Stream: No, The Size of the Universe Doe Not Prove God Doesn’t Exist
Some philosophers are claiming God doesn’t exist because the universe is big and mostly humanity-free.
These academic philosophers look across the vastness of space and say, “God would not have made something so big and yet so sparse in humanity, therefore God doesn’t exist.”
From the Real Clear Science article “Does the Size of the Universe Prove God Doesn’t Exist?” by philosopher Emily Thomas we learn:
Philosophers of religion such as Michael Martin and Nicholas Everitt have asked us to consider the kind of universe we would expect the Christian God to have created, and compare it with the universe we actually live in. They argue there is a mismatch. Everitt focuses on how big the universe is, and argues this gives us reason to believe the God of classical Christianity doesn’t exist.
What’s big?
Thomas says,
Our own planet is 150m kilometres away from the sun. Earth’s nearest stars, the Alpha Centauri system, are four light years away (that’s around 40 trillion kilometres). Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains anywhere from 100 to 400 billion stars. The observable universe contains around 300 sextillion stars. Humans occupy the tiniest fraction of it. The landmass of planet Earth is a drop in this ocean of space
(Incidentally, it’s a good bet many of these same academics say there are too many people in the world.)
Thomas appeals to scripture to say “God is human-oriented: human beings are like God, and he values us highly.” But then Thomas expresses puzzlement why God did not “create a universe in which humans feature prominently”. She expected “humans to occupy most of the universe, existing across time”, which of course we don’t.
Quoting Everitt Thomas says, “The findings of modern science significantly reduce the probability that theism is true, because the universe is turning out to be very unlike the sort of universe which we would have expected, had theism been true.”
The fallacy here should be obvious: How can know why God made creation the way He did?
You aren’t God
The mistake is what we can call the If I Were God Fallacy.
Step one of the fallacy: attempt the impossible feat of supposing you had the Infinite Mind of God. Step two: create your own imaginary universe. Step three: compare the beautiful utopia of your imagination with what you see out the window.
Step four: pronounce the comparison unfavorable.
Finally, step five: say that because God did not create the perfect universe you envision, God doesn’t exist.
Not only is this argument silly, it is arrogant. It is to accuse God of sloppiness and of lacking in imagination. It to say that God is less intelligent than your fine self because it didn’t occur to Him to make fewer cockroaches. It’s silly because it is impossible to know the mind of God. Impossible, and not just unlikely.