If the Multiverse Exists So Does God

As Denyse O'Leary explained in a column some years ago at Evolution News cosmic fine-tuning presents a profound difficulty for any naturalistic view of cosmic origins. The term fine-tuning refers to the exquisitely precise calibration of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of parameters, constants and forces that comprise the fabric of the universe.

If any of these were set at values only slightly different than they are either the universe couldn'texist or it wouldn't be the kind of place where life could exist.

According to many scientists there are only two possible realistic explanations for this astounding state of affairs. Either the universe was created by an intelligent supernatural agent, i.e. God, or there is in fact an infinite array of universes, like bubbles in a bubble bath, each one possessing different physical properties. This is what has come to be called the multiverse hypothesis.

If there are indeed an infinity of different universes then one like ours, as improbable as it would be if it were the only universe, must exist since in an infinite series of possibilities anything that's possible to exist must actually exist. In other words, the multiverse hypothesis evades the problem of our universe's astronomical improbability by making the universe statistically necessary.

O'Leary gives us a couple of examples of scientists clearly acknowledging these two alternatives. Science writer Marcus Chown at New Scientist magazine writes:

Should the fine-tuning turn out to be real, what are we to make of it? There are two widely-discussed possibilities: either God fine-tuned the universe for us to be here, or there are (as string theory implies) a large number of universes, each with different laws of physics, and we happen to find ourselves in a universe where the laws happen to be just right for us to live. After all, how could we not?

Elsewhere in the same magazine the editors tell us that,

But the main reason for believing in an ensemble of universes is that it could explain why the laws governing our Universe appear to be so finely tuned for our existence … This fine-tuning has two possible explanations. Either the Universe was designed specifically for us by a creator or there is a multitude of universes — a multiverse.

The multiverse hypothesis has been embraced by those - scientists, philosophers and laypersons alike - who hold to a naturalist worldview because that worldview has no room for the alternative that the universe is the product of an intelligent creator. There are, notwithstanding its appeal to these thinkers, numerous problems with the multiverse hypothesis, not the least of which is that there's no empirical evidence for it.

The multiverse idea is also extraordinarily unparsimonious, positing a virtual infinity of universes in order to avoid positing a single creator. It also merely pushes the problem of fine-tuning back a step since whatever is generating all those universes must itself be extremely fine-tuned.

One other difficulty for the hypothesis, at least as a means of avoiding God, is that it actually dovetails with a version of what philosophers call the ontological argument for the existence of God. I've never seen the argument worded quite like this so if there's a flaw in it the fault is with me and not with the ontological argument itself. The argument goes like this:

1. It's logically possible that there exists a being that is the self-existent creator of all else that exists. By logically possible is meant that the idea doesn't entail a contradiction like, say, the idea of a square circle does. There's no contradiction in the concept of a self-existent creator of all else that exists.
2. If the existence of such a being is logically possible then there is a logically possible world (i.e. universe) in which a self-existent creator of all else that exists is part of the description of that world. In other words, there's a possible world in which a self-existent creator of all else that exists is the creator of that world.
   Note: A possible world is simply the way the actual world could've been. It's possible that the Kansas City Chiefs won the last Super Bowl so there's a possible world in which the Chiefs are the current Super Bowl champions. As another example, there's a possible world in which Covid-19 never created a pandemic. Possible worlds are conceptual, they don't actually exist.
3. But, if all logically possible worlds do actually exist, as posited by some multiverse scenarios, then there must be some actual world in which it is true to say that a self-existent creator of all else that exists actually created that world.
4. If it is true to say of some actual world that it was created by a self-existent creator of all else that exists then a self-existent creator of all else that exists must itself actually exist.
5. If a self-existent creator of all else that exists does itself exist, then by definition it must have created every world that exists. If there were some world which this being did not create then it wouldn't be the creator of all that is, which is a contradiction.
6. Therefore, our world must have been created by the self-existent creator of all else that exists.

In simpler terms, given the fine-tuning of the universe either God exists or there's a multiverse, but, as the preceding argument shows, if there's a multiverse then God exists. So, given cosmic fine-tuning, either God exists or God exists.

It seems God's existence is inescapable.