Tags
astrophysics, God, Higgs boson, Large Hadron Collider, Paul Tillich, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, theology
Makes for a good headline, but not much else. Steven Hawking, renowned astrophysicist, has written a new book due out in a few weeks.
In it, he pretty much discards God as a necessity in creation. Everyone is all excited about the M-theory which describes the actions of fundamental particles and forces that are now believed to be the “causation” of the universe.
It all comes down to rather elegant mathematics, which many scientists have long speculated would give the answers to “life, the Universe and everything.”
But does it?
Hawking certainly seems to think so. Of course, as with all scientific things, experimentation will or will not tell the tale. That is why there is always so much to do about the Large Hadron Collider, which can whiz around atoms at closer and closer the speed of light until they are smashed and broken into their sub-particles.
Many of these sub-particles have so far not been “found.” Yet the math predicts them, and physicists are apparently confident enough in the math that they are pushing for yet a bigger collider to be built in the future.
Much excitement revolves around the search of the Higgs particle, also named the God Particle (more for publicity than for any other reason). It is one of those predicted. If found, it apparently would do much to confirm the math and tell scientists that they are indeed on the right track.
People like Richard Dawkins approach the issue from the opposite end, claiming that evolutionary biology makes it clear that no God has been the instrument of our creation.
Yet, it seems that none of this really can answer the question, or perhaps completely and utterly destroy the argument for God and faith. For in reality they are, as the latest analysis of Hawking’s arguments suggest, merely talking about two different kinds of proof.
Science, by it nature demands proof by replication in experimentation. There is no such requirement in theology. Ultimately it comes down to faith. And neither Dawkins nor Hawking can deal the final blow to that. For, even if Hawking is correct that the laws of the universe necessitate and dictate exactly the universe we have, that but begs the question of where the laws came from.
Indeed, there is a real argument that in elevating science as the be-all and end-all of our existence, scientists who take this approach do no more than create science and human intellect as their gods. In effect they have taken the words of Psalm 8, “making us little less than God” and raised it to an equality at least.
Paul Tillich talks about our waiting in hope. We wait in hope, hope that our faith is real. We do not know, and if we claim we do know, than we have crossed over into idolatry of that which WE have created. Faith is not knowing, but believing anyway.
As Tillich says, when we claim to possess God, we enclose him within our theology, or our book, or our institution. It is not God, but merely our creation of God. Our faith is real precisely when we do not do this, but wait in hope that our belief is real. We choose God, and we wait.
When we wait in hope, we are unsure, we struggle with our disbelief, and we surely don’t and can’t have any desire to impose some “defined” God upon others. For our God is not defined. We leave that to fundamentalists of all traditions and their idol worship.
It is precisely for this reason that science will never “disprove” God nor prove that God is unnecessary to creation. They don’t accept the parameters of the discussion. They demand verifiable experimentation, and we have none to offer.
It would simply be blasphemous to try.
Related Articles
- Hawking hasn’t changed his mind about God (newscientist.com)
- Hawking: no God behind the Big Bang (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
- Why is the Idea of a Universe Without a God So Unsettling? (themoderatevoice.com)
- God, Stephen Hawking and M Theory (guardian.co.uk)
Existential Ennui 
“As Tillich says, when we claim to possess God, we enclose him within our theology, or our book, or our institution.”
John McCullough expands on this thought in his book: The Trivilization of God In short, any description of God that we construct will be too small, too confining, and therefore too trivial to be God.
Oops – that’s Donald W. McCullough.
thanks rich, I’ll be sure to look up that book.
Yes, he says “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing”. Fine, but then where does gravity come from? It just gets to be self existing without an explanation? 🙂
I agree Joseph. Hawking, much as I adore him otherwise, gets no traction from this argument at all it seems to me. We still get back to first cause.
Its not the end of the debate, its the weakest argument Hawking has ever given. He doesnt do athiest very good. I also hope he is wrong, but as a physicist I’ll accept it if the evidence is there, but it doesnt seem to be. Can’t wait to read it tho!
http://hicexsistoeverto.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/it-begins-with-gravity/
I agree Michael. His argument is weak, and we all must accept the proven evidence. I look forward to reading his book, though it will be a major stretch for me. I’m fairly math stupid and just get the basics of all this astrophysics stuff. But I am mezmerized by it all.
I’m an agnostic, since there is no proof one way or the other about the existence of God. All an agnostic is is someone who admits they just don’t know. But as Shakespeare wrote, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” (or close enough without looking it up). They can come up with whatever they want as explanations of how the universe began – but no one can answer the question of who or what created the original matter and laws that formed it. And no one who is confined in our limited understanding will ever know, so it is useless to try. Either you are one of the fortunate ones who can have faith and believe in God, or you’re not, but one way or another we will all probably find out in the end after we die.
Maui, as superb an answer as I’ve ever seen. You are correct in your definition. I’m not sure that faith is a matter of fortune, so much as a choice. Given that there is a toss up of possiblities, I choose to believe, and find myself much the better off for it. But I do realize that it is something that one “feels” in a sense and no amount of wanting to feel it can accomplish it. Blessing to you. I agree, we shall never know until we die.
The faith that you folks talk about is the Christian faith, that Jesus is the Son of God, etc.
But for the existence of God as creator of everything that has a beginning that is obvious from reason.
It’s like this:
The observable and known universe in which we have our residence, and we operate in, and where we have our existence, it has a beginning, and the Big Bang theory says so.
Who gives it its beginning in existence?
Who else but the creator God Who is also the Christian God.
Now, atheists and their cohorts atheist scientists can wriggle everywhere but it is useless, they can wiggle but they cannot hide from the fact that no matter what they seek to get out of God with wriggling all the time and everywhere in the observable and known to man universe, they have to bring up again and again an explanation of why the universe came about, i.e., has a beginning.
And that explanation whatever the latest one will always be identified with God.
So, now they have this idea bout the M-Theory but they explain it as the product or the outcome of the meta-physics laws, etc., etc., etc., etc.
Or the high high high high and deep deep deep deep laws of mathematics, whatever.
So, those meta-laws and those high and deep mathematics they are from God.
If not, then they are God!
For they are then without any beginning, outside of time and space but also immanent in the universe where time and space bind everything, including the nose in the face of atheists as also of theists.
So, God is still there as creator.
Ah yes, a guy like Stenger who deceptively is portrayed by his gullible fans as also a Nobel Prize winner in physics (big big big big lie) wants to prove with so many concepts and words that the universe could have and did come from nothing, but he is lying because he understands nothing as something, like for example, vacuum fluctuation.
Who made that vacuum fluctuation? Who else but the creator God.
If no one made that vacuum fluctuation then it is God!
And He will be revealed to atheist guys, liars these guys like Stenger, that aside from being described as vacuum that fluctuates, God can and does do other things, like making the rain fall on the heads of the just as of sinners like atheists of the bigotic and hollering ilk.
Pachomius
I think the response from the atheist is simply that just because we don’t know the answer, doesn’t equal God. And they are right in that. I believe that God is the creator but it is a belief, and of that I am well aware. ‘
I don’t agree with you that the creator is a Christian God..God is God…I suspect the Godhead makes no reference to any particular religious persuasion, but that is an opinion of course. Nobody would know the answer.