I turned the radio on by turning the knob. Before I could do anything, my ears hurt from the audio blast. I looked at the volume. It was on about level 4, but it sounded like it was on level 20. I turned it back off. Then I flipped it on level 1. It sounded clear and loud as day. A jump to level 1 and level 2 sounded normal...
I must have done something to it, and I don't know what.
It stayed that way for a couple of weeks.
Then today, inexplicably, it was fixed. I didn't do anything in particular to it, but now I needed to put it back on level 8 or level 10 for it to sound normal and comfortable. It went back to the way it always was. I don't know why.
So for two weeks - and I don't know why - my dial meant something different, it worked differently.
Now my question is this: why don't the constants of the universe do this? And maybe a second question: why do we expect them not to do this?
What I mean is... why wouldn't the force of gravity work with three times as much strength tomorrow as it did today? Why wouldn't the attractive forces in the nucleus of an atom be a little bit different when I go to bed tonight? Why shouldn't the boiling point of water rise five degrees next week? My list could go on with any number of different questions...
Now my point is this: to do science we presuppose an order to the universe. We presuppose that my experiment should work in a lab in New York just as well as London if I can replicate the conditions. We presuppose that my experiment should work the same tomorrow as it did today. We presuppose the universal power and constancy of the law of gravity. The next time I walk outside, I expect that I won't float off into the atmosphere. I expect to weigh about the same...
If I didn't expect these sorts of things, if I didn't expect the universe to work orderly and according to law, science wouldn't make much sense. What is science if it is not trying to discover these laws and principles and underlying truths about our world? How could science get going and make sense if it didn't think that order was actually there to be found and examined and explained?
Why should I expect tomorrow to be the same as today? Well, today was the same as yesterday...
This is the principle of induction. We observe patterns, and we make hypotheses and draw conclusions. Inference works. It gives us insight into the way the world works. It is the way we do science. It is the way we do history. It is the way we must practically live our lives. We observe patterns and we see what works. We trust in it as we move about and do things in our world.
But why should induction work? Why should induction give us insight into the way the world actually is? Again, how do I know that induction, which may have been valid from eternity past up until today will remain valid tomorrow? (How do I know that the laws of logic will still hold tomorrow?) I dare you to defend the inductive method without relying on induction in your explanation. I dare you to defend logic without using logic. (Everyone will find some circularity as they are defending their ultimate authority, their final resting point, their most basic basis for belief.)
...I think that theism provides a better explanation than atheism for why we should expect these things. If atheism is true, what reason is there to expect anything besides chaos and randomness? If atheism is true, what reason is there to expect the world to work according to laws? What reason is there to expect that we have minds that can investigate these laws? I know that we do expect these laws to work tomorrow, but why should we expect that? It would seem that if we do expect it, we are assigning both universality and eternality to physical laws, both attributes that might have traditionally been assigned to divinity.
The goodness, power, and plan of a Creator can account for natural laws governing the universe, and his faithfulness and consistency are displayed in the consistency of his laws. If God created the universe with order, it makes sense to believe that he will maintain that order. Because he is a God of law and order, and because we have been created as rational creatures in his image, we are warranted in concluding that induction makes sense and can give us true information about reality. God is at the bottom of the validity of induction as a method.
I think that the atheist must make a leap of faith to obtain the presuppositions necessary to do science or to make inductive inference. I think it is a leap of faith for the atheist to believe that tomorrow's world will not see all the cosmic dials go awry, that a world that is supposed to work according to chance will not go random in some rather unexpected ways...
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