Laughable

A Demi-God Has Spoken

To many in the West, Stephen Hawking is a demi-god. In the rationalist mindset of the Enlightenment those deemed to be the most brilliant or intelligent are honoured above all. If you happen to be a materialist scientist to boot, let alone a physicist then one's status and place on the Olympian heights is assured. So it is with Hawking. The fact that he suffers such physical impairment only serves to underscore the semi-divine quality of pure Reason--a theme close to the heart of the Enlightenment.

Hawking, along with US physicist Leonard Mlodinow, has written a book to "explain" how existence came into being. It is all to do with his quest for a meta-theory of everything. Not yet published, we have been confined to reviews and excerpts, which we acknowledge to be dangerous. We may be rushing to premature judgment, but assuming that the reviews and excerpts are accurate and faithful, Hawking's latest book, The Grand Design will show that Hawking is indeed a very, very foolish man.

Firstly, like all Unbelievers Hawking believes that all reality (which he now assures us must be conceived of as billions of universes) exists by chance. Randomness, brute chance, is the ultimate reality, period.

Secondly, he assures us that not only our universe, but all possible universes came into existence spontaneously, out of nothing. While he is forced to adopt language such as "creation" he is pleased to proclaim to the world that the existence of a creation does not require a creator. Creation was spontaneously ex-nihilo. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something," he says. How can that be? Well, things like that could happen in a random multi-verse.

Thirdly, he insists on stealing and using entirely inappropriate language--the use of which implicitly denies and undermines the case he is trying to make. He speaks of the "law" of gravity, and of natural laws in general. He utilises concepts such as "necessity" and "requirement". Catch these howlers: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist." (Emphasis, ours.)

In other words, even as he strives to construct, describe, and argue for a spontaneous random existence out of nothing, he denies thereby his case. It is like the child who wants to deny the existence of hammers and nails by nailing up billboards to that effect. Every constructed and uttered sentence must presuppose the omnipotent God Who created all things out of nothing and controls and governs every sub-atomic particle in the creation, as well as all non material reality. To presuppose God in order to deny Him is folly indeed. It is childish.

Either Hawking is aware of this and accepts the irony, being too embarrassed or unable to deal with it, or he is unaware of it. Either way he is not to be commended.

Has not God spoken truly: "the fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God'"? (Psalm 14:1)