Here is a clear and cogent response to Stephen Hawking’s new book that attempts to explain the universe without God.

John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science.

As a scientist I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God

By Professor John Lennox  <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Professor+John+Lennox+>

According to Stephen Hawking, the laws of physics, not the will of God, provide the real explanation as to how life on Earth came into being

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 skeptical 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.

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 me 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 idea that there is a deep-seated conflict between science and religion. But this is not a discord I recognise.

For me, as a Christian believer, the beauty of the scientific laws only reinforces my faith in an intelligent, divine creative force at work. The more I understand science, the more I believe in God because of my wonder at the breadth, sophistication and integrity of his creation.

The very reason science flourished so vigorously in the 16th and 17th centuries was precisely because of the belief that the laws of nature which were then being discovered and defined reflected the influence of a divine law-giver.

One of the fundamental themes of Christianity is that the universe was built according to a rational, intelligent design. Far from being at odds with science, the Christian faith actually makes perfect scientific sense.

Some years ago, the scientist Joseph Needham made an epic study of technological development in China. He wanted to find out why China, for all its early gifts of innovation, had fallen so far behind Europe in the advancement of science.

He reluctantly came to the conclusion that European science had been spurred on by the widespread belief in a rational creative force, known as God, which made all scientific laws comprehensible.

Despite this, Hawking, like so many other critics of religion, wants us to believe we are nothing but a random collection of molecules, the end product of a mindless process.

This, if true, would undermine the very rationality we need to study science. If the brain were really the result of an unguided process, then there is no reason to believe in its capacity to tell us the truth.

We live in an information age. When we see a few letters of the alphabet spelling our name in the sand, our immediate response is to recognise the work of an intelligent agent. How much more likely, then, is an intelligent creator behind the human DNA, the colossal biological database that contains no fewer than 3.5 billion ‘letters’?

It is fascinating that Hawking, in attacking religion, feels compelled to put so much emphasis on the Big Bang theory. Because, even if the non-believers don’t like it, the Big Bang fits in exactly with the Christian narrative of creation.

That is why, before the Big Bang gained currency, so many scientists were keen to dismiss it, since it seemed to support the Bible story. Some clung to Aristotle’s view of the ‘eternal universe’ without beginning or end; but this theory, and later variants of it, are now deeply discredited.

But support for the existence of God moves far beyond the realm of science. Within the Christian faith, there is also the powerful evidence that God revealed himself to mankind through Jesus Christ two millennia ago. This is well-documented not just in the scriptures and other testimony but also in a wealth of archaeological findings.

Moreover, the religious experiences of millions of believers cannot lightly be dismissed. I myself and my own family can testify to the uplifting influence faith has had on our lives, something which defies the idea we are nothing more than a random collection of molecules.

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.

Physics cannot inspire our concern for others, or the spirit of altruism that has existed in human societies since the dawn of time.

The existence of a common pool of moral values points to the existence of transcendent force beyond mere scientific laws. Indeed, the message of atheism has always been a curiously depressing one, portraying us as selfish creatures bent on nothing more than survival and self-gratification.

Hawking also thinks that the potential existence of other lifeforms in the universe undermines the traditional religious conviction that we are living on a unique, God-created planet. But there is no proof that other lifeforms are out there, and Hawking certainly does not present any.

It always amuses me that atheists often argue for the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence beyond earth. Yet they are only too eager to denounce the possibility that we already have a vast, intelligent being out there: God.

Hawking’s new fusillade cannot shake the foundations of a faith that is based on evidence.

God’s Undertaker: Has science Buried God? by John Lennox is out now (Lion Hudson, £8.99).

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

A Christian is one who accepts the terms of the created order: God is the Maker, we are the creatures; God is the Redeemer, we are the redeemed; God is the Almighty, we are totally dependent upon him. If we reject these terms, we will attempt to elevate ourselves as gods and create “God” according to our image.

A.W. Tozer introduces this chapter with just such a reminder: “It is true that order in nature depends upon right relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper position relative to each other thing.” Just as there is a proper sequence and order in the natural world, so too there is in the relational world. But something has happened to the natural order – something is wrong. We see everywhere we go. We hear it in every person we know. We feel it in every moment we breathe. What is it?

Tozer answers, “. . . the cause of all our human miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God and to each other.” This radical change can be seen in the Genesis 3 account. We first observe it in the relationship between God and the two people he had created for fellowship. They went from a “Thy will be done” stance to a “My will be done” stance. Everything began to fall apart from there, so that the dislocation in Genesis remains with us to this day. For example, we see the “My will be done” stance in our prayers. They often degenerate into childish attempts to persuade or manipulate God into doing our will, rather than an ordained means by which he transforms us into the “My will be done” kind of children.

What we need is a restoration of the Creator-creature relation; it is the only means to maturing our salvation. However, this change is not a judicial change merely, but an experiential change, one that affects our whole nature. The judicial change has to do with what God has already accomplished on our behalf, a change that has been brought about by the work of Christ. However, that change must continue to extend to every part of our being so that we are completely brought back into relationship with God through Christ. It is there that we are free to experience life as part of God’s family and as children of light.

• What is the nature of our radical moral dislocation?

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

But someone might object that this skillful kind of faith is too simple. Tozer responds, “It would be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us.” It can be accomplished without the need for special religious paraphernalia. It can be done from any posture, whether standing, kneeling, or lying down. It can be done at any time, in any season. Every day is a day of salvation. It can be done from any place – simply turn your heart toward him. And every one of us can do it, whether child or adult, whether ignorant or educated, whether clergy or laity.

Tozer writes,

“Many have found the secret of which I speak and, without giving much thought to what is going on with them, constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing upon God. They know that something inside their heart sees God . . . . Let their attention but be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to God again.”

Tozer references Nicholas of Cusa to illustrate this sweet language of experience. Tozer writes of Nicholas: “His conception of eternal life, for instance, is beautiful in itself and, if I mistake not, is nearer in spirit to John 17: 3 than that which is current among us today. ‘Life eternal,’ says Nicholas, is

‘nought other than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest to behold me, yes, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; ‘tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; ‘tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love’s imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure.’”

• How is it possible to constantly practice the habit of inwardly gazing upon God?

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

There are three Latin words that can all mean faith: noticia, assentia, fiducia. Noticia simply means that you saw something or took “notice” of its existence. Assentia means that you acknowledged or gave “assent” to the truth of something. But it is the third word that represents biblical faith: fiducia. This is a word that simply means to “trust.” We must think of biblical faith as more than an intellectual notation, more than a cognitive assent; it is placing one’s trust in truth. And because propositional truth in Scripture always points beyond itself to the author, we see that trusting a certain truth is grounded in our trust of the Truthgiver – we are to look to him who is the Author of our faith, the One who has written everything from the introduction to the conclusion. Therefore, faith is choosing to believe that the Bible is true regardless of any feelings or beliefs to the contrary. Faith always involves a choice of the will and an intention of the heart.

This is exactly what Jesus did; he kept the inward eyes of his heart upon his Father. When he asked his Father to raise Lazarus from the dead, he raised his eyes toward heaven and prayed. When he fed the 5,000, he took the five loaves and two fish and looked up toward heaven and gave thanks. And even as his followers stood “gazing intently” as their resurrected Savior ascended into heaven, they soon learned how to run the race of faith by “fixing their eyes on Jesus.” Throughout his whole life Jesus himself demonstrated this continuous and uninterrupted gaze of the soul in the direction of his Father. Likewise, he calls us to intentionally aim our hearts toward Jesus.

Tozer goes on to say that,

“. . . this one committal, this one great volitional act which establishes the heart’s intention to gaze forever upon Jesus. God takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances he must for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world. He knows that we have set the direction of our hearts toward Jesus, and we can know it too, and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that a habit of soul is forming which will become, after a while, a sort of spiritual reflex requiring no more conscious effort on our part.

Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied on the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves – blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.”

Most of religion tinkers with your soul, forever trying to figure everything out and get everything right. But you must get your eyes off of all that nonsense and get your eyes onto Christ because when you do, he’ll take over the care of your soul.

• How do we cultivate a beneficial habit of the soul?

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

Science confirms the truth of Hebrews 11:1. Everything that appears to be solid turns out to not be solid at the atomic level. It actually consists of whirling fields of mysterious energies and forces. So that everything that is seen is made up of that which is not seen. For example, Einstein’s most famous equation tells us that energy (what we don’t see) and mass (what we do see) are equivalent. That is, they consist of the same basic stuff, but in different forms. Matter is simply slowed-down energy or compressed energy. And when matter is accelerated at the speed of light squared it becomes energy. And what is energy? No one knows. It seems that every time we learn something new in science we encounter something else far more mysterious. A healthy faith is needed in science too.

Returning now to Hebrews11:6, we not only read that, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God],” but also that he who comes to God must believe two things: (1) “. . . that he is,” and (2) “. . . that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.” The rest of the chapter tells the stories of the men and women who exercised their faith by pursuing the “unseen” and the “not yet” above the things that are “seen” and “now here.” As verse 13 says, “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” In Alexandre Dumas’ classic The Count of Monte Cristo, the final two words in the book are “Wait and hope.” That’s the theme of Hebrews chapter 11: “Wait” – the future is going to be better than you can possibly imagine. And “hope” – the future is in the hands of our trustworthy God. That kind of faith has 20/20 vision.

• “Wait” – the future is going to be better than you can possibly imagine. And “hope” – the future is in the hands of our trustworthy God.

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

The third option and is that of design. Here, I like to use the analogy of the turtle on a fence post. Imagine that you are walking through the countryside and you spy a turtle perched on top of a fence post. You ask yourself how did it get there? Your options: Perhaps it is necessity; by nature it had to be there. But, upon reflection, you immediately realize that it doesn’t have to be there. So, you move to the second option: perhaps it is chance. It is conceivable that a tornado picked up the turtle and gently deposited him on the top of the post by sheer accident. But, as with our hard-typing monkeys, what may be logically conceivable is not always mathematically achievable. In fact, the chances that the turtle’s presence on the post can be accounted for via the happy accident of a violent, 150 mile-an-hour tornado are so remote that it raises questions about the stubbornness of the claimant. But if it is not required to be there, and if it didn’t get there by accident, then the only option left is that of design. Some intelligent force must have intervened. We know that the little brain of the turtle couldn’t have figured out a way to climb up there, so the only logical explanation left is that somebody must have put it there.

When we apply this same reasoning to a world that is resplendent with beauty, intelligence, and complexity, we can see how a scientist can become a more complete scientist if he starts his work by worshipping the One whose handiwork he daily explores and investigates. In the presence of the Creator, the scientist, the theologian, and the child are all allies. My conviction is that if you have the ears to hear, everything in nature points beyond itself to wondrous spiritual truth.

• God has ordained the created order in such a way that everything in it points beyond to spiritual truth for those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

Failure to hear the Voice as coming from God has created some very interesting reactions. When men heard the Father speak from heaven to his Son, they explained it away. In John 12:28-29, Jesus makes a request of his Father, “Father, glorify thy name.” Then, God the Father says, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” What was the response of the multitude standing near enough to hear it? Some thought that the voice of God they heard was thunder. Others thought that it was an angel. Most missed it. Imagine that. How many times do we assume that all our faith really needs is one clear, distinct, audible message from God? Yet in the responses of those hearers, we can easily recognize ourselves. God speaks and we come to all manner of conclusions as to what it was; all except the conclusion that God spoke.

Tozer concludes, “This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science.” But, he continues,

“The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, ‘God.’ The man of the earth kneels also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things. Just now we happen to be living in a secular age. Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than adore.”

But it is important to point out that spiritual truth is not in opposition to science. Science, properly interpreted, is actually an ally of spiritual truth, for it points to something beyond. Ultimately, the person who is looking for a cause that accounts for all that exists has only three options available. The first option is that it was a necessity. It just had to be this way.

• The first option is that it was a necessity. It just had to be this way.

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

If God were simply interested in revealing the fact that he existed, there are many options open to him, all of which involve presenting to us some kind of physical evidence. That is, in order to unmistakably authenticate his divine existence for all people to see, he only has to provide something we can see, hear, or touch. But if God is truly interested in revealing himself as a Person, the only option available to him is to do so within an intimate, personal setting, just as He did with Moses. “And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord” (Exodus 34:5). God revealed his very Self to Moses so that Moses’ face was changed by the encounter. God must come to meet with us and we must come to meet with him. There is no other way.

Here we see that God wants far more than to make a connection with his creatures. He wants to have individual fellowship with each one of them. It is the only medium for each person to acquire the intimate knowledge of the other. Just as two people become friends, or as a child comes to really know and love his parents, so too God requires extended time and shared experiences with each person in order to be deeply known and loved by the other.

Furthermore, it is this individual intimacy that accounts for why God manifests himself differently to each person. Certainly, writes Tozer, “The will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within his household. All he has ever done for any of his children he will do for all his children. The difference lies not with God but with us.” And because God is infinite, he is capable of engaging in a unique relationship with each person. It takes a rich imagination to begin to appreciate the wonder of having the Ancient of Days, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Almighty God desire to come spend uninterrupted time with each of us. We gloss over the repeated way he identifies himself as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and miss the chance to have him declare to the angelic host that he is “the God of (your name).

• How do you distinguish the presence and the manifest presence of God?

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This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

Tozer recalls for us that, “Adam sinned and, in his panic, frantically tried to do the impossible; he tried to hide from the presence of God.” David also had some fleeting thoughts of hiding from God. Psalm 139 reveals his mental struggle,

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your Presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, you are there. Even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you” (Psalm 139:7-12).

David knew that God’s being and God’s seeing are essentially indivisible. That is, the fact that God had seen David even before he was born, watching the unfolding mystery of his life, also means that God had been personally present throughout the whole process. On the other hand, we dare not assume that God’s immanence somehow detracts from his transcendence, for as Solomon asked and then answered, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him; how much less this house which I have built” (1 Kings 8:27). Here he is referring to the supernatural (beyond nature) heaven, the one that transcends the created “heaven and heaven of heavens.”

Tozer writes that, “The approach of God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all. There is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter of miles but of experience.” For instance, what is the speed of prayer? If the speed of prayer were limited to the speed of light, then no prayer ever offered by man would have made it beyond the Andromeda Galaxy, let alone out of the universe. No, the speed of prayer is instantaneous. In fact, the only time indicator connected to God’s hearing our prayer is “before.” Before we know to ask, he knows what we will ask (see Matthew 6:8).

Tozer asks, “If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where he is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world?” Recalling the patriarch Jacob “in the waste-howling wilderness” (Deuteronomy 32:10), Tozer answers his own question, “He saw a vision of God and cried out in wonder, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not’” (Genesis 28:16). God was obviously in that place, but Jacob had been oblivious to him. Tozer continues, “That is because the Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of his presence.”

• ‘Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not’” (Genesis 28:16).

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Pascal described the dignity and puniness of man in these words: “Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.  The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him.  A vapour, a drop of water, suffices to kill him.  But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.”

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