonable, fine. But what do we do with the contexts of modern physics, in which there is only a teleological description? Apparently there is no escape from giving up the principle of causality, at least in those contexts.

But as we have seen, there is another option, and it leaves the assumption of causality in place. One can give up the claim that the cause of a physical event must itself always be physical. There are physical systems that, at least on the physical plane, behave as if they are moving toward an end and not because of a cause. The only way to keep the assumption of causality in place is to give up the assumption that the cause must be physical. If the light ray, or the quantum particle, behaves as if it is moving toward a goal and not because of a cause, and especially if it is clear that it has no ability to decide whether or not to move toward that goal, it is natural to think that there is some other factor that moves them and uses them for its own purposes. It wants the light ray to move along the fastest path, or the particle to move in a way that minimizes the functionals that govern its path.

This is of course not absolutely necessary. Perhaps there is a physical cause, and perhaps someday we will arrive at a full causal description of quantum theory, but as long as we do not have such a description it is hard to reject out of hand the proposal that there is an external factor that drives things toward their destinations, certainly not on the basis of scientific thinking.

Teleological behavior in physics does not necessarily have theistic or philosophical significance (at least if one is willing to accept purposive behavior without the need for a factor that sets the purposes and directs toward them). In principle, it may be that this is another description of a deterministic process, and perhaps one day all this really will have a causal explanation. Still, the clear teleological behavior of our most fundamental physics can certainly direct us to the conclusion that there is some factor that brings this about. This is certainly no less reasonable than the speculation of "atheism of the gaps," which hangs everything on future scientific discoveries that will present us with the complete causal picture.

And what if we become convinced that the findings of quantum theory indeed teach us that the assumption of causality is incorrect, and that intellectual honesty apparently requires us not to insist on it and to give up that assumption altogether? In that case it would seem that the physico-theological argument falls, since it is based on the assumption that everything must have a cause. But we have already seen (both in the booklet on the cosmological argument and here) that it is not correct to say that the spontaneous formation of particles from the vacuum is an event without a cause. Quantum theory is the cause of that. In a universe that was a true vacuum, particles would not simply be formed spontaneously. If so, giving up the principle of causality is very implausible. As we have seen (toward the end of chapter 8 above), at most we must give up the assumption that the cause has to be local.

What Kind of Argument Is This?

It is fairly clear why the proof from teleology is a type of physico-theological argument. It starts from a certain character of the universe (that parts of its physics have a teleological character), and from this it infers a conclusion about the existence of God. In Kant’s classification (see above in chapter 1), this is a clear physico-theological argument. True, as I wrote at the beginning of the chapter, here we are dealing with a proof from the "signature" and not from complexity. This is perhaps a somewhat different shade of the proof from design, since the basis is a certain character of the universe that looks like the "signature" of a planner, or of a commander who sends those subject to him to perform actions for certain purposes, that is, he sets goals for them. They may perhaps move causally: the commander ordered them to do so, but their cause is not found within them, but rather in a factor outside them. Moreover, the commander himself acts here in a teleological way, that is, he sets goals. This is completely parallel to what we saw regarding human desire. It constitutes a cause of various actions of ours, but it itself acts teleologically (it turns a target, or an end, into a cause).

1. A Few Concluding Remarks: On the "Church of Science"

Introduction

In this booklet we have dealt with the physico-theological proof and various objections to it. As Kant defined it, we saw that this type of proof is based on a factual assumption about the nature of what exists (the universe). In this chapter we will add a few concluding remarks.

On Faith, Science, and Rationality

Throughout the discussion we have seen that the physico-theological debate proceeds in a manner quite similar to scientific inference, since in both contexts we draw conclusions by way of generalization and by using our a priori assumptions from empirical observations. We further remarked that despite the foregoing, the discussion takes place on the philosophical plane and not on the scientific plane, and therefore the conclusion of the argument (that there is a God) is not a scientific claim, since it is not open to empirical falsification.^[23] The decision concerning the principle of causality and the principle of sufficient reason lies entirely on the philosophical plane. The same is true regarding the decision between a causal explanation and a purposive one.

We saw that anyone who does not accept the conclusion must give up something from the assumptions on the way to it. And if these are assumptions of rational thinking, then giving up belief contains a non-rational dimension. This can be seen as a non-rational adherence to the atheist faith. The picture that emerges here is the opposite of what is usually thought, as though belief in God is not rational whereas atheism is.

On the other hand, to the same extent we must also shatter the opposite myth, as though belief in God requires certainty, or something that lies above rational thinking. The picture presented here teaches us that belief is nothing but a conclusion like any other conclusion we reach by means of our ordinary thinking. And from that it follows that it too is not free of doubts and uncertainty. In my book Truth and Uncertainty I discussed the mistake and the damage involved in identifying truth with certainty, and that this mistaken identity is what underlies both skeptical pluralism and fundamentalism.

The "Church of Science"

In the past the Church burned the scientists who dared to raise the causal-scientific alternative instead of attributing everything to the hand of God, whereas today part of the scientific world and those who work around it behave as though they were part of a "Church of Science" that "burns" (metaphorically) anyone who dares to raise the teleological option and the physico-theological argument. In both cases this is an a priori consideration, not scientific and not empirical. It is worth going onto sites of religious preaching and comparing the level of discourse and discussion, and the degree of listening and condescension, with what is found on atheist sites. It is very similar. In both kinds there are all-knowing priests whom the laypeople quote. There are truths handed down from on high, over which one may not dispute, and there is fanaticism and dogmatism in abundance.

Since this entire debate is based on philosophical assumptions and not on observations and scientific findings, the sense of fanaticism and "churchliness" only grows stronger. The discussion of the phenomenon of teleology is a clear example of the way "scientific" dogmas are accepted, sometimes by means not all that different from those by which ecclesiastical dogmas were accepted, through ignoring—at times blatantly—the reality itself, and clinging to a priori assumptions whose source is apparently in the Divine Presence.

Example: The Copernican Revolution

Another example of this phenomenon is the Copernican revolution. The Church believed dogmatically in the geocentric conception, according to which the Earth is at the center of the universe, and the whole universe revolves around it. This was the ancient conception, until the time of Copernicus. Copernicus proposed a real revolution, according to which the sun is at the center, and the planets, including the planet Earth, revolve around it. Today the old ecclesiastical conception (which even led to the burning of several heretics who believed in the heliocentric conception) is presented as an example of dogmatic decision-making and lack of openness to new ideas.

But one should note that the dogma that rules today, according to which the sun is at the center and the Earth revolves around it, is also only a dogma. Mathematically there is no meaning at all to the distinction between these two pictures. If object A revolves around object B, this is only a description of the motion from the point of view of someone standing on object B. But if someone else is placed on object A, he will describe that very same situation in another language, as though object B revolves around object A, and דווקא object A is the one at rest at the center. There is no objective answer (kinematically) to the question of which object is at rest and which is the revolving one of the two. It is important to understand: the situation is not that we lack the ability and knowledge to determine the correct answer, but rather that this is a meaningless question on the physical plane. It has no "correct" scientific and mathematical answer at all.

Admittedly, there are dynamic physical distinctions between these pictures (as opposed to kinematics, which does not allow one to distinguish between them) by means of fictitious forces and other dynamic phenomena. But it is important to understand that these are definitions for the sake of scientific treatment, and not simple factual determinations. These definitions too are a matter of arbitrariness. An objective kinematic definition for determining the "correct" center of rotation simply does not exist.

Copernicus did not really discover that the Earth revolves around the sun, but found an alternative description of the solar system that is more efficient and convenient than the description that preceded it. He proposed that we try to step outside our natural point of view, as those standing on Earth, and mathematically adopt a coordinate system whose origin is located as if we were standing on the sun. It turns out that from that point of view the picture is much simpler and more convenient, and therefore there is strong scientific logic in adopting that frame of reference for various calculations and for understanding the picture with greater simplicity. But this is a question of convenience, and not of any objective determination. In fact, even today it is still correct to say that the sun revolves around the Earth just as it is correct to say that the Earth revolves around the sun. Everything depends on where our point of reference (the origin of the axes) is.

This is similar to a person who is inside a moving train. He sees the cars standing next to him as though they are moving backward, because from his point of view they really are moving. Only if we consider them from the point of view of the Earth, that is, of the platform, will we see that it is the train that is moving and the cars that are in fact standing still. So who is right? Both sides are right. Everything depends on the point of reference. There is no such thing as "such-and-such a body is moving" or "such-and-such a body is at rest." We must say it differently: "such-and-such a body moves, or is at rest, relative to a system or relative to some other body." Every motion or rest must be defined relative to a frame of reference. There is no objective motion or rest, but only motion or rest relative to a given coordinate system.

And despite all this, almost every educated person will tell you today with confidence that Copernicus discovered the truth, namely that the Earth revolves around the sun, that is, he showed that the dogmatic ecclesiastical conception was mistaken. But, as stated, this too is only a dogma. How did such an impression arise among the public? This is an example of the phenomenon of the "Church of Science," within which science and its dogmatic believers try to repay the Church in kind, and with the same tools. They operate by almost the same methods in order to instill the new beliefs from their own school in a manner no less absolute, dogmatic, and emphatic than their ecclesiastical predecessors.

1. See this in the second chapter of my book God Plays Dice. ↑

2. For a detailed discussion (not fully completed) of this proof, see a series of six articles of mine on the YNET-Science site, "Is Belief in God Rational?" The first was published on 14.7.2011 and the last on 21.8.2011. ↑

3. We assume here that the particles have rigid identity and therefore can be numbered. This is not necessarily correct (especially in quantum theory), but here this is enough for the purpose of illustration. ↑

4. There are quite a few assumptions here regarding the random dynamics (what is called the ergodic assumption), but for purposes of demonstration and illustration this is enough for us. ↑

5. In light of what we described in the previous section, it is important to clarify that in the initial state we are not speaking of a material point all concentrated at one point in space, for we saw above that this is actually a very ordered state. Space itself was that point, and it was "entirely" filled with matter. Therefore this is a simple state relative to the state of the universe that we see. ↑

6. And as stated, we do not need the question of who that God is. The proof deals with the existence of some being that is responsible for the existence of the universe, whatever it may be. Therefore, in the space of possibilities described here, the possibility that there is a God is one possibility and not a label for many possibilities. ↑

7. See this in greater detail in the last appendix to my book God Plays Dice. ↑

8. And as stated, this is why billions of dollars are invested in the search for gravitons (the particles that carry the force of gravitation). If gravitation were only a descriptive law and not a real force, there would be no reason to posit the existence of gravitons, and certainly that possibility would not justify such enormous investments. Therefore it is clear that physicists do not merely conjecture the existence of causes but actually assume it in practice. They can of course be mistaken, and most of them are also aware of this, but it is not correct that these are mere conjectures. ↑

9. See also my article, A Systematic View of the Relations between Evolution and Faith, in the book Torah and Science published by the Lev Institute (forthcoming in 2016). The article deals mainly with the irrelevance of evolution to the theological discussion. ↑

10. I believe that those who first raised it in this form were Fred Hoyle and Edwin Salpeter. See briefly on this in Yakir Shoshani’s article, Galileo 135. ↑

11. I dealt with this in great detail in my book The Science of Freedom. Several chapters there are devoted to the question of whether there are gaps of randomness or indeterminacy in physics. The distinction between ontic and epistemic indeterminacy, which will be discussed immediately, is detailed there in chapter ten. ↑

12. I dealt with this at length in chapter ten of my book The Science of Freedom; see there in the fifth intermezzo. See also a lecture I gave at the Steinsaltz Institute in Jerusalem, where I dealt with the Talmudic issue itself. The lecture can be viewed online: http://www.hashefa.co.il/home/artdetails.aspx?mCatID=68393&artID=9600. ↑

13. In chapter ten of my book The Science of Freedom these matters are explained more clearly and in greater detail. ↑

14. See this in the fifth chapter of my book The Science of Freedom (especially in part B of the chapter). ↑

15. See the entry ‘Cellular automaton’ in Wikipedia. ↑

16. For a simple and clear description, see Yakir Shoshani’s article on the subject, Galileo 135. It appears in two parts on YNET-Science, the second dated 27.2.2011. ↑

17. Do not confuse the term anthropic (written in English with th) with the term entropy (written in English with t). ↑

18. This chapter is based on appendix D in my book God Plays Dice; see also note 22 in my book What Exists and What Does Not. ↑

19. These matters, of course, touch directly on the question of determinism, and I discussed this at length in my book The Science of Freedom. ↑

20. The more precise mathematical term is functionals. An ordinary function takes a number as input and produces another number as output. A functional takes a function as input and produces a number as output (or a simpler function). For the sake of simplicity I ignored this distinction in the body of the discussion. ↑

21. The diagram is taken from Wikipedia. ↑

22. This claim is not quite so simple, since we are speaking of a local minimum. If in front of the body there is an increase in the potential, after which there is a lower minimum, the body will not be able to pass over the hill in front of it, and it will remain in its place. The body is not free to choose its target point as it wishes. But this is not an essential limitation on the claim that we have here a picture teleological in character. The body strives to reach the point of absolute minimum, but there is a barrier in its path that prevents it from reaching it. In quantum theory even this limitation is removed, since the ball can pass through the potential barrier (this is what is called the tunneling effect). ↑

23. We did note at the end of chapter 5 that one can treat the existence of God as information that is already known, and therefore its scientific status is irrelevant. This is a claim that cannot be falsified because it is already known to be true, like a claim about a raven that I have already seen in the past to be black. This is not a scientific claim because it cannot be falsified, but would anyone doubt it because of its lack of scientificity? ↑