John Hayward Posted: 3 September 2010
Keywords: Christianity & Religion, Science & Technology,
Still jetlagged from a summer in California, I am intrigued by the intense media interest in the latest book by British physicist Stephen Hawking and his supposedly troubling pronouncement that 'God was not needed to create the Universe'. I hope it won't be considered too facetious to wonder which newspaper will report his eventual death (for we are all destined to die, even the 'great' and the 'good') with the headline 'God Says Hawking Not Needed for Creation'.
In truth, Hawking is right: It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going. God has ordered all things with utter precision according to the laws he instituted for the universe. As it is written, 'As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.' However, he is wrong then to conclude that just because it is not necessary to invoke God means that there is no God. The impersonal 'god' he conceives of, who simply set the cosmos in motion, bears no resemblance to the true creator, who 'sustains all things by his powerful word.'
The man may be one of the greatest living scientists, but he still needs a lesson or two in logic and theology (and possibly humility)...
'Since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.' (Romans 1:20-22)
Professor Hawking tells us that God is not needed because the laws of physics would allow 'spontaneous creation' to occur. But he has no answer to where these laws of physics came from in the first place.
How is it possible that a serious physicist can overlook a question so basic, and so central to his own discipline?
Keith 3 September 2010
well put - a good article. The militant secularists that dominate the media will trumpet this book with evangelistic zeal.
John Lennox in the Daily Mail also wrote a well considered comment on this book.
Brian Talbot 3 September 2010
John, Thank you for your timely reflections on this. For me, it raises two points that latter-day fundamentalist Science-disproves-God folk miss. First, the lack of interest in where the 'laws' of creation came from - it seems to be enough just to accept their existence. And I thought scientists wanted to find out the 'why?' as much as the 'what?' and the 'how?'! Second, scientists are taught (as I remember from my own studies) to stay outside of their research & experiments in order to remain detached, objective & impartial. Stephen Hawking appears to have applied these scientific basics here - but has missed the bigger point that he, like all scientists and indeed all of us, is a human being, living within as a significant part of this wonderful creation! By definition, he cannot be detached from it.
David Henderson 3 September 2010
Hi John
Honestly the logic of Hawking (and worse still Dawkins) makes me despair. Perhaps science books should have a glossary, which includes words such as evidence, proof, sufficient and necessary. Mathematicians would generally characterise the quality of argument as either illogical, lacking in rigour or "hand waving". I'd like to think that they wouldn't make such logical leaps of faith, but we all have agendas.
God bless
Andrew
Andrew Howe 3 September 2010
With wonderful synchronistic irony (?) it so happens that I am reading Reinventing the Sacred, by Stuart A. Kauffman at the moment. Here is a book by possibly an equally brilliant scientist? (How does one measure brilliance?). Kauffman's thesis is that there is plenty of evidence, which he argues sometimes with clarity, at other times using logic that I find hard to follow, that we cannot reduce everything to the laws of pure physics, to reductionism, where every thing at the end of the day reduces to particles or strings or whatever the physicists say is the ultimate reductionist reality of the moment. But instead of saying per se that there is accordingly no need for a God (or god(s)), Kauffman argues that the God we need and have created in our lives is found in the ceaseless creativity that is all around us and that should command our respect and awe, as being sacred in a new understanding of the term.
Whilst I cannot agree with Kauffman's conclusion as to the nature of God, what I find of greatest interest is the significance, as explained by Kauffman, of his views for the future of our world and how we steer our own evolution for better or worse based on his proposed reinvention of the sacred in our lives. This is an extremely profound book that deserves a wider readership than it seems to be receiving.
eleanor stoneham 3 September 2010
While possibly being intentionally provocative in the quest for publicity when making this pronouncement, I doubt that Hawking himself can seriously believes that failure to prove an assertion is logically the same as disproving it. I don't need to have a wife for there to be a dress in my house. However, this startling insight does not disprove that I have a wife! What captital militant athiests choose to make of Hawkings' pronouncement is another matter. But maybe Christians are to somewhat to blame for claiming in the past with unjustified certainty that the universe couldn't have created itself. Our witness does not depend on saying God must exist, but simply to testifying that, as it happens, He does exist.
Nick Goddard 5 September 2010
Keith: you are right, but it is necesary to go round the loop one more time to establish it. Hawking’s reply to the question “where did the Laws of Physics come from, if not from God?” would be that he expects there is only one possible set of physical laws that are mutually consistent. To which the response is: You are really suggesting that there is only one mutually consistent set within the class of laws that you are considering. But a creator God has a choice of a much wider class.
Anton Garrett 6 September 2010
This is becoming quite boring. This is what he said in his first impenetrable book. So I don't know what the fuss is about this time. Usual arguments which neither side has any desire to concede. Great way to sell a book though.
A good summary of what some in the media think.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/seealso/2010/09/daily_view_stephen_hawkings_un.html
Swaraj Jeyaisngh 7 September 2010