As our small groups prepare to go through the study, Does God Exist? by Focus on the Family, I found two articles in the Telegraph that deal with that very issue. The first article concerns Stephen Hawking's statement that "God was not needed to create the universe." I must admit, I was not surprised that Hawking would not believe in the need for God. He has always seemed to focus on the material and laws of science for his understanding of the universe.
What is so remarkable about this article was a quote in the article. Hawking says, “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.” Let me take you into "The Wayback Machine" with Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman (couldn't resist the Underdog cartoon reference.) A huge debate during the 1600's was whether or not life would spontaneously generate from inorganic matter. Up until this time, many people believed that life would "just appear" from other forms of matter. People like Francesco Redi, Lazzaro Spallanzani, and Louis Pasteur proved through scientific experiments that life does not spontaneously generate. This is "General Science" kind of stuff we learn in 9th grade.
Dr. Hawking is so determined to avoid acknowledging that there is a God, that he would prefer to think that spontaneous generation is possible than having a creator. I know Dr. Hawking is not returning to 17th century thinking, but it is apparent that he would rather entertain something that is outlandish in it's possibility in order to avoid the possibility that God exists and created everything.
Also on the Telegraph website is an article by Dr. John Gribbin entitled, Are We Living In a Designer Universe? His hypothesis for the origin of our universe is different to say the least. He believes that it is possible our universe exists because persons similar to us created with the help of something similar to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. By smashing particles together, black holes are created that lead to the creation of our universe.
I will let you read the articles for details, but I did want to note a couple of things about the articles. I am happy that both Dr. Hawking and Dr. Gribbin have made the leap from science to faith. Because only faith could lead them to conclusions that have practically no evidence to substantiate their claims. Imagine what that kind of faith could do if it was grounded in the truth of God's word and Jesus Christ. Additionally, we should not be surprised by some peoples' desire to run away from God. They will abandon almost anything in order to avoid being confronted with a personal God. Many times, a person who embraces a purely scientific scientific explanation for the universe is not from a lack of faith, but to avoid the True and Living God who will one day judge all of man.
