Is the universe the work of chance?

If chance is only a word for the cause we do not know, Roger is left with the argument of chaos: destroyed stars, black holes, cosmic disorder. Tom answers with a domestic analogy — and with the mathematical laws that govern everything.

Roger becomes thoughtful and says:

— If chance does not exist, if it is only an expression of language, the product of our ignorance of the cause of a given event, how do you explain that the universe is full of chaos, of disorder, of stars that are destroyed, absorbed by black holes, of destructive cosmic events? How can you believe that the universe is the work of an intelligent being?

Tom breaks into a smile and says:

— My wife is alarmed when she sees my study and says that everything is disorganised, untidy, a chaos. Yet, if no one touches anything, I know where each thing is. When she tidies or organises my study, I no longer know where anything is. I only know again when I put everything back according to my own order.

Roger bursts out laughing and says:

— But Tom, that analogy presupposes precisely what you are trying to prove — that there is an intelligent being behind the order!

Tom smiles and replies:

— You are right, Roger, and that is exactly the point. The analogy is not a proof, it is an illustration. What it shows is that the appearance of chaos always depends on the point of observation. The order of my study looks like chaos to my wife because she does not know my system. In the same way, what seems to us like chaos in the universe may simply be an order that our intelligence is not yet able to understand. And notice — even what we call chaos in the universe obeys precise mathematical laws. Black holes, supernovae, the expansion of the universe — everything follows laws. And laws, as we shall see, do not arise from chance.

Roger lets out a booming laugh and says:

— My friend, the universe is far larger and more complex than your study!

Tom and Roger could not stop laughing.

— Yes, it is true — says Tom — The universe is far larger. But if you think about it a little, you will realise that the intelligence of the most intelligent man on Earth is incapable of understanding the order of the universe. And because we do not understand it, it seems wrong to us, a matter of chance.

Once again, Roger is caught off guard by his friend's reasoning.

— Yes, but would the laws that govern the universe not be capable of creating it and sustaining it?

— Laws, codes, are the fruit of an intelligence. Things are as they are because something made them so. Where did those laws come from? From nothingness? From chance? We have already reached the conclusion that nothingness and chance are only expressions of language.

Roger, thoughtful, says:

— You are right. A law always implies a lawgiver. I know of no law — neither physical, nor mathematical, nor moral — that arose by itself, without an intelligence behind it.

Tom nods and says:

— Exactly. And notice the sophistication of those laws. The gravitational constant, the speed of light, the charge of the electron — if any one of these values were slightly different, the universe would not exist, stars would not form, life would be impossible. The probability that all these constants have the exact value they have, by chance, is mathematically indistinguishable from zero. Physicists themselves call this the problem of the fine-tuning of the universe.

Excerpt from the work The Great Discovery, by César Manuel Malainho de Oliveira.
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