God or Just Happened (and other nonsense)

We have accepted far too easily the binary opposition presented to us since the Enlightenment (though it was generally understood less ridgedly back then) which is based on the idea that if we can explain how things work—which is to say if we can put all we can perceive about physical reality in terms of mathematical equations—then that means that the universe “just happened.” God is nothing if not that which papers over the gap in our understanding. This is the basis today of Neil Degrasse Tyson’s antipathy for religion.

I have no driving interest in taking away anyone’s antipathy for religion. I do however want to ask whether this idea that if we can assemble enough equations about the universe, the idea of God needs or ought to be eliminated makes sense. I do not think it does. I believe that there is no logical basis for it and that both theist and atheist ought to acknowledge this.
The underlying assumption seems to be that if the universe runs with the regularity of a machine, if inputs and outputs can be calculated with precision, then clearly nobody made that machine. It runs by itself, therefore it created itself.

Now the fact that it runs itself does not imply that it was created. It may not have been. But the fact that we can come up with equations that explain how things work and predict how they will further work if we manipulate them literally says nothing about how they got here or why they work the way they do. There seems to be a prejudice or preconception here that treats as common sense the idea that if God doesn’t have to put his constant effort into the maintenance of the universe, like a man pushing a boulder up a hill, that he therefore doesn’t exist. But even if that were true, it does not follow that God doesn’t have to put constant effort into maintaining the universe—keeping in mind that in regard to God those words don’t mean much of anything. An all-powerful, eternal being does not experience effort.

The universe itself is neither proof that God exists nor evidence that he does not. The wonderful elegance of math and beautiful consistency of the equations that describe the workings of the universe likewise tell us nothing either way about the existence or nonexistence of God. What I’m objecting to here is the insistence that the inference to or from God from these facts is supportable. It’s not. Everyone is entitled to their faith and their atheism, but not if this is where they come from.
One can just as easily decide that the regularities of creation (if you want to call it that) or the universe (if you prefer) tell us about God as that they tell us about how a godless universe operates without need of God. The choice is literally arbitrary. And there’s nothing the theist or atheist can do about it.

On a side note—but not too far to the side—the idea that the unimaginable scale of the universe against the smallness of earth (the proportion doesn’t improve meaningfully if we posit other earths scattered throughout the universe no matter how many we posit, space is that big and we are that small). It seems inefficient. We wouldn’t do it that way. The claim implies that we have a much firmer understanding of that “it” than we could possibly have. It’s a claim as homocentric as the geocentric universe ever was. It must be abandoned. What is God up to in the creation of the universe? God knows. We don’t. Ask yourself what Plato’s first impression of the Hadron supercollider would be. What if all he knew about it was that it smashed invisible particles together? All of that space for something too small to see.