Rebuttal: Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking: "There Is No God."

Prof. Hawking,

Over the years, with interest I have read your books. Your work on black holes is impressive and ground breaking. I was very excited when I saw that you had a show on Discovery Channel. The last show I watched aired last Sunday, August 7, 2011 entitled: “Did God Create the Universe.” Your hypothesis/question is: If the laws of nature are fixed, what need is there for God? Your premise is: God exists in time. I remember that early in your life, you professed that you did not believe in God. Yet, you keep coming back to the topic of God. I do not have a problem with your, or anyone’s, quest for truth. But, while your question is valid, your conclusion is based on a flawed premise. I have some problems with your logic leading to your conclusion that God does not exist and it is that topic which I would like to discuss here. You talked about the mindset of man in earlier times and how they dealt with seemingly unexplained events, cause and effect, the Big Bang, and of course your favorite, black holes and finally, using science, you summed it all up to equate that God is not. I want to use your same science to prove that God is.

As you brought out in your episode, people used to think that the world was flat, feared eclipses, storms, comets, and a host of other events too numerous  to address here. I would just like to talk about Joshua. But first, I want to review some pertinent history because this is being published to an audience.

Many people believed that the earth and the planets and their moons revolved around the sun (geocentric theory). However,  Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), the Polish astronomer, was a proponent of the heliocentric theory,that the earth revolved around the sun. Another was Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BC) who also believed in the heliocentric theory. Setting out to improve the system devised by Ptolemy, Copernicus realized that the rising and setting of the Sun, Moon, and stars could be accounted for by a daily revolution of the Earth. Also, he found that if he put the Sun at the center (heliocentric) of the planet's orbits he could simplify Ptolemy's system. This was highly controversial at the time because the Ptolemaic view of geocentric (earth centered) universe was the prevailing theory for more than 1,000 years. It was deeply ingrained in the prevailing philosophy, science and religion.

The Church leaders believed the universe declared the glory of God and they felt it was their duty to teach the people about the universe. The Church leaders were very influential in the science community. The theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy were adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and this played an important role in presenting these theories to the Europeans. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) used the writings of Aristotle (384 - 322 BC), Archimedes (287 - 212 BC), Claudius Ptolemy (85-165 AD) to support that the heavens were "God-ordained and man-centered." Martin Luther and other religious leaders were quick to denounce Copernicus' heliocentric (sun centered) theory.

In the next century after Copernicus, along came an Italian, Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). He used his newly-invented telescope to make his own observations and findings, all of which supported Copernicus' heliocentric theory.

At the table of a wealthy family, Galileo proffered his idea of the heliocentric theory.  The deeply religious hostess said that Galileo could not be right in this because that would present a problem with “her” Joshua.  She was speaking about the day the sun stood still so Joshua could win his battle.  The bible says that:

“And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. … So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” (Joshua 10:13)

The scriptures do not lie. Galileo was an arrogant man and he would not back down from his heliocentric theory.  He wrote about his observations and thus got the attention of and angered the Roman Catholic Church. The Inquisition was the tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church at this time. The Inquisition made Galileo kneel before them and confess that the heliocentric theory was false.  Which, history says, he did. Nevertheless, the Church eventually placed him under house arrest where he remained for the rest of his life. (An aside: the Church pardoned Galileo 350 years later stating that the heliocentric theory was a fact.)

These men, and women, could not reconcile what is obvious to us today and that is, the sun really is the center of the solar system and does not move, so it had no choice but to have “stood still.”  So, what does that do for “our” Joshua and the scriptures, which Jesus said cannot be broken (John 10:35).  Scientifically, this miracle is flawed and some other reason for what happened that day must be sought.

Using science, however, we can clearly determine what happened that day and it is plausible. And what happened is a much more miraculous thing than causing something to stand still that does not move anyway. That is, the earth stopped turning, as well as its moon. But, are not all of the heavenly bodies caught up in the gravitational pull of one another? Isaac Newton’s (1642 - 1727) law of gravitation between two masses, can be applied here. Since, the Sun is the most massive object in the planetary system, all of the planets would naturally be attracted to it and revolve around it, in the same manner as the Moon revolves around the Earth. If the earth and moon stopped moving, it can be safely deduced that the entire solar system came to a halt as well.

This is a much more impressive event and science, it seems, supports it. Yes, Joshua, a man born in the middle of the second millennium, believed the sun moved across the sky, as did everyone, so that is how the bible records this event. However, Joshua’s lack of scientific knowledge somehow did not matter when he made his request, or rather command. Some governing force interpreted what he needed – more daylight time to finish his battle – and made it happen. That governing force is God.

Interestingly, while the heliocentric theory is now a scientific fact, concerning the event that took place for Joshua that day, it is still recognized as the day the sun stood still.

You discussed the Big Bang, how everything was in a dense little ball of matter, the Singularity, and you even ventured to do what others gloss over and that is to answer from whence did the Singularity come. In a black hole, time does not pass. Therefore, you concluded, before the black hole of the Singularity, there was no time. Your hypothesis states, in part, that “the laws of nature are fixed,”one tenant being that if there is a cause, there is also an effect. Your premise states that: “God exists in time.” It is a well-known fact that in order to create something, you, the creator, must exist outside that created thing. And since your premise states that God is confined to time, he could not have created the universe because before the Singularity, there was no time. That removes God as the cause. Yet then, spontaneously, this effect occurred called the Big Bang. You say that energy, the cause, created the Big Bang because hydrogen (the proton) fused and helium was created and so forth and so on until fission created the heavier metals. All this is occurring in a star which was born in a nebula, created by the Big Bang, along with other baby stars that have long since gone super nova and become black holes themselves. But the question begs to be asked: From where or whom did the energy come? Who determined the wavelength and frequency needed to excite the proton to fuse? Who created the proton? Without a cause, what prompted the energy to excite the proton? You did not. I did not. No one like us did. Or could. An effect as large as the Big Bang had to have had a cause. Only some governing force outside the Singularity could have been the cause. A governing force not confined to time. That governing force is God.

A scientist I am not. However, I do know that a flawed premise leads to a flawed conclusion. And in order to make it work, you have to cloud the issue with facts that seem to support the premise. Just because you decide that God has to exist in time, does not make it true. And if you are  using a flawed statement upon which to prove your hypothesis, then your conclusion, no matter how many true facts you use, is not true. By your own admission if you have an effect, there has to have been a cause. Yet, you want me to believe that the Big Bang was an effect without a cause. I think you want to be right about your belief that there is no God, but you have to be prepared to prove yourself wrong too. Everywhere we turn, science is proving that God is. We have a feeling that we are not alone, yet we can’t seem to find anybody else. But science is talking about branes – other dimensions of the same universe. It is possible that these dimensions are inhabited by beings suited those environments! Paul, the Apostle, says: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (I Corinthians 13:12)

Man, using his own intellect, but barred by his arrogance, has been trying to grasp the understanding of who God is and how all this came to be, but falls miserably short. After centuries of painstaking scientific research, there is still so much more that is unexplained. But, there is another way to know. Someone brought to my attention Michelangelo’s treasure on the Sistine Chapel.  Depicted is the finger of God giving life to man.  We can see the symbolism there, but there is one glaring flaw: If God created man, why does Adam have a naval suggesting that he was born of a woman?  It is because no matter how hard we try, we cannot break out of our own finite intellect to know the mind of God without the assistance of His Illuminator, that is, His Spirit.  John the Apostle writes: “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.” (John 14:26) It causes us to be interdimensional beings. It leads us to all the knowledge we seek.

Sincerely,

W. Lumpkins