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.
Doug
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