Category Archives: Existence of God

Existence of God, Philosophy

What Explains the Existence of the Physical Universe?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is that the physical universe exists. I think we can safely ignore anyone who believes that the universe is just an illusion or that we are in the “matrix.”

But if the universe exists, what explains it? Why does it exist? Any worldview worth considering needs an answer to this question. Let’s look at how Christian theism and atheistic naturalism attempt to answer this question and see which worldview offers a better explanation.

Atheistic naturalism has commonly offered a few responses to this question, all of which I believe are unsatisfactory.  First, some naturalists will answer that the question itself is meaningless.  They say that it is a nonsense question that has no answer.  The universe just is and there is no explanation for it.  As an explanation, however, this is no explanation at all.  Everyone but the naturalist seems to know what the question means, so we can safely assume the naturalist simply doesn’t want to answer the question because their worldview has no answer.

Second, naturalists have answered that the universe is self-existent, and that it has always existed.  The problem with this explanation is that is has been soundly refuted by modern cosmology, by one of the very sciences that naturalists claim to be the arbiters of reality.  There is also a philosophical problem with this explanation.  Every physical object we observe in the universe is caused to exist by something else, so how can it be that the whole universe can be uncaused if everything in it is caused?

Here is an analogy.  Let’s say you see a perfectly smooth, 1-foot diameter, glass globe sitting in the grass.  You would conclude, without much thought, that something or someone caused that glass ball to come into existence.  Now take that glass ball, blow it up, and make it the size of Jupiter.  The Jupiter-sized glass ball still needs a cause, doesn’t it?

Now make the glass ball the size of the observable universe.  Wouldn’t you agree that the universe-size glass ball even more obviously needs a cause than the 1-foot ball or the Jupiter-sized ball?  Likewise, to say that even though everything smaller than the universe needs a cause, but the universe doesn’t need a cause, is simply implausible.

A third explanation is that our universe is merely one of an infinite sea of universes that exist.

How is this an answer that naturalists can offer?  Naturalists claim that only what the physical sciences can observe and describe constitutes reality.  But no universe except our own has ever been observed.  In addition, even if there were an infinite sea of universes, the question of what caused all those universes needs to be answered.  Instead of offering a cause of our one universe, the naturalist has multiplied by infinity the number of effects that need a cause, and thus makes the problem infinitely worse.

What is the answer from Christian theism?  Christians answer that the universe exists because a self-existent first cause (God) has brought it into existence and is continuing to hold it in existence.  Why is this a better explanation than what atheistic naturalists offer?

It seems obvious that physical objects in the universe need a cause to bring them into existence.  A thing cannot cause its own existence.  But, in order to avoid an infinite regress of causes, we need a first, uncaused cause.

Here is an analogy from movement.  We can say that a stone is moved by a stick, which is moved by a hand, which is moved by an arm, which is moved by a brain, and so forth and so on.  But eventually the explanations have to stop at something that is not in need of being moved. We need an unmoved mover, and that is God.

Christians recognize that the universe simply cannot be the cause of itself.  The cause must transcend the universe and it must be able to exist on its own, with no need of an outside cause for its own existence.  This cause we call God.

Existence of God, Love

Are Knowing Facts about God Enough?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Since I write an apologetics blog where we frequently discuss theology, doctrine, philosophy, science, and reasoning, it may seem like my view is that all a person needs is the facts about God, and that is all. Let me straighten this misconception out: I believe facts are not enough.

God, as a personal being, as THE personal being, is not satisfied with someone who knows a bunch of facts about him. That’s nice, but more is needed. If your spouse knew several important facts about you, but didn’t love you, would you be satisfied with that relationship?

David Baggett and Jerry Walls describe Paul Moser’s insightful views on this subject:

God both reveals and hides himself, and Moser argues, consistent with Christian theology, that the reason for this is that God’s purposes aren’t just to generate propositional knowledge of his existence, but a more deeply personal sort of knowledge. God is a loving Father who, in his filial love, speaks to us all but in different ways and at different times, in an effort to invite us into a loving personal relationship with himself.

Moser argues that a relational God of love is not content merely to provide discursive evidence of his existence in order to elicit cognitive assent or function as the conclusion of an argument; rather, God desires to be known for nothing less than this robust end: fellowship and morally perfect love between him and human beings.

So what are the implications for a person who believes that mere facts or evidence should suffice in their search for God?

Moser . . . suggests that evidence for God cannot be mere spectator evidence, but something both more authoritative and volitional than that. God, on Moser’s view, hides from those who do not desire a relationship or life-changing knowledge of him. God conceals himself from those who do not recognize the existential implications of belief in God, whereas he does reveal himself to those who recognize and desire to live with the implications of knowing God.

Baggett and Walls add:

A theistic conception of reality fundamentally alters everything. For if God is the ultimate reality, our quest for wisdom is a quest for him, a personal being, not just principles or platitudes. And if the context in which we find ourselves involves God drawing us into loving relationship with him, then a logic of relations more than a logic of propositions reigns.

As C. S. Lewis put it, “If human life is in fact ordered by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect a priori that His operations will often appear to us far from beneficent and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give Him our confidence in spite of this.”

Your search for God must not only include facts about him, but a relationship. At the very least, while you’re collecting facts about God, you must be genuinely open to having a relationship with him. God will reveal himself to you if that is your approach. If not, he may stay hidden.

Existence of God, Mormonism, Philosophy, Theology

Why Is the Polytheism of Mormonism False?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the teachings of Mormonism is that God the Father is only one among a multitude of gods. While God the Father is creator and ruler of our world, there are other worlds where other Gods are creators, worlds with which our God the Father has nothing to do. In plain language, this belief is polytheism, or the belief that there exist multiple gods, as opposed to monotheism, which asserts that only one God exists.

So, why is polytheism false and monotheism true? First, Mormons claim to revere the Christian Bible, and the Bible clearly and unequivocally proclaims monotheism. Here is a sampling of passages to illustrate the point:

“In the beginning God [not gods] created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4).

“You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3).

“I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God” (Isa. 44:6).

“I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:18).

“ ‘The most important [command],’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” ’ ” (Mark 12:29).

“We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one” (1 Cor. 8:4).

“[There is] one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:6).

“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

Theologian Norman Geisler sums up: “The text could scarcely be clearer: There is one and only one God, as opposed to more than one. The oneness of the Godhead is one of the most fundamental teachings of Scripture. A denial of this truth is a violation of the first commandment.”

Scripture, however, is not the only problem for polytheism. Philosophers and theologians have developed, over the centuries, numerous versions of cosmological arguments that demonstrate, from the existence of finite, contingent beings, the necessary existence of a First Cause of everything. The arguments all lead to a First Cause who necessarily exists, who is infinite (limitless) in being, and who is perfect (not lacking any perfection). This First Cause is God.

Why can’t there be more than one First Cause, more than one infinite and perfect being? First, there cannot be two or more infinite beings. Two or more infinite beings entails the existence of more than an infinite, which is absurd. There cannot be more than an infinite; there cannot be more than the most.

Another way to look at this is that for there to be two beings, there must be a difference between the two of them, but two infinite First Causes would be identical. Because they would be identical, there would actually only be one infinite First Cause, not two.

Second, there cannot be two perfect beings. If there were two perfect beings, then they would have to differ in some way, or else they would be the same. In order to differ, one of them would have to possess some perfection that the other lacked. As Geisler explains, “The one that lacked some perfection would not be absolutely perfect; therefore, there can be only one Being who is absolutely perfect.”

It is clear that both from Scripture and from philosophy, polytheism is false. If any of the cosmological arguments work, they all conclude that an infinite and perfect First Cause exists. There can only be one infinite and perfect First Cause, and that is who Christians call God.

If Mormons want to deny that their God the Father is the First Cause of the universe, deny that he is infinite, and deny that he is perfect, then, in effect, they have abandoned a God that is worthy of worship. Their God is finite and imperfect – hardly a God worth revering.

Existence of God, Science and God, Top Ten Posts of 2012

Does Science Disprove the Existence of God? #1 Post of 2012

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

As I’ve read comments on the blog over the years, I’ve often read a version of the following: “science disproves the existence of God.”  Even prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger say something similar.  Edgar Andrews, in his book Who Made God?, points out that this argument can be circular.

Andrews explains:

The assertion is based on the claim that science presents no evidence for the existence of supernatural forces or phenomena. It sounds plausible until you look a little more closely. The argument can be expressed as a syllogism as follows:

1. Science is the study of the physical universe.

2. Science produces no evidence for the existence of non-physical entities.

3. Therefore non-physical entities such as God do not exist.

Why is this a circular argument?  What is the fallacy?

Again the fallacy is clear.  In point (1) ‘science’ is defined as the study of the physical or material world.  This statement thereby excludes by definition any consideration by science of non-physical causes or events.  The proposition then argues from the silence of science concerning non-material realities that such realities do not exist.  By the same logic, if you define birds as ‘feathered creatures that fly’, there’s no such thing as an ostrich.  It’s fairly obvious in this example whose head is in the sand.  The correct conclusion, of course, is not that ostriches are mythical but that (on your restrictive definition of ‘bird’) they are not birds.  In the same way, to define science as the study of the material universe simply prohibits science from making statements about a non-material entity like God.  If the remit of science is deliberately restricted to the physical realm, the fact that science (so defined) tells us nothing about God has no bearing whatever on his existence or non-existence, as most scientists recognize.

Science can actually give us evidence of God’s existence, as Andrews argues throughout his book, and as I’ve argued elsewhere.  Science examines effects in the natural world that lead us back to God as the cause of those effects.

Existence of God, General Apologetics, Philosophy, Religion, Resurrection

What Are the Roles of Faith and Reason in Christianity? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 of this series Philosopher Edward Feser demonstrated that reason, not faith, brings us all the way to the conclusion that Jesus is divine.  Once we arrive here, where do we go?

Feser explains:

Suppose you know through purely rational arguments that there is a God, that He raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and therefore that Christ really is divine, as He claimed to be, so that anything He taught must be true; in other words, suppose that the general strategy just sketched can be successfully fleshed out.

What would follow?  Faith, or belief, enters and takes center stage.

Then it follows that if you are rational you will believe anything Christ taught; indeed, if you are rational you will believe it even if it is something that you could not possibly have come to know in any other way, and even if it is something highly counterintuitive and difficult to understand.  For reason will have told you that Christ is infallible, and therefore cannot be wrong in anything He teaches.  In short, reason tells you to have faith in what Christ teaches, because He is divine.

We have faith in Christ and what He teaches because of who He is.  Because He proved himself to be divine by resurrecting from the dead, we believe Him.  That is faith.

Does every Christian follow the process that Feser describes, reasoning through philosophy and historical evidence to the conclusion that Jesus is divine?  Obviously not.  Most Christians believe because they have received it on authority from someone else who does understand the arguments.

There may even be more than one link in the chain to get back to someone who understands the arguments, but this hardly matters.  What matters is that there are theologians and philosophers and other scholars who do understand the arguments, so even the person who does not understand the reasons for his faith still indirectly bases his faith on those reasons.

This is no different than anything else we come to believe in life.  For the vast majority of things we each believe we have received on authority from someone else.  Feser gives a parallel in science.  “The man in the street who believes that E=mc^2 probably couldn’t give you an interesting defense of his belief if his life depended on it.  He believes it because his high school physics teacher told him about it.”

Continuing alone these lines Feser further argues:

Most people who believe that E=mc^2, and who believe almost any other widely known and generally accepted scientific proposition, do so on the basis of faith in exactly the sense in question here.  They believe it, in other words, on the authority of those from whom they learned it.  Everyone acknowledges that this is perfectly legitimate; indeed, there is no way we could know much of interest at all if we weren’t able to appeal to various authorities.

So these are the roles of reason and faith in Christianity, a far cry from the story that atheists tell.  Some of you may be complaining at this point that you know Christians who disavow this approach, who truly do have blind faith, who say that reason has no place in their belief system.  Feser’s final words on this topic are a propos:

I do not doubt that there are and have been Christians and people of other religions whose theory and/or practice does not fit this understanding.  But I do not speak for them, and neither did Aquinas and the other great thinkers of the Western religious tradition.  And if the ‘New Atheists’ are serious about making a rational case for atheism, then, as I have said, they should be taking on the best representatives of the opposing point of view – not blabbering on for hundreds of pages about the dangers of ‘faith’ as an irrational will to believe something in the face of all evidence, when this is an attitude that the mainstream Christian theological tradition has itself always condemned.

Existence of God, General Apologetics, Philosophy, Resurrection

What Are the Roles of Faith and Reason in Christianity? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

A typical accusation of atheists toward Christians is that we only believe what we believe because of blind faith.  In other words, we have no rational reasons for believing in God or believing that Jesus died for our sins.  The person who believes in fairies or unicorns is no different than the Christian belief in God.

Richard Dawkins makes this point dozens of times in his book The God Delusion.  Here is one example: “Christianity . . . teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don’t have to make the case for what you believe.”  And elsewhere: “Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.”

Is this a fair characterization of Christianity?  Is it totally based upon blind faith with no justification whatsoever?  As we’ve mentioned about Dawkins before, he avoids, at all costs, actually engaging with the best of Christian thought.  So, what has been the Christian answer to the question of faith vs. reason?

For this answer, we turn again to Philosopher Edward Feser.  In his book The Last Superstition he takes on this atheist misconception.  Feser describes what the traditional Christian account of the roles of faith and reason are.

First, we start with reason.  According to Feser, “Pure reason can reveal to us that there is a God, [and] that we have immortal souls.”  By using philosophical arguments, we can conclude these two things.

However, Christians claim to know much more than just that God exists and humans have immortal souls.  They claim to have actually received revelation from God.  Does faith come into the account now, after we have established by reason that God exists and humans have immortal souls?  No.  “For the claim that a divine revelation has occurred is something for which the monotheistic religions typically claim there is evidence, and that evidence takes the form of a miracle, a suspension of the natural order that cannot be explained in any other way than divine intervention in the normal course of events.”

By reason alone, we know that if God exists, then miracles can occur, because of God’s very nature (creator and sustainer of laws governing nature).  The God that we have arrived at by reason is a God who can suspend the laws of nature.  To what miracle do Christians point?  The resurrection of Jesus.  Feser reminds us, “If the story of Jesus’s resurrection is true, then you must become a Christian; if it is false, then Christianity itself is false, and should be rejected.”

Is this where faith comes in?  No.  Feser explains that “the mainstream Christian tradition has also always claimed that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a historical event the reality of which can be established through rational argument.”  So, the historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus builds upon the philosophical argumentation that God exists and that humans have immortal souls.  The philosophy comes first, and the historical evidence second.  Please note that so far, we have only discussed reason, and faith has not yet entered the picture.

If the historical evidence for the resurrection is overwhelming, then there are “rational grounds for believing that what Christ taught was true, in which case the key doctrines of Christianity are rationally justified.”

Feser takes us back through the argument again, and it is worth reviewing:

The overall chain of argument, then, goes something like this: Pure reason proves through philosophical arguments that there is a God and that we have immortal souls.  This by itself entails that a miracle like a resurrection from the dead is possible.  Now the historical evidence that Jesus Christ was in fact resurrected from the dead is overwhelming when interpreted in light of that background knowledge.  Hence pure reason also shows that Jesus really was raised from the dead.  But Jesus claimed to be divine, and claimed that the authority of His teachings would be confirmed by His being resurrected.  So the fact that He was resurrected provides divine authentication of His claims.  Hence reason shows that He really was divine. . . .  At every step, evidence and rational argumentation – not ‘blind faith’ or a ‘will to believe’ – are taken to justify our acceptance of certain teachings.

In part 2 of this series, we will move to the role of faith.

Existence of God, General Apologetics

What Is the Existential Argument for Believing in God?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In the last post, I mentioned an interview with Christian philosopher Clifford Williams about his book Existential Reasons for Belief in God. One of the most interesting aspects of the interview is Williams’s description of some of the existential needs that are common to most people.

I gleaned 10 existential needs from the interview and from a sample of his book on Amazon (he lists 13 needs in chapter 2 of his book, but I couldn’t see all of chapter 2 without buying the book):

  1. the need for cosmic security
  2. the need for meaning
  3. the need to feel loved
  4. the need to love
  5. the need for awe
  6. the need to delight in goodness
  7. the need to live beyond the grave without the anxieties that currently affect us
  8. the need to be forgiven
  9. the need for justice and fairness
  10. the need to be present with our loved ones

What Williams does with these needs is build a simple argument for believing in God:

  1. We have existential needs (such as those listed above).
  2. Faith in God satisfies these needs.
  3. Therefore, we are justified in believing in God.

Williams add the following points to explain his argument:

This is not an argument purporting to explain why we have certain needs and desires. That would be an evidential argument. The existential argument for believing in God does not appeal to evidence; nor does it offer an explanation of why we have the existential needs. It gives a different kind of justification for believing in God than evidence-based justification—a need-based justification. The question the book deals with is, Is this different kind of justification legitimate?

I have not read Williams’s book, but I am quite intrigued by his approach.  He is dead on target with his recognition of common existential needs of human beings.  Just looking at the list of 10 needs above, I can say that I feel all of these needs, especially the need to be forgiven. And it is also true, for me, that God satisfies all of these needs for me, although some more than others at this point in my life.

What about you?  Do these needs resonate with you?  Do you find Williams’s argument compelling?

Existence of God, General Apologetics

How Do We Come to Faith in God?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

On this blog, we talk a lot about evidence for the Christian faith.  We talk a lot about using reason to defend Christian beliefs.  Philosopher Clifford Williams, however, points out that for many people the journey to faith is not purely intellectual.

Williams was recently interviewed about his 2011 book, Existential Reasons for Belief in God, where he presents arguments for belief in God that have more to do with human existential needs than classical evidential arguments.  When asked about his investigations into people’s journeys of faith, Williams said:

They show several things—first, that different people acquire faith in God in different ways, some more through reason and some more through satisfaction of needs; second, that it is difficult to disentangle reason and satisfaction of needs in the acquisition of faith; and, third, even so, both reason and the satisfaction of needs probably play a part in the process by which all, or at least most, people acquire faith.

The accounts also show, I think, that we cannot be precise about how reason and the satisfaction of needs should operate in the acquisition of faith. We cannot say that reason should come first and then the satisfaction of needs, or the other way around. The two are often so inextricably combined that the most that we can say is that the best way to secure faith, to establish it in the recesses of our personalities, is simply to employ them both.

When I interviewed people, I did not tell them about the distinction between acquiring faith through reason or through the satisfaction of needs. I simply asked, “What got you started on your faith journey?” and then, “What happened next?” Their answers, though, employed the distinction in various ways. I might add that because I guaranteed anonymity I got accounts that the persons might not otherwise have given, and in some cases, accounts that they had not revealed to anyone else.

I think Williams’s research is a good reminder to those of us who are heavily involved in Christian apologetics.  The road to faith involves the entire person, not just her emotions and needs, and not just her intellect.  I am a person who is much more comfortable in the world of the intellect and the world of ideas.  When it comes to emotions and needs, I often pretend that they don’t have anything to do with my faith in God. The truth is that they do.

Acknowledging emotions and needs which lead us to God in no way diminishes the evidential arguments for Gods existence.  Those arguments are supplemented by arguments from existential needs. In future posts, we will look more at Williams’s interview and try to see what additional insights we can glean.

Existence of God

Does the Anthropic Principle Explain the Fine Tuning of the Universe?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the most fascinating discoveries of modern science has been that the universe is finely tuned to support human life.  Philosopher of science John Lennox, in his book God’s Undertaker, notes that “this perception on the part of scientists, that the universe has to be very precisely structured in order to support life, has been called the anthropic principle.”

Christian theists argue that this fine tuning calls for an intelligent creator of the universe as an explanation.  How do non-theists respond to the fine tuning of the universe?

Lennox explains:

Some scientists and philosophers maintain that we ought not to be surprised at the order and fine-tuning we see in the universe around us, since if it did not exist then carbon-based life would be impossible, and we would not be there to observe the fine-tuning.  In other words they use the anthropic principle against the inference of design.  In fact, Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion tells us that the anthropic principle and God function as alternative explanations.

One response, then, to fine tuning, is to say that we should not be surprised at fine tuning because if there were no fine tuning to explain the origin of intelligent observers, then we would not be alive, as intelligent observers, to observe the fine tuning.  Does this really explain anything, though?  This explanation seems like a sleight of hand, or no explanation at all.  Lennox reveals why we feel this way:

All the anthropic principle does is to tell us that for life to exist, certain necessary conditions must be fulfilled.  But what it does not tell us is why those necessary conditions are fulfilled, nor how, granted they are fulfilled, life arose.  Dawkins is making the elementary mistake of thinking that necessary conditions are sufficient.  But they are not: in order to get a first class degree at Oxford it is necessary to get into the University; but, as many students know, it is certainly not sufficient.  The anthropic principle, far from giving an explanation for the origin of life, is an observation that gives rise to the need for such an explanation.

One of the easiest ways to see that the anthropic principle, by itself, is not a sufficient explanation, is by reviewing an illustration given by philosopher John Leslie.  He says that using the anthropic principle against the design hypothesis

sounds like arguing that if you faced a firing squad with fifty guns trained on you, you should not be surprised to find that you were alive after they had fired.  After all, that is the only outcome you could possibly have observed – if one bullet had hit you, you would be dead.  However, you might still feel that there is something which very much needs explanation; namely why did they all miss?  Was it by deliberate design?  For there is no inconsistency in not being surprised that you do not observe that you are dead, and being surprised to observe that you are still alive.

Rather than give an explanation of the fine tuning of the universe, the anthropic principle merely invites us to ask for a real explanation.  I think we would all like to know why all 50 people in the firing squad missed us.

Existence of God, Science and God

Is the Multiverse Hypothesis Scientific Or Not? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 of this series, we learned that there are two versions of the multiverse hypothesis, level 1 and level 2.  The level 1 multiverse is non-controversial as it is basically an extension of our current universe in space.  The level 2 multiverse, however, makes much grander claims and is fraught with problems.  We pick up with cosmologist George F. R. Ellis’s Scientific American article from August 2011.

So what is wrong with the level 2 multiverse hypothesis? Ellis explains:

What is new is the assertion that the multiverse is a scientific theory, with all that implies about being mathematically rigorous and experimentally testable. I am skeptical about this claim. I do not believe the existence of those other universes has been proved—or ever could be. Proponents of the multiverse, as well as greatly enlarging our conception of physical reality, are implicitly redefining what is meant by “science.”

Why is the level 2 multiverse not scientific?

The key step in justifying a multiverse is extrapolation from the known to the unknown, from the testable to the untestable. You get different answers depending on what you choose to extrapolate.  Because theories involving a multiverse can explain almost anything whatsoever, any observation can be accommodated by some multiverse variant. The various “proofs,” in effect, propose that we should accept a theoretical explanation instead of insisting on observational testing. But such testing has, up until now, been the central requirement of the scientific endeavor, and we abandon it at our peril. If we weaken the requirement of solid data, we weaken the core reason for the success of science over the past centuries.

Ellis sympathizes with those scientists who posit the level 2 multiverse as a “way of resolving deep issues about the nature of existence,” but he argues they are misguided. 

All the same issues that arise in relation to the universe arise again in relation to the multiverse.  If the multiverse exists, did it come into existence through necessity, chance or purpose?  That is a metaphysical question that no physical theory can answer for either the universe or the multiverse.

The level 2 multiverse, then, is not a scientific explanation, but is philosophical speculation.  It is an alternative metaphysical idea that is simply meant to replace the metaphysical idea of a supernatural Designer.  Those skeptics who constantly chastise Christians for doing metaphysics, and who then turn around and posit the level 2 multiverse as the cause of the fine tuning of the universe, find themselves also doing metaphysics. 

It seems that skeptics come to a fork in the road here.  Either admit that metaphysics is unavoidable and climb onboard with theists, or stop offering the multiverse as an explanation to anything.  What skeptics may not do is claim that they are only offering scientific explanations while at the same time arguing for the multiverse.  That door is closed.