Doug Hayworth wrote:
> In my admittedly cursory reading on the Anthropic Principle (AP), I have
> been uncomfortable with the use of the term "fine-tuning". This term seems
> to connote that God (on this list, we are all agreed that if there is
> anything that can be called fine tuning, it is God who does it) somehow
> adjusts something that was formerly only crudely "tuned". Conceptions of
> the AP that require this meaning do not appeal to me, since they imply that
> there is some background or foundational order in the Creation that is less
> than perfect or complete. As a Christian, I would prefer the term
> "finely-established" or "finely-created" to imply that God established in
> his initial creation a confluence of orderliness brought about his purposes
> in genesis of the cosmos, our solar system, earth, and its creatures. I
> don't think God had to adjust things (i.e., fine-tune) later.
>
> In practice, how do philosophers and apologists of the AP use the term
> "fine-tuning"? What do you folks think?
>
> I seem to remember that Howard Van Till addressed aspects of the AP at the
> Waco conference. If so, perhaps he has some wisdom here.
I agree with Doug's sentiments here. As I see it, the term "fine tuning"
does not entail the idea of adjusting something what was already in
existence, but simply refers to the condition of having a set of parameter
values that is "just right" to bring the universe from its initial state to
its present state along a pathway of continuous development.
Interesting to me is the fact that fine tuning is necessary only in the
context of presuming that the universe (the Creation) satisfies the Robust
Formational Economy Principle and has an evolutionary formational history.
Episodic creationism, on the other hand, should see evidence for fine tuning
and the Anthropic Principle as surprising, since occasional acts of divine
adjustment could presumably make up for any lack of original tuning.
Howard Van Till
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