Chance • Design • Purpose
Do you gamble?
A lottery ticket risks a few pounds. Your view of existence shapes what you do with your entire life.
The question is not whether enormous numbers can frighten us into belief. The question is which explanation of the universe—chance, necessity, a multiverse or design—best accounts for what we observe.
No pressure. No demand for blind belief. Read, question and decide.
Imagine buying a lottery ticket. You know the rules, the number of possible combinations and the odds of matching the winning numbers.
Now consider the universe.
There are laws of nature, physical constants, particles, forces, galaxies, stars, chemistry, living organisms, consciousness and human beings capable of asking why any of it exists.
Is that simply another lottery?
Not exactly.
A lottery is a deliberately constructed system with a known set of possible tickets and a known method of selection. We do not possess a complete catalogue of every possible universe or an agreed probability distribution telling us how often each kind should occur.
That means we should be careful with dramatic claims about the exact “odds” of our universe.
But caution does not make the deeper question disappear.
The postcard’s real challenge
Why is there a universe capable of life, reason and moral choice?
Did this reality have to exist? Is it one member of a much larger multiverse? Is it simply an unexplained fact? Or does its order and intelligibility point towards intention?
Chance, necessity, multiverse or design—which explanation makes the most sense?
Begin with what can be calculated
The lottery comparison—and where it stops
EuroMillions jackpot
A defined game
1 in 139,838,160
That is approximately a 0.000000715% chance per standard line.
The figure can be calculated because the rules, number pool and winning combination are defined in advance.
The universe
A deeper question
No agreed single probability
We do not know the complete set of possible universes, whether every constant could vary independently, or what probability should be assigned to each possibility.
The universe cannot honestly be reduced to another lottery ticket with one universally accepted number printed on it.
If someone wins EuroMillions, we know how the result occurred: a ticket matched the selected numbers within a game deliberately constructed to produce winners and losers.
When we ask about the universe, we are asking something more fundamental:
Why do any laws, possibilities, physical systems or probability-generating processes exist at all?
What does the famous 10120 figure mean?
It is sometimes claimed that the chance of a life-permitting universe is “one in 10120.”
That is not an established probability of the universe appearing by chance.
The number is commonly connected to the cosmological-constant problem: under certain theoretical assumptions, estimates of vacuum energy differ enormously from the value inferred through cosmological observation.
It is a profound theoretical problem, but it should not be presented as a literal lottery probability.
Truth does not need exaggerated statistics.
The scientific question
What does “fine-tuning” mean?
In physics, fine-tuning does not automatically mean that somebody has already proved a Fine-Tuner.
It describes a situation in which a theory permits different parameter values, while only a restricted range produces a particular outcome.
In discussions about life, the claim is that particular combinations of physical laws, constants and initial conditions appear important for stable matter, long-lived stars, complex chemistry and organised structures capable of supporting embodied life.
Physical laws
Why does nature behave through stable, mathematically describable regularities rather than complete disorder?
Constants and parameters
Why do the strengths, masses and relationships in our physical models take the values they do?
Initial conditions
Why did the early universe possess conditions allowing expansion, structure, galaxies and stars?
Intelligibility
Why can minds produced within the universe understand it through mathematics, reason and experiment?
A network of remarkable conditions
A few examples that make people pause
These examples do not all belong to fine-tuning in exactly the same scientific sense.
Some concern planetary habitability, some reveal biological complexity, one is a remarkable astronomical coincidence, and others show how much remains to be understood.
The right region for liquid water
Earth travels around 149.6 million kilometres from the Sun and sits comfortably within the Sun’s habitable zone—the region where surface liquid water can persist when a planet also possesses a suitable atmosphere.
Move a world far too close and its water may be lost through extreme heating. Move it far too distant and much of its surface water may freeze.
Distance is not the only factor. Atmosphere, mass, geology and the type of star also matter.
An atmosphere and magnetic shield
Earth’s dry atmosphere is approximately 78.084% nitrogen, 20.946% oxygen and 0.934% argon, with small quantities of other gases that have major effects on climate and life.
The atmosphere moderates temperature, filters harmful radiation and destroys many incoming meteoroids.
Beyond it, Earth’s magnetosphere redirects much of the solar wind and helps protect the atmosphere and surface environment.
The geometry of a total eclipse
The Sun is approximately 1,392,000 kilometres wide, while the Moon is approximately 3,474 kilometres wide. That makes the Sun about 401 times wider.
The Sun is approximately 149.6 million kilometres from Earth, while the Moon averages around 384,400 kilometres away. The Sun is therefore about 389 times farther away on average.
Because the size and distance ratios are so similar, the Sun and Moon can appear almost equal in our sky, allowing the Moon to reveal the solar corona during a total eclipse.
This coincidence is not required for life, but it is remarkable.
DNA and the living cell
A human genome contains roughly 3 billion DNA bases and around 20,000 genes—but DNA is only one part of a living system.
A cell reads and repairs DNA, produces and folds proteins, creates energy, transports material, removes waste, communicates and regulates countless interacting processes.
A landmark whole-cell computer model was built for Mycoplasma genitalium, one of the simplest bacteria.
A later E. coli whole-cell project reported that its model included the functions of 43% of characterised genes. Present science remains far from a complete predictive simulation of a human cell.
Gravity: familiar and still mysterious
Einstein’s general relativity describes gravity with extraordinary success. It predicts planetary motion, gravitational lensing, black holes and gravitational waves.
Yet physicists are still working to reconcile gravity fully with quantum theory.
We understand remarkably well how gravity behaves across many scales, while its deepest quantum nature remains an open area of investigation.
Jupiter and the Solar System
Jupiter’s enormous gravity has reshaped the paths of countless asteroids and comets.
It can capture objects, eject them from the Solar System or redirect some towards the inner planets.
Jupiter should not be described simply as Earth’s perfect shield. Its mass and orbit form part of a complex gravitational environment in which our Solar System developed.
Wonder is not the same as proof
None of these observations, taken alone, mathematically proves that the universe was designed.
The eclipse does not cause life. Biological complexity is not identical to cosmic fine-tuning. An unresolved scientific question is not automatically evidence for God merely because an answer has not yet been found.
Their importance is cumulative: they reveal a reality in which many laws, conditions and systems interact with extraordinary order.
Does this ordered, intelligible and life-permitting reality make more sense as a brute accident—or as the work of knowledge and intention?
Most known regions of the universe are immediately hostile to human life.
Fine-tuning is not the claim that the cosmos resembles a luxury hotel prepared for human comfort.
The more modest claim is that the underlying laws and conditions permit sustained complexity, stable matter, chemistry, stars, planets and living organisms to exist at all.
The issue should therefore not be reduced to:
“Science proved God” versus “science removed God.”
Scientific discoveries describe features of the universe. The deeper question is which explanation—chance, necessity, a multiverse or design—best accounts for those features.
Four broad possibilities
How might a life-permitting universe be explained?
The main options are not simply “science” on one side and “religion” on the other.
Possibility one
Chance or brute fact
Perhaps the laws and constants simply happen to possess life-permitting values, with no deeper explanation available or required.
Possibility two
Physical necessity
Perhaps a deeper future theory will show that the laws and constants could not have been otherwise.
Possibility three
A multiverse
Perhaps a vast collection of universes exists with different conditions. Observers naturally find themselves in a region in which observers can exist.
Possibility four
Design
Perhaps a mind capable of intention selected a reality whose laws and conditions allow order, complexity, consciousness and moral agents.
These options are not always mutually exclusive.
A theist could believe that God creates through a multiverse. A deeper physical law could itself invite the question of why that law exists. A multiverse might explain why observers measure certain constants while leaving the existence of the entire system unexplained.
The issue is not which slogan sounds most impressive.
The issue is which worldview gives the most adequate account of existence, laws, order, consciousness, reason, morality and purpose when these features are considered together.
Avoiding the God-of-the-gaps mistake
Does belief in design oppose science?
It can—if God is used merely as a label for whatever science has not yet explained.
This is a weak argument:
“We do not currently know how this happened; therefore God did it.”
Scientific gaps can close. A belief built entirely inside a temporary gap becomes vulnerable whenever knowledge advances.
But not every argument for a Creator is a gap argument.
There is a difference between asking:
- How does a physical process work?
- Why is there a physical reality with intelligible laws capable of supporting that process?
Science investigates measurable mechanisms, relationships and regularities within nature.
The question of God concerns the ultimate ground of nature itself.
Mechanism and agency are not automatic rivals.
Explaining how ink reached a page does not settle whether anyone wrote the message. Explaining the mechanics of an engine does not make its designer disappear.
Likewise, discovering a natural mechanism does not by itself answer why a law-governed universe exists or whether its laws ultimately arise from intention.
Deeper than fine-tuning
Why does anything exist at all?
Imagine that every fine-tuning question were solved tomorrow.
A complete physical theory might derive every constant from one elegant set of equations.
We could still ask:
Why does that theory, those equations or any reality exist rather than nothing?
You did not create yourself. You depend on causes and conditions outside yourself: parents, matter, energy, air, water, food, physical laws and a habitable environment.
The objects around you are also dependent. They are composed of parts, undergo change and could have been arranged differently.
Philosophers often call such realities contingent: they exist, but they do not contain the complete explanation of their own existence.
You could not create yourself
To create yourself, you would need to exist before you existed. That is a contradiction.
Absolute nothing cannot act
Nothing has no matter, energy, laws, power, potential, intelligence or intention. It cannot cause something.
Dependence points beyond itself
A collection of dependent things does not become self-existent merely because the collection is extremely large or old.
The Qur’an asks
“Were they created by nothing, or are they their own creators?”
Qur’an 52:35. Read verses 35–36 in context
The first possibility gives nothing causal power. The second is self-contradictory. The third points towards a Creator.
This does not yet establish every teaching of Islam. It begins a journey of reasoning.
The most common follow-up
Who created the Creator?
Some people ask:
“If the baker baked the bread, who baked the baker?”
The question sounds clever, but it confuses the maker with the thing that was made.
A baker is not a loaf of bread. The baker does not need to be baked before baking bread.
In the same way, the argument is not that everything—including the Creator—was created.
The argument is not:
“Everything has a creator.”
If absolutely everything required a creator, then a Creator would require another creator, who would require another, and no ultimate explanation would ever be reached.
The reasoning is closer to this:
Whatever begins, changes or depends upon something beyond itself requires an explanation.
The ultimate foundation of all dependent reality cannot itself be dependent in the same way. Otherwise it would simply be another part of the chain requiring explanation.
Islam does not describe Allah as a very old physical object living somewhere inside the universe.
Allah is the uncreated Creator of physical reality, space and time. He does not enter existence, acquire parts, grow, decay or depend on conditions outside Himself.
Asking “Who created the uncreated Creator?” therefore places the opposite of the concept into the question.
This does not mean that defining something as uncreated proves it exists.
The reasoning begins with the dependent reality we know exists and asks what kind of ultimate foundation could explain it.
What qualities would such a foundation require?
From a Creator to revelation
What does Islam claim?
Reason may point towards an uncreated Creator.
But philosophy alone cannot tell us every detail about why we were created, how we should live, whether death is the end or whether the Creator has communicated with humanity.
Islam makes a further claim:
The Creator has not left human beings without guidance.
He sent messengers throughout history, calling people to worship Him alone, live morally, repent when they fail and prepare to return to Him.
Islam does not present this call as the invention of a new tribal god.
The word Allah is the Arabic word used for God. Arabic-speaking Christians use it too, including in Arabic translations of the Bible.
See Genesis 1:1 in an Arabic Christian Bible
This does not mean Muslims and Christians hold identical beliefs about God.
Islam rejects the Trinity, incarnation and divine sonship, while Christianity affirms them. That is a genuine theological disagreement deserving respectful investigation.
The point is that “Allah” is not the name of a separate Arabian deity. Muslims intend to worship the Creator of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
How does the Qur’an describe Allah?
Qur’an 112 in explanatory English
Allah is uniquely One—not one member of a category of gods.
He is perfectly self-sufficient, while all creation depends upon Him.
He was not born, has no beginning and does not produce divine offspring.
Nothing and no one is comparable to Him.
What is the purpose of human life?
Islam teaches that human existence is neither accidental nor pointless.
Qur’an 23:115
“Did you think We had created you without purpose, and that you would not be returned to Us?”
Worship in Islam is larger than ritual.
It means recognising the Creator, loving Him, trusting Him, thanking Him and allowing His guidance rather than ego, fashion or appetite to become the highest authority in life.
It includes prayer and remembrance, but also justice, honesty, mercy, charity, patience, family responsibility and care for the vulnerable.
Worship does not complete Allah. It reorients us.
It frees a human being from making wealth, approval, pleasure, status, ideology or the self into the highest object of devotion.
One message through the prophets
Islam teaches that Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad called people to the same foundation:
Worship the Creator alone and live in willing submission to Him.
Their communities, circumstances and detailed laws were not necessarily identical, but their fundamental orientation was one.
In this foundational sense, a “Muslim” is one who submits to God—not a race, nationality or cultural costume.
Begin where you genuinely are
What if I am still unconvinced?
Then do not pretend.
A forced confession has little value. Ask your strongest questions, examine serious arguments and distinguish Islam itself from the behaviour of individual Muslims.
If you are atheist or agnostic
You do not need to accept an exaggerated probability claim. Ask whether brute fact, necessity, a multiverse or design best explains the wider evidence.
Also ask whether disbelief is a carefully examined conclusion—or simply the atmosphere in which you learned to think.
If you are Christian
Islam shares belief in the Creator of Abraham and honours Jesus as the Messiah and a mighty messenger.
It also challenges the Trinity, incarnation and divine sonship. Those differences should be studied directly rather than avoided.
If you are simply curious
Begin with primary sources. Read the Qur’an itself rather than relying only on headlines, short clips or what supporters and opponents say about it.
Ask what the text claims, what reasons it gives and what kind of response it calls for.
A simple prayer for the searching
“God—Allah—if You exist, guide me to what is true. Remove pride, fear and prejudice from me. Do not let me reject truth because it is unfamiliar, or accept falsehood because it is comfortable.”
This is not a magical formula.
It is an honest opening of the heart.
Do not gamble with assumptions
How can you investigate responsibly?
Where should a first-time Qur’an reader begin?
Honest questions are welcome
Common questions
Does fine-tuning prove that Allah exists?
Is the chance of our universe really one in 10120?
Does a multiverse remove the need for God?
Is the universe made for humans when most of it is hostile?
Can atheists live moral lives?
Does Islam require blind faith?
Why would Allah create people if He needs nothing?
What if I read the Qur’an and still disagree?
Do not take our word for it
Read the Qur’an and examine the claim for yourself
Do not judge Islam only through selected quotations, news reports, short videos or what other people claim it teaches. Go to the source, reflect and reach an informed conclusion.
Visit JustMuslim.org for current Qur’an availability, delivery information and app details.
Your life is not a game
You do not need every answer before asking the right question.
Perhaps the universe is ultimately an unexplained fact and human life is a brief accident without an intended destination.
But perhaps existence, order, reason, moral awareness and the longing for meaning fit better within a reality grounded in knowledge and purpose.
Perhaps the One who gave you life has not left you without guidance.
Do not gamble with an assumption.
Read. Question. Reflect. Decide.
“O Allah, if You exist, guide me to the truth.”
Sources and further reading
NASA — Earth and the habitable zone
NOAA — Composition of Earth’s atmosphere
NASA — Earth’s magnetosphere
NASA — Why the Sun and Moon appear nearly the same size
National Human Genome Research Institute — DNA facts
Cell — Whole-cell model of Mycoplasma genitalium
The E. coli Whole-Cell Modeling Project
Review of Modern Physics — Laboratory approaches to quantum gravity
NASA — Jupiter’s gravitational influence on comet 67P
Review of the cosmological-constant and vacuum-energy problem
Qur’an 52:35–36 — Nothingness, self-creation and creation
Qur’an 23:115 — Purpose and return to the Creator
Qur’an, Chapter 112 — The uniquely One, self-sufficient Creator
Genesis 1:1 in an Arabic Christian Bible
JustMuslim.org — Qur’an, literature and contact information
Just Muslim Qur’an app — Google Play