Theory of everything and God

Question

I always reach this point when I think about physics and God:

Assume that a theory of everything is found. And this ToE is a successful mathematical description of the entire universe.

EDIT: By "successful", I mean, predicts in all details, all events and phenomenon, that have ever been seen to occur in the universe.

Is the existence of a ToE, an evidence for God?

Is it "normal" for a universe to have a ToE or did God create a ToE for the universe?

EDIT: Throughout the post, by "God", I mean "intelligent creator", with no religious connotations.

Answer 1

Theory of Everything does not explain everything

The Theory of Everything is a hypothesized way of describing all four of the fundamentals forces within one theory. Today only three of those fit together, with Gravity being the odd one out.

But even if we find out such a theory, that does not — in any way — describe everything else we need to do science to figure out. Because even if we do find the "graviton" or whatever particle is carrying gravity, that does not tell us how to cure the common cold; what is the most efficient way of breaking out of procrastinating; or how to defeat death and achieve immortality. So no, Theory of Everything does not "describe the entire universe", it only deals with the four fundamental forces.

And "God"? Which god... there are over 4000 deities worshiped today. No, Theory of Everything does not prove any god.

Answer 2

Theory of everything and God

Your proposition is, if one can mathematically connect everything through mathematical equations, this means there must be a God who under pins this logic.

My problem is this does not define anything in the term God. The alternative is just relationship between forces, or a continuation of existence without any other reference points. Both situations could be true, because this is not a definitive conclusion, as we have shown through empirical experiments we can exclude certain things, but not definitively conclude what we have found.

One could conclude because life as we know it is so finely balanced on creative issues it must have been created, it does not definitively declare a process of creation whether evolutionary or a creative intelligence or both. Because both exist, means one cannot exclude God, but it does not point towards a definition. If God exists and intelligence created this ToE, then one could conclude they have a great interest in this creation, shown through the complexity and wonder of its existence. This would lead to the next question there is value in exploring more to find this intelligence.

I personally believe in God, but I see how finely everything is balanced so if you choose to, you could justify a rejection of the concept and have faith in something else. Why? Because the point is why we seek His face, and what we want, not because it is obvious, we must seek and follow Him because we want to. If the issue is the why in existence, rather than the benefits, you can see why we have this dilemma.

Answer 3

Assume that a theory of everything is found.

There are plenty of "theories of everything" already. Must there only be one?

And this ToE is a successful description of the entire universe.

Successful according to whom and to what criteria?

Is the existence of a ToE, an evidence for God?

Not necessarily. As I mentioned above, there "are plenty of 'theories of everything' already," and some of them positively exclude God.

God, Who has free-will, freely created the universe; nothing necessitated Him to make the universe as He did. He could have created another completely different universe requiring completely different explanations to understand. Unlike among many of the Greek philosophers, who thought the universe is an emanation from or extension of God, the study of the universe (physics or cosmology in the broad sense) is distinct from the study of God (theology).

Answer 4

It seems to me you are talking about the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe and the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle You also suggest deism, a creator who doesn't intervene.

If the universe occured as a fluction, in spin foam or a grid of lowest energy particles, or from the collision of branes in hyperdimensional space, or whatever, it will seem that the fundamental laws were quite precisely focused to make that generate somewhere with the possibility of the emergence of complex life, and minds.

There could be many other universes, with different constants, and no observer to see them. We may in future be able to explore these mathematically. It could just be randomness, on a huge scale, but in a huge probability space.

Property dualism may point to information being as fundamental as energy. Relationality. In this sense, minds or mind-stuff may be an even deeper aspect of the universe than a specific set of the fundamental constants. Gravity acting on a particle is the net effect from the whole universe (all the forces are thought to extend infinitely, everywhere in the universe), it's angular momentum is in relation to the whole universe (only exists relationally), so there is a holism about the universes information where it's all in every particle. In that view, there is a potential, an imminent, possible unity of the universe into consciousness.

David Deutsch mentioned in The Fabric Of Reality someone elses theory that a Big Crunch could create an infinite number of 'bounces' in finite time, which could be used computationally to create an infinite simulation. This illustrates how this possible unity doesn't have to be in terms of a single identity, even if it 'designs'.

'Intelligent creator'isn't explanatory. It just invites, from where? Randomness? A foundational unity that became fragmented? In what sense could that be described as intelligent or creative? It becomes the Argument From Design, applied to something that seems more like the Tao. It's better to just look at the universe, than jump to what we know is a psycological preconception, to see a thing like Us, which doesn't even contribute anything.