Posted on 09/07/2010 7:22:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
There's no denying that Stephen Hawking is intellectually bold as well as physically heroic. And in his latest book, the renowned physicist mounts an audacious challenge to the traditional religious belief in the divine creation of the universe.
According to Hawking, the laws of physics, not the will of God, provide the real explanation as to how life on Earth came into being. The Big Bang, he argues, was the inevitable consequence of these laws 'because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.'
Unfortunately, while Hawking's argument is being hailed as controversial and ground-breaking, it is hardly new.
For years, other scientists have made similar claims, maintaining that the awesome, sophisticated creativity of the world around us can be interpreted solely by reference to physical laws such as gravity.
It is a simplistic approach, yet in our secular age it is one that seems to have resonance with a sceptical public.
But, as both a scientist and a Christian, I would say that Hawking's claim is misguided. He asks us to choose between God and the laws of physics, as if they were necessarily in mutual conflict.
But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions.
What Hawking appears to have done is to confuse law with agency. His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
A voice of reason.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR :
John Carson Lennox is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, and Pastoral Advisor at Green Templeton College.
He teaches for the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme at the Executive Education Centre, Said Business School, University of Oxford.
He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles on mathematics and co-authored two Oxford Mathematical Monographs and has worked as a translator of Russian mathematics.
For the polyglot, the author John Lennox speaks English, Russian, French and German fluently. He also has a good command of Spanish.
I believe in God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth . . . .
Didn’t Einstein say “God doesn’t roll dice?”
Didn’t Einstein say “God doesn’t roll dice?”
RE: No Lawgiver = No Laws.
That’s what Lennox is driving at.
He says Hawking’s argument is a confusion of categories. The laws of physics can explain how the jet engine works, but someone had to build the thing, put in the fuel and start it up. The jet could not have been created without the laws of physics on their own - but the task of development and creation needed the genius of Frank Whittle ( the aeronautical engineer ) as its agent.
Similarly, the laws of physics could never have actually built the universe. Some agency must have been involved.
To use a simple analogy, Isaac Newton’s laws of motion in themselves never sent a snooker ball racing across the green baize. That can only be done by people using a snooker cue and the actions of their own arms.
Hawking’s argument appears to be even more illogical when he says the existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was inevitable. But how did gravity exist in the first place? Who put it there? And what was the creative force behind its birth?
Similarly, when Hawking argues, in support of his theory of spontaneous creation, that it was only necessary for ‘the blue touch paper’ to be lit to ‘set the universe going’, the question must be: where did this blue touch paper come from? And who lit it, if not God?
Much of the rationale behind Hawking’s argument lies in the pre-conceived idea that there is a deep-seated conflict between science and religion.
As we vortex toward the end, you (and I) are rapidly becoming the minatory.
Laws of physics are a tool, not an ultimate end to a means. The laws about optics and the behavior made the better (reflecting) telescope, not the other way around. I think what most people fail to realize is that “good science” is an excellent and meaningful tool in a very real world. I say this because as someone in the field of environmental chemistry, good and proper use of scientific means brings a good end (i.e. you know either what you should or should not do as a given solution to a problem). However, it’s a field in continual need of refinement, and some people, especially in the theoretical realm, make it their religion.
Wherever there are laws and order in our world, we know that man or woman have created that. So how is it when we see awesome laws such as gravity and the motion of our planet...very strict adherance to it’s motion is neccessary for us to not freeze to death or fry to death...yet intellectuals such as Hawkings deny that it all has to have a creator. That is simply because he is lost in his thoughts which are given to him by the darkness. Simple as that. He is lost in his own darkness; that which justifies his anger towards his parents or God. The parents of course whom are supposed to be the good representatives of God but so often fail that. Satan is after all an extremely intellectual and “smart” creature. He is into knowledge and that is why He wanted Adam to fall to the rebellion into the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Poor soul.
If you have a problem with being into your thoughts at all please go to fhu.com. THere is a be still exercise there that has freed so many people!
I’d like to ask Prof. Hawking where life came from. You don’t get animate matter from inanimate matter. No way. no how. Where did the genetic material to create an elephant come from? A one-celled amoeba floating around a swamp?
Thanks for sharing this.
I like this part:
“Just as strong is the obvious reality that we are moral beings, capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. There is no scientific route to such ethics.”
Why are these people so afraid of God?
I guess I could understand why a person in Hawking’s position might not be oh so thrilled about God. If I had a terrible disease as he does I might be pretty negative about God and/or Nature and/or Fate, whichever.
This article confirmed my suspicions that there wasn’t much new in what he’s recently written.
Obviously “gravity” is a description of an existing fact, not an actor in any sense of the term.
Also, clearly, the failure to find extra-terrestrial life after all this time, or their failure to find us (some think they have found us, I realize that, but let’s face it, they’ve found very, very few at best) seems to frustrate these atheists, but I don’t know why.
The atheists seem to think that it is believers who have God in a box, but actually it is they who do.
What believer really thinks they can understand God, or even begin to comprehend Him or His power?
But the atheists think they can say God not needed, gravity’s enough, or god is dead, or wait until we find space aliens, and they’ve made the argument.
Why couldn’t there be space aliens AND humans and both created in God’s image?
Because we don’t know what God really is do we?
And could we ever?
Sad, but true.
As a layman, I can’t look at the universe without seeing evidence of God.
And Isaac Newton also wrote a lot in his journal about what he felt the nature of Jesus Christ was. Surprised?
The fact of the matter is that numerous individuals recast persons in their own image, rather than the image given by the persons’ very own accounts.
John Maynard Keynes was shocked to read Isaac Newton’s journals about alchemy, his Doomsday prediction (2050A.D.), and his own essays written about Jesus, no less. I wonder what kind of person this guy actually thought Newton was?
Certainly not the kind of Isaac Newton some people wished to think he was.
If knowledge is your god, you tend to lose perspective.
I love knowledge, however, I use it to further my understanding of GOD, a pursuit Hawking has either lost or never had.
First Cause, baby.
Yes, and the very best knowledge is dropped on us from God. He does not talk to us with words, but enlightens us with flashes of wordless knowledge! That is why the great scientists of history and of modern times are God loving people.
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