Fine tuning of the Universe

[Mr.Badham]

I'm confused, because it seems like the argument could go both ways.

Either the universe is fine tuned for life, and therefore is full of it, or only Earth is fine tuned for life, and the rest of the universe will have none of it.

I want theists to take a stand right here and say;

The universe is fine tuned, and is full of life.

Or

The Earth is fine tuned, the rest of the universe has none of it.

Then I want you to stake your religiosity on it. If you make the claim, one way or the other, and are shown to be wrong, you will then become an atheist.

If you are not willing to do this, I would like you to proclaim that the argument is bogus, and should never be used.

You have 1 of 3 options;
The universe is full of life.
Only earth has life.
The fine tuning argument is bogus and should never be used.

[sickles]

[Replying to post 60 by instantc]

there is an important word at issue here that you seem to be missing. "Necessary" is that word. It may logically follow that 2+2 =4. But 2+2 isnt NECESSARY to arrive at 4. There is 3+1 and 0+4 and so on. So, if one starts with nothing else but "4" (which is complexity in our conversation), we have absolutely no way to deduce that it was 2+2(2+2 in this case is an intelligent designer) that caused 4 because we cannot eliminate the possibilities that it was 3+1 (additive Goldilocks Conditions) or 4+0 (other) could also have caused 4. If I can prove these other possibilities actually exist, then fine tuning does not NECESSARILY point to God. It just CAN POSSIBLY point to God. But Fine tuners dont want this because then, the original argument loses much of its power and thus its appeal.

[instantc]

[Replying to post 60 by instantc]

there is an important word at issue here that you seem to be missing. "Necessary" is that word. It may logically follow that 2+2 =4. But 2+2 isnt NECESSARY to arrive at 4. There is 3+1 and 0+4 and so on. So, if one starts with nothing else but "4" (which is complexity in our conversation), we have absolutely no way to deduce that it was 2+2(2+2 in this case is an intelligent designer) that caused 4 because we cannot eliminate the possibilities that it was 3+1 (additive Goldilocks Conditions) or 4+0 (other) could also have caused 4. If I can prove these other possibilities actually exist, then fine tuning does not NECESSARILY point to God. It just CAN POSSIBLY point to God. But Fine tuners dont want this because then, the original argument loses much of its power and thus its appeal.

It seems to me that you are trying to dispute the second premise of the argument, namely that fine-tuning is due to either chance, necessity or design. So what can you add to that list?

[sickles]

[Replying to post 62 by instantc]

It can be due to emergence. That can be something to add to the list. But that is not what I was talking about. If it happens to be due to chance, then thats fine. The Goldilocks principle still holds. Im not disputing the second premise of the argument. I am disputing that the conclusion follows the premise. What is the conclusion of the fine tuning argument? Am disputing this conclusion by pointing out it doesnt logically follow. You cannot get the premise they put forth and arrive at the conclusion that an "Tuner"(god or gods) necessarily must exist. I am saying they cannot logically say that. "Necessarily" must be changed to "can" or "ought to"

[Ancient of Years]

If the universe were fine-tuned for life, it should be a major feature of the universe.

No it shouldn't. That is not what is meant by fine-tuning in the argument.

If it is to mean that there are some parameters that if their values were significantly different, life could would not exist, but does not mean that life is a predominant outcome of those values, then it becomes a triviality.

I agree that it is a triviality, that's why I don't think the second premise of the argument gets off the ground. Unlike you, I think that even if the universe were full of life, it would still be a triviality and not an indication of design.

“Unlike me�? Could you be confusing me with the OP? What I said was:

<snip>
If the universe were fine-tuned for life, it should be a major feature of the universe. Even if every O-type star in the universe had a planet teaming with life on it, it would still be a minor feature of the universe as a whole.

My point was that in almost all of the universe life is impossible. Planets even capable of sustaining life are at most a tiny fraction of the universe.

(1) Why is it a groundless assumption?

Because you haven't justified it. As far as I can see, life could be God's first priority and yet a tiny part of the space and timeline of the universe, nothing inherently incompatible with that.

Snowflakes could be God’s first priority. 10^24 snowflakes fall on Earth alone every year. By your logic I do not have to justify that God’s first priority could be snowflakes since they exist and are closely dependent on ‘fine-tuning’.

Right.

****** OK ******

So we see a something (call it A) that is very rare and can only occur under special circumstances. We postulate that a creator of the environment in which that something exists had great freedom in the details of its design and construction. We see that a different something (call it B) is very common and dominates the environment. Why is it unreasonable to say that if there is a first priority it is not A but much more likely B? A is life, achievable only under rare circumstances. B is stars which considering how the universe is put together are utterly unavoidable. But wait … the most obvious outcome may not be the real priority. It might be something uncommon and essentially unnoticeable n the cosmic scale.

That seems like a non-sequitur to me. Just because one creates more of A than B does not necessarily say anything about his priorities. For example, on a lazy day I might spend an hour at the gym and six hours on the couch watching TV, and yet my only actual priority that day was to get a work out.

God spent six days at the gym and only watched TV one day.

More seriously, God (hypothetically) making the universe would be comparable to you working out at the gym. That is, being active as opposed to passive. At the gym you would engage in activities that addressed your goal – fitness. You would not expend most of your effort in activities that do not address that goal. And (the hypothetical) God would have total control over what to do and how. No issues about waiting for equipment someone else is using or going to the shower. Given an entity that can do pretty much anything it wanted, to seriously doubt that the results substantively reflect the intentions of that entity is not a very credible notion.

In that kind of scenario to claim that a tiny fraction of the end result is the main purpose of the effort is nothing more than special pleading. Anyway as I previously argued if one wishes to engage in that kind of reasoning the correct answer is snowflakes.

IMO the only reasonable non-special pleading ways to justify that the purpose of an effort by a super powerful entity being such a tiny fraction of the result are to claim that (1) this is the only possible universe or (2) this is the only universe this entity can possibly create to achieve that purpose. The former paves the way to a non-theistic necessary existence argument and the latter results in a very odd theology.

The phrase ‘fine-tuned’ gets used in two very different senses. That is NOT allowed.

Are you saying that it has two different meanings in the argument? I agree that that would constitute a fallacy of equivocation, but I don't think you are correct here. Could you elaborate?

On the one hand it is claimed to mean only that the parameters of the universe just happen to facilitate life without necessarily implying intent. On the other hand it is claimed that this ‘proves’ that the parameter settings are intentional. (And of course the Bible God is behind it.) See more below on that.

But despite your claim that this is all he says, Craig explicitly links ‘fine-tuned’ not only to a creator God but to the Christian God.

Whether he "links" the argument to his own theology is irrelevant. He is not saying that the fine-tuning argument would point to the Christian God any more than to any other God. It's a part of his cumulative case that admittedly has some significance to his ultimate conclusion.

Craig explicitly refers to fine-tuning as justifying the Christian God. More on that below.

The (misleading) implication of the term ‘fine-tuned’ is that the purpose of the universe is life.

We are here to discuss the fine-tuning argument as such and not as a part of some theologians bigger picture. As is, none of its premises imply that life is the main purpose of the universe, and therefore your objection does not in fact apply to the fine-tuning argument.

Even if you were debating Craig here, he could rightly point out that you haven't managed to point any errors in any of the argument's premises, and therefore you have failed to make any objections to the fine-tuning argument. If you disagree, then tell me which one of the premises is flawed and why.

I have been through this thread and have failed to find a list of premises. Please present these premises you are talking about and the source. However I have repeatedly shown that the fine-tuning argument does not lead to the conclusion claimed. The universe is much more fine-tuned to the existence of stars, which are all over the place, than it is to life, which can only exist in very uncommon circumstances. To say that maybe the purpose is not obvious after all is to negate the fine-tuning argument itself. Even if that type of special pleading is allowed, it still does not lead to life as the conclusion any better than it leads to snowflakes.

The fine-tuning argument argues that there is a God whose intention was to create life. I have shown that the argument does not lead there without special pleading. I have also shown the explicit motivation behind this unjustifiable claim.

This is taken much further to ‘prove’ that the God of the Bible created the universe and its purpose is not just life but people on Earth in particular and that you better become not only a Christian but the right kind of Christian or God will get mad.

This argument is not used to establish the Christian God. You are simply mistaken here. This is a very theology-neutral argument. Only in combination with other arguments could it point to a specific God.

The phrase ‘fine-tuned’ is not innocent. It is intended to mean much more than ‘the universe allows life’.

Not for the purposes of establishing the conclusion of the fine-tuning argument, i.e. that the universe is intelligently designed.

No, as I will show momentarily he says more than that. He says that it is designed for intelligent life. Also, I think I am seeing the goalpost shaking in the wind. This is from a previous post.

…
To say that the constants are fine-tuned to facilitate life suggests that it is intentional, that there is a tuner.

No it doesn't. Regardless of the choice of words, what is meant by fine-tuning is that the constants are such that facilitate life, as opposed to all other logical possibilities.

I said the argument points to an intentional tuning (a tuner). You said that was wrong, that it merely said the constants happen to facilitate life. Now you are saying that the argument leads to the conclusion that the universe is intelligently designed. Your latest statement seems considerably stronger and in agreement with the statement I made earlier that you nixed.

‘Fine-tuned for’ means ‘fine-tuned for’ as Craig makes very clear.

No, if you actually listen to one of his lectures, he very clearly and specifically defines fine-tuning as the fact that the constants in the universe are life-permitting. Nothing more, that's it.

Here is a transcript of a lecture by William Lane Craig. His conclusion is:

Given the implausibility of physical necessity or chance, the best explanation for why the universe is fine-tuned for life may very well be it was designed that way.

Craig does not stop with defining fine-tuning as the universe allowing life. In this lecture he introduces the idea of a creator.

Here is a transcript of a debate in which Craig connects the idea of an Intelligent Designer to Christian theism.

Isn't it incredible that the Big Bang theory thus fits in with what the Christian theist has always believed: that in the beginning God created the universe? Now I put it to you, which do you think makes more sense: that the Christian theist is right or that the universe just popped into being, uncaused, out of nothing? I, at least, have no trouble assessing these alternatives.
…
So, once again, the view that Christian theists have always held, that there is an intelligent Designer of the universe, seems to make much more sense than the atheistic interpretation that the universe, when it popped into being, uncaused, out of nothing, just happened to be, by chance, finetuned for intelligent life with an incomprehensible precision and delicacy.

Notice that it has now become not just life but intelligent life. And he uses the exact phrase “finetuned for� which you earlier said he did not.

Well, as I said, it has to do with the creator's intentions, but not with his motive, which is what you are trying to read into it.

What is the difference between an intention and a motive in this instance?

Intention refers to what one intends to do, and motive explains why he intends to do that.

The fine-tuning argument only claims that the constants are intentionally set to a life-permitting range, it does not say why they are set to the said range. The possible motives include, to confuse you and me as a practical joke, to exercise one's artistic freedom, or perhaps God created the universe as a thesis to graduate from God-college. All of these options are compatible with the fine-tuning argument.

The originators and proponents of the fine-tuning for life argument do in fact take exactly those next steps, as we can see form the above quote.

Yes, but they use different arguments to take those additional steps. Your complaint that the fine-tuning argument does not establish the significance of life in the universe doesn't do anything to their cumulative case that consists of a number of arguments.

The OP explicitly addresses theists and the theists around here are generally not only Christian theists but for the most part look to Craig for inspiration. Craig (who you introduced) makes the fine-tuned for life argument point to the universe being designed for life, not just that it happens to support life. Furthermore Craig implies a motive of creating life and in the debate quote from Craig above, intelligent life. Craig’s fine-tuned argument amounts to the Christian God creating the universe so that we can exist.

I see no problem in addressing the fine-tuned argument as it is typically used as opposed to speculations about God writing a Master’s thesis or other fantasy. These are not going to be seen as legitimate arguments by those who subscribe to the Craig style fine tuning argument.

[instantc]

More seriously, God (hypothetically) making the universe would be comparable to you working out at the gym. That is, being active as opposed to passive. At the gym you would engage in activities that addressed your goal – fitness. You would not expend most of your effort in activities that do not address that goal. And (the hypothetical) God would have total control over what to do and how. No issues about waiting for equipment someone else is using or going to the shower. Given an entity that can do pretty much anything it wanted, to seriously doubt that the results substantively reflect the intentions of that entity is not a very credible notion. In that kind of scenario to claim that a tiny fraction of the end result is the main purpose of the effort is nothing more than special pleading.

I think the important part is that God could do anything and everything by the snap of his fingers, which is why efficiency would not be important to him. I have a limited amount of time in the gym, and thus I want to use it to achieve my prioritized goals. The same logic would not apply, if I had unlimited time and physical capacity at the gym. There would be no reason to assume that the allocation of my time would necessarily reflect my priorities.

IMO the only reasonable non-special pleading ways to justify that the purpose of an effort by a super powerful entity being such a tiny fraction of the result are to claim that (1) this is the only possible universe or (2) this is the only universe this entity can possibly create to achieve that purpose. The former paves the way to a non-theistic necessary existence argument and the latter results in a very odd theology.

Your logic might apply to a person who has limited time and resources, but it is precisely the omnipotence and timelessness of the supposed creator that makes your argument unconvincing. If he can create one decorative star or a million decorative stars around the life on earth, his first priority, by the snap of his fingers, then I don't see any significant reason to assume that he would choose rather than the former or that this would somehow reflect his priorities.

Funnily enough, I have experienced an analogical situation as a kid playing strategic computer games. Once I could design my own map with everything in it, the things that I actually really wanted to try out ended up being a small minority in the map, since I could create whatever I wanted in whatever quantity with a click of the mouse.

On the one hand it is claimed to mean only that the parameters of the universe just happen to facilitate life without necessarily implying intent. On the other hand it is claimed that this ‘proves’ that the parameter settings are intentional. (And of course the Bible God is behind it.) See more below on that.

It seems that you have just completely misunderstood the whole argument. The term fine-tuning refers to the same exact thing throughout the whole argument. Only in combination with the other premises does it allegedly point to intentionality.

Craig explicitly refers to fine-tuning as justifying the Christian God. More on that below.

Having read his written work and listened to his lectures, I can tell you that this is just simply not true. In fact, it is hard to imagine that any apologist who makes it to a public stage could have so profoundly misunderstood the fine-tuning argument as to make this kind of a statement. It is and always has been a theology-neutral argument.

I have been through this thread and have failed to find a list of premises. Please present these premises you are talking about and the source.

Here are the premises of the argument, as presented in Craig's book on reasonable faith.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

The fine-tuning argument argues that there is a God whose intention was to create life. I have shown that the argument does not lead there without special pleading. I have also shown the explicit motivation behind this unjustifiable claim.

I have presented one prominent version of the argument above. As far as I have seen, you haven't been able to contradict any of its premises. It does not run into any of the problems that you have brought up (and failed to justify), as none of the premises assume that life was the designers first priority.

I said the argument points to an intentional tuning (a tuner). You said that was wrong, that it merely said the constants happen to facilitate life.

Now you are confusing the argument as a whole with the term fine-tuning. You said that the term fine-tuning, as used in the argument, implies that there is a tuner, which is wrong. The argument as a whole certainly attempts to establish the existence of such tuner, but you cannot read it into the term as such, otherwise the use of the term would surely be unjustified, as you point out. But, that is not the case.

Isn't it incredible that the Big Bang theory thus fits in with what the Christian theist has always believed: that in the beginning God created the universe? Now I put it to you, which do you think makes more sense: that the Christian theist is right or that the universe just popped into being, uncaused, out of nothing? I, at least, have no trouble assessing these alternatives.
…
So, once again, the view that Christian theists have always held, that there is an intelligent Designer of the universe, seems to make much more sense than the atheistic interpretation that the universe, when it popped into being, uncaused, out of nothing, just happened to be, by chance, finetuned for intelligent life with an incomprehensible precision and delicacy.

Notice that it has now become not just life but intelligent life. And he uses the exact phrase “finetuned for� which you earlier said he did not.

This quote is not a part of the fine-tuning argument. Notice that this is what he says only AFTER he has used the fine-tuning argument to establish that the fine-tuning is due to intelligent design. So while you are correct that he uses the term "fine-tuned" as implying that there was a tuner, he does so only AFTER he has made an argument to back it up. What we want to discuss here is the aforementioned argument, in which the term fine-tuned is initially defined as the mere fact that the constants are set in a life-permitting range, as I explained to you earlier. So your accusation that he uses the term "fine-tuning" as an equivocation within the argument is false.

This is why you should always take into account the context when you go through someone's written works. I could, for example, start an article by making an argument as to show that the climate change is man-made. Thereafter I could justifiably use the term "climate change" to refer to a man made climate change. Someone who has utterly missed the context could then accuse me of just "assuming" that the climate change is man-made or using the term same term with multiple different meanings.

[sickles]

havent I defeated Craig? I dont have to attack the premise. I just showed the conclusion Craig puts forth isnt exclusive/doesnt follow

[instantc]

havent I defeated Craig? I dont have to attack the premise. I just showed the conclusion Craig puts forth isnt exclusive/doesnt follow

I'm sorry but you are way off. You are saying that his conclusion (which clearly implies exclusivity) does not follow from the premises. This is just a misunderstanding of logic. It is very clear to everyone involved that Craig's fine-tuning argument is a valid argument. it's not up for debate. If you don't see the logic of the polysyllogism, then there is no point continuing this conversation, for what logical argument can I make to convince you about the fundamentals of logic.

[sickles]

[Replying to post 67 by instantc]

can you put forth plainly then his premises and conclusion? Exactly? like P1, P2, P3, C, or must I go google it?

[sickles]

the conclusion should plainly be that a Tuner is necessary or he wouldnt bother opening his mouth. I know who Craig is lol.

[Ancient of Years]

More seriously, God (hypothetically) making the universe would be comparable to you working out at the gym. That is, being active as opposed to passive. At the gym you would engage in activities that addressed your goal – fitness. You would not expend most of your effort in activities that do not address that goal. And (the hypothetical) God would have total control over what to do and how. No issues about waiting for equipment someone else is using or going to the shower. Given an entity that can do pretty much anything it wanted, to seriously doubt that the results substantively reflect the intentions of that entity is not a very credible notion. In that kind of scenario to claim that a tiny fraction of the end result is the main purpose of the effort is nothing more than special pleading.

I think the important part is that God could do anything and everything by the snap of his fingers, which is why efficiency would not be important to him. I have a limited amount of time in the gym, and thus I want to use it to achieve my prioritized goals. The same logic would not apply, if I had unlimited time and physical capacity at the gym. There would be no reason to assume that the allocation of my time would necessarily reflect my priorities.

IMO the only reasonable non-special pleading ways to justify that the purpose of an effort by a super powerful entity being such a tiny fraction of the result are to claim that (1) this is the only possible universe or (2) this is the only universe this entity can possibly create to achieve that purpose. The former paves the way to a non-theistic necessary existence argument and the latter results in a very odd theology.

Your logic might apply to a person who has limited time and resources, but it is precisely the omnipotence and timelessness of the supposed creator that makes your argument unconvincing. If he can create one decorative star or a million decorative stars around the life on earth, his first priority, by the snap of his fingers, then I don't see any significant reason to assume that he would choose rather than the former or that this would somehow reflect his priorities.

Funnily enough, I have experienced an analogical situation as a kid playing strategic computer games. Once I could design my own map with everything in it, the things that I actually really wanted to try out ended up being a small minority in the map, since I could create whatever I wanted in whatever quantity with a click of the mouse.

What that amounts to is that there is no way of telling God’s motives from appearances. In other words, no argument about why the universe is the way it is has any value because it is impossible to discern a ‘why’. That the universe happens to allow life cannot lead to any conclusion. It does not imply a motive.

That is if one subscribes to the idea of our not being able to discern a motive, the fine tuning argument has no power. However if one subscribes to the idea that a motive can be inferred from observation, from the predominant results, then the fine tuning argument does not work.

Either way, fine tuning for life is a no-go in terms of any further implications of the existence of life.

On the one hand it is claimed to mean only that the parameters of the universe just happen to facilitate life without necessarily implying intent. On the other hand it is claimed that this ‘proves’ that the parameter settings are intentional. (And of course the Bible God is behind it.) See more below on that.

It seems that you have just completely misunderstood the whole argument. The term fine-tuning refers to the same exact thing throughout the whole argument. Only in combination with the other premises does it allegedly point to intentionality.

Craig explicitly refers to fine-tuning as justifying the Christian God. More on that below.

Having read his written work and listened to his lectures, I can tell you that this is just simply not true. In fact, it is hard to imagine that any apologist who makes it to a public stage could have so profoundly misunderstood the fine-tuning argument as to make this kind of a statement. It is and always has been a theology-neutral argument.

I presented the debate in which Craig invokes fine-tuning for life as an argument for the Christian God. In this debate he claims the universe to be fine-tuned for intelligent, although his argument does not support that claim. Justifying Christianity was clearly the purpose of creating the argument in the first place. It is not by either chance or necessity but by design that Craig ends his supposedly theology-neutral lecture (not the debate) with a quote from Psalms that begins “The heavens declare the glory of God�. As I will argue below, his agenda is the reason he structured his argument the way he did.

I have been through this thread and have failed to find a list of premises. Please present these premises you are talking about and the source.

Here are the premises of the argument, as presented in Craig's book on reasonable faith.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

These are not premises. They are arguments that follow from the assumption that the universe is fine-tuned for life. An honest appraisal of the universe would be that the existence of life is only a rare and marginal side-effect. If the universe is fine-tuned for anything it is stars. Unless of course predominance does not count, in which case it might as well be snowflakes.

Concerning necessity and chance, why is the idea of a conscious intelligent volitional entity that exists outside the universe any more likely than a multiverse comprising all possible universes? It could be that the ‘necessary existence’ is that any universe that is possible necessarily exists. In that case it would be not a matter of chance that a living observer resides in a universe able to support life but necessarily the case. We have considerable experience with physical realities but only highly questionable claims of any non-physical reality. Considering the improbability of this thing called life, it would make sense in the multiverse scenario that in most universes able to support life it would be a rare and marginal occurrence. Just like in this one. It is exactly this scarcity of life despite the supposedly deliberate fine-tuning for life that argues for the multiverse and not a designer.

The fine-tuning argument argues that there is a God whose intention was to create life. I have shown that the argument does not lead there without special pleading. I have also shown the explicit motivation behind this unjustifiable claim.

I have presented one prominent version of the argument above. As far as I have seen, you haven't been able to contradict any of its premises. It does not run into any of the problems that you have brought up (and failed to justify), as none of the premises assume that life was the designers first priority.

As I said above, they are not premises, they are the framework of the argument itself and based on the assumption that the universe is fine-tuned for life. It is exactly this assumption that I have argued against. Without that assumption the argument goes nowhere.

I said the argument points to an intentional tuning (a tuner). You said that was wrong, that it merely said the constants happen to facilitate life.

Now you are confusing the argument as a whole with the term fine-tuning. You said that the term fine-tuning, as used in the argument, implies that there is a tuner, which is wrong. The argument as a whole certainly attempts to establish the existence of such tuner, but you cannot read it into the term as such, otherwise the use of the term would surely be unjustified, as you point out. But, that is not the case.

The tuner would be the designer, which the argument very definitely states as its conclusion. The use of the term ‘fine-tuned’ suggests there is a tuner. The claim is not just ‘fine-tuned’ but ‘fine-tuned for life’ without consideration of it facilitating (being ‘fine-tuned for’) anything else. The argument is slanted toward a specific pre-determined conclusion from the beginning.

Isn't it incredible that the Big Bang theory thus fits in with what the Christian theist has always believed: that in the beginning God created the universe? Now I put it to you, which do you think makes more sense: that the Christian theist is right or that the universe just popped into being, uncaused, out of nothing? I, at least, have no trouble assessing these alternatives.
…
So, once again, the view that Christian theists have always held, that there is an intelligent Designer of the universe, seems to make much more sense than the atheistic interpretation that the universe, when it popped into being, uncaused, out of nothing, just happened to be, by chance, finetuned for intelligent life with an incomprehensible precision and delicacy.

Notice that it has now become not just life but intelligent life. And he uses the exact phrase “finetuned for� which you earlier said he did not.

This quote is not a part of the fine-tuning argument. Notice that this is what he says only AFTER he has used the fine-tuning argument to establish that the fine-tuning is due to intelligent design. So while you are correct that he uses the term "fine-tuned" as implying that there was a tuner, he does so only AFTER he has made an argument to back it up. What we want to discuss here is the aforementioned argument, in which the term fine-tuned is initially defined as the mere fact that the constants are set in a life-permitting range, as I explained to you earlier. So your accusation that he uses the term "fine-tuning" as an equivocation within the argument is false.

This is why you should always take into account the context when you go through someone's written works. I could, for example, start an article by making an argument as to show that the climate change is man-made. Thereafter I could justifiably use the term "climate change" to refer to a man made climate change. Someone who has utterly missed the context could then accuse me of just "assuming" that the climate change is man-made or using the term same term with multiple different meanings.

As I said above, the argument is slanted toward a specific conclusion from the beginning. The intended inference from that conclusion, the sub-text of the argument itself, is justifying Christianity. It is a prime example of scholastic style argumentation, framing the argument itself in terms of a desired conclusion, itself a stepping stone to further conclusions.