Posted on 09/14/2010 4:59:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
In 1966, Stephen Hawking published his first — completely valid — proof for the existence of God. Over the next seven years, he followed this with even more powerful valid theorems proving God’s existence.
So how did Hawking, who successfully proved God’s existence, remain an atheist? Simple. He simply denied that the assumptions he used in his proofs were true. As a matter of logic, if the assumptions in a proof are not true, then the conclusions need not be true. What assumptions did the young Hawking make? He assumed that the laws of physics, mainly Einstein’s theory of gravity, were true. In the summary of his early research, namely his book The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Hawking wrote:
It seems to be a good principle that the prediction of [God] by a physical theory indicates that the theory has broken down, i.e. it no longer provides a correct description of observations.
Hawking then began working on quantum gravity, in hopes that God would be at last eliminated from the equations. Alas, it was not to be: God was even more prominent — and unavoidable — in quantum gravity than in Einstein’s theory of gravity. In his latest book, The Grand Design, Hawking has pinned his hope of eliminating God on M-theory, a theory with no experimental support whatsoever, hence not a theory of physics at all. Nor has it been proven that M-theory is mathematically consistent. Nor has it been proven that God has been eliminated from M-theory. There are disquieting signs (for Hawking and company) that He is also unavoidable in M-theory, as He is in Einstein’s gravity, and in quantum gravity.
In spite of what the atheist press is telling you, it’s looking bad for atheism today. And it is extraordinary the lengths an atheist like Hawking will go to avoid the obvious: God exists.
The alert reader will have noticed that in the above quote, Hawking did not actually use the word “God.” But this is what he really meant. To see this, let us recall just what the word “God” means.
Consider the opening words of the (original) Nicene Creed: “We believe in one God, the omnipotent Father, Maker of all things visible and invisible.” These words give the basic definition of “God” used by Christians and Jews: God is the Cause of everything, but He Himself has no cause. God is the Uncaused First Cause. In his Second Way, Thomas Aquinas proves the existence of the Uncaused First (efficient) Cause, and Aquinas concludes, “to which all give the name ‘God’ (quam omnes Deum nominant).”
So now let us return to the theorems of the young Hawking. By following the history of the universe back into time — in other words, by following the causes of the current universe back into time — Hawking proved that all of these causes had a common cause; a common cause that did not itself have a cause. This common cause was an Uncaused Cause that was beyond the control of the laws of physics, beyond the control of any possible laws of physics. Rather, the entire universe began at this Uncaused First Cause.
In exactly the same way that Aquinas used the word “create,” we can say that the Uncaused First Cause, whose existence was proven decades ago by Hawking, “created” the universe.
Hawking called this Uncaused First Cause a “singularity.”
But given the properties of this “singularity,” it is God. So I have replaced the word “singularity,” which Hawking actually used in the above quote, with what it really means according to Aquinas.
To show how this Cosmological Singularity — the Uncaused First Cause — can manifest itself as a personal God would require a book, which I have written. Indeed, the personal nature of God is not obvious in Hawking’s proof of His existence. But neither is it obvious in the proof of Aquinas, and Aquinas also required a book to establish God’s personal nature.
The interesting thing about Hawking’s existence proof for God is that it can be tested experimentally, since it is based on experimentally confirmed physical law. I published a paper in a refereed physics journal a few years ago pointing this out. Eventually the experiment will be done, but it will require tens of thousands of dollars for equipment.
So don’t despair, my fellow theists! The recent slew of best-selling books by atheists attacking religion, supposedly using science, is their last gasp. Remember the great words of Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
We theists are now at stage three.
bump
If the existence of divinity is proven, what will the act render faith to be, other than meaningless? The dogma of practically all religions known today will need revision, if faith can be eliminated from the man-divinity equation.
As an aside, when the universe is said to have exploded from “singularity”, what was the nature of the void that it was filling into? In other words, the volume of the universe and what it expanded into is not merely a large number, but infinity, manifested.
Since it is impossible for mankind to fathom what that entails, I do not think physics will be able to go much in the way of proving divinity. Faith will always have to be a part of the equation.
IMHO.
I agree with you
As someone who had a full cardiac arrest and died, I can promise you that when you die your soul lives on. Yes, I had an after death experience and it is real.
The atheist nuts are so committed to their “no God” lunacy they will believe (on no evidence, only conjecture) crazy stuff like “infinite universes” - ignoring for the moment that maybe God created the infinite universes....
Atheism is nothing new. These fools have been saying “there is no God” for thousands of years.
“Faith will always have to be a part of the equation.”
Obviously, however these explorations are important especially when dealing with skeptics, liberals, Communists, and other pseudo-atheists.
I had an initial decision of faith, that faith is made stronger by these discussions.
So, Hawking assumed that a physical theorem’s resultant proof of God invalidated the assumptions built into the theorem.
I know that Ayn Rand is highly respected on this site. I also respect her views and her great contributions to the current conservative philosophy. However, the one thing that she missed in looking at America is what stitches it all together. Faith.
It is the one thing that DeToqueville noticed right away about our society. That when you have the freedom and liberty to believe whatever you want and do not have the dogma of a state religion telling you what to believe, spirituality and belief in God increases. Ayn Rand grew up in the same state controlled religion world that DeToqueville grew up in. One was Russian Orthodox and the other Catholic. She took away from it the idea that the Church worked in concert with the state to oppress the individual. While this is true, she drew the conclusion that it was evil and antithetical for individual liberty and freedom.
What I’m talking about is an absolute, irrefutable, scientific proof of divinity.
When you have that, you no longer have doubt, and consequently, no necessity to have faith. You won’t know any less than what an “angel” knows. Religions will then have to change as faith as a component is no longer functional.
You need to clear your mind and look at the Wonders of God all around you, as if you were seeing it for the first time as a child.
Last year a Freeper linked a great Video about those wonders. You can't watch this video and come away still thinking it was all a cosmic accident. Netflix has it.
1. Natural laws exist because there is a Lawgiver.
2. Because natural laws exist, there is no Lawgiver.
I find it fascinating that so many pointy-headed types try to convince themselves of the latter.
An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless a force acts upon it. That force at the beginning of time that caused the singularity to explode into the universe? Here the author assumes God himself is the singularity rather than the singularity being a created thing. In either case, non-theists have a hard time explaining everything in a point exploding into everything without violating the laws of physics without God.
Theists have had the better of the scientific creation argument since the big bang theory became accepted.
Hawkings reasonings are simply a logical extension of what has been reasoned since the days of the Psalmist, that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. Faith was then and remains necessary, no matter how convincing the argument.
Sorry, but there is no basis for assuming there is no rational componant of faith. While faith is belief in things “unseen” that does not mean faith is “blind faith” or a “leap of faith”. In fact, the Apostle Paul says the fact of God is so obviously proven by creation itself that nobody has an excuse for rejecting him.
You cant leave us hanging on that one, you must share your story.
Absolutely. Big Bang rescued Aquinas' "first mover" argument from the rebuttals of Kant.
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