On 3 Sep 10, the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported Jesuit Scholars responded to Dr. Stephen Hawking's assertion that "the universe can and will create itself from nothing." The implication from Hawking's new book, "The Grand Design," is that God is not necessary to explain the creation of the heavens and the earth.
According to the CNA report, Fr. Robert Spitzer, a former president of Gongaza University, wrote in response to Hawking's statement that, “It [gravity] has a specific constant associated with it and specific characteristics, and it has specific effects on mass-energy and even on space-time itself. This is a very curious definition of 'nothing'.” Spitzer continued, “Now, if we rephrase Dr. Hawking’s statement in the above fashion, then he has clearly not explained why there is something rather than nothing. He has only explained that something comes from something.”
The CNA report also quoted Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, as saying, “God is the reason why space and time and the laws of nature can be present for the forces to operate that Stephen Hawking is talking about.” Essentially, Hawking has explained a theory of creation, but the theory does not exclude God as the intelligent designer of that creation. Consolmagno said, “God is the reason why existence itself exists.”
According to a 2 Sep 10, Guardian.co.uk column, Britton's Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, wrote in response to Hawking's theory, "There is a difference between science and religion. Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation. The Bible simply isn't interested in how the universe came into being." Sacks continued, "But there is more to wisdom than science. It cannot tell us why we are here or how we should live. Science masquerading as religion is as unseemly as religion masquerading as science."
In a 3 Sep 10, NewsLetter.co.uk article, quoted Revd Professor Alister McGrath, an Ulster academic at King's College in London, as inquiring in response to Hawking's theory, "So where do the laws of physics come from, then?" McGrath observed, "Hawking just moves the problem back one stage."
The article also quoted Norman Nevin, professor emeritus of medical genetics at Queen's University Belfast and a lay preacher, who said. "If we accept the Big Bang theory of how the universe began he still must explain where all the matter came from and how it got so supercondensed.”
The report included quotes from Rev Dr Robert Beckett, minister of North Belfast Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the holder of a PhD in animal genetics, who stated, "Louis Pasteur discovered the basic law that life does not originate from non-living matter." Beckett continued, "Scientists today have still no idea what life is. To believe that life has come about by chance is not science but is a purely atheistic faith position.”
Beckett concluded, "Hawking's argument that the laws of physics explain everything dodges the ultimate question – where did the laws come from? The laws are simply a description of the universe, they are not able to say what caused the universe."
A 3 Sep 10 CNN report quoted the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, as stating, "physics on its own will not settle the question of why there is something rather than nothing." Williams also stated, "Belief in God is not about plugging a gap in explaining how one thing relates to another within the Universe. It is the belief that there is an intelligent, living agent on whose activity everything ultimately depends for its existence."
“Then the LORD addressed Job out of the storm and said: 'Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance? Gird up your loins now, like a man; I will question you, and you tell me the answers! Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its size; do you know? Who stretched out the measuring line for it? Into what were its pedestals sunk, and who laid the cornerstone, while the morning stars sang in chorus and all the sons of God shouted for joy? And who shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands? When I set limits for it and fastened the bar of its door, and said: Thus far shall you come but no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stilled! Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place?'” (Job 38:1-12)
Cited Articles and Posts
Catholic News Agency (3 Sep 10)
Guardian.co.uk (2 Sep 10)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/02/lord-sacks-stephen-hawking-creation-row
NewsLetter.co.uk (3 Sep 10)
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/Faith-scientists-dispute-Hawking39s-39no.6511187.jp
CNN (3 Sep 10)
