The God who Made the Machine : Fine-Tuning, Faith, and a Parable on the Search for the Master Builder

David declared “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1) When I contemplate the immense beauty and scope of creation I am filled with awe and wonder. And I am struck by how unlikely my existence is in the first place. So many things have to be just right for the universe to exist at all. Indeed, this complexity and design is one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of a divine creator.

This argument from fine-tuning is frequently cited by theists as evidence that the universe is the product of an intelligent Creator. Philosophy Professor Thomas Metcalf put it this way:

1. If God does not exist, then it was extremely unlikely that the universe would permit life.
2. But if God exists, then it was very likely that the universe would permit life.
3. Therefore, that the universe permits life is strong evidence that God exists.

I think this is a very compelling argument in light of how improbable it would be for life to exist in this universe by chance. For instance, some scientists emphasize that at the time of the big bang the “constants, forces, and conditions couldn’t have varied by more than one part in 10⁶⁰ (i.e., a one with sixty zeros after it) and still permitted life.” It is truly a miracle that we are here at all and that the universe operates in a precise, consistent, and orderly manner that can produce life. It is not simply improbable—it’s astronomically so. The most compelling explanation is that the universe was designed by a purposeful Creator.

Latter-day Saints sometimes appeal to this argument. But Mormon theology is fundamentally incompatible with its implications. A closer look reveals that rather than supporting Mormonism, fine-tuning actually undermines it. In fact Mormon cosmology actually compounds the improbability that fine tuning seeks to address.

This is because the classic Mormon conception of God:

• Did not create the universe from nothing but organized eternal matter.
• Is subject to eternal laws, such as the “law of eternal progression.”
• Became God by passing through a process of exaltation.

As such, the LDS God:

• Did not fine-tune the universe.
• Could not determine its laws.
• Came to be exalted within an already-functioning cosmos.

This fundamentally disqualifies the Mormon God as the sort of being that the fine-tuning argument requires.

And yet, the challenge runs deeper still.

With atheism, a life-permitting universe is already wildly improbable. But with Mormonism, the situation is worse: the universe must not only support intelligent life, but must be structured in such a way as produce Gods. It must:

• Allow for the existence of eternal intelligences,
• Permit the spiritual and physical progression of those intelligences,
• Enable embodied gods to manipulate the elements, create worlds, and populate them with spirit children.
• Sustain laws of exaltation that can reliably result in godhood across generations of intelligences.

The improbability of this kind of universe—one that permits not merely sentient life, but divine exaltation—is vastly greater than a life-permitting universe alone. In other words, Mormon cosmology introduces additional levels of contingency without supplying a necessary being to ground them.

Yet Mormonism gives no ultimate explanation for why such a universe exists. Its God is a product of this system, not its architect. But a universe that gives rise to gods, but has no God behind it, leaves us with deeper questions unanswered: Who or what fine-tuned the system to produce gods?

If the universe really is as finely tuned as it appears, then the story Mormonism tells us does not give us a coherent origin story and instead imagines that a complex machine somehow runs without ever having been built.

Let me illustrate with a story: The Parable of the Machine in the Woods

One day, a little girl named Faith wandered into a forest she had never seen before. In a sunlit clearing, she discovered something incredible—a massive silver machine humming with activity. She watched as it built all kinds of amazing things: houses, towers, even skyscrapers. And she saw the machine also made tiny robots.

Faith’s eyes widened. She turned to one of the robots nearby.
“Who built this machine?” she asked.

The robot blinked. “Oh, no one built it,” he said. “The machine has just always been here.”

At first this seemed like an acceptable answer. But as Faith thought about it a bit more, this answer didn’t sound quite right.
“But… everything is so perfect,” she said. “If even one part was off, it wouldn’t work at all.”

“That’s true,” said the robot. “But it just so happens that this machine has always been finely tuned to do what it does. And the best part? If we grow, learn, and work really hard, we can become master builders too. Then we can find new forests, build new machines, and make more robots like us!”

Faith was quiet for a moment. Then she asked,
“Wait… but if there weren’t any builders yet, how did the first machine—one that could make builders—get here in the first place?”

The robot paused. Then said again, “Well… it’s just always been here. Do you want to stay here and learn more about the machine from us?”

At first the offer seemed enticing. But Faith frowned. She wasn’t trying to be difficult. It just didn’t make sense.
As she thought about for a while, she realized that something else was much more likely than what the robot had told her. She came to believe something else: that a Master Builder—one who didn’t need a machine to exist—had made the first machine on purpose.

And so, she decided to keep walking through the forest, searching for the One who made it all.

Faith’s intuition in the story is exactly right. The complexity and order we see around us cry out for an explanation deeper than “it’s just always been that way.” It begs for a Master Builder—someone outside the system who made it all possible.

This is precisely where Mormon theology falters. Its God is not the Master Builder but a product of the machinery—subject to its constraints and incapable of explaining its origin. But a truly compelling explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe must point beyond the system to the One who designed it. Design doesn’t point to a machine that made gods,
but a God who made the machine.