Faith scientists dispute Hawking's 'no God' claim
ULSTER scientists of faith said that claims by Professor Stephen Hawking that God did not create the universe were "atheistic statements of faith" and not based on scientific evidence.
Professor Hawking, the world renowned physicist, previously said physics may help to "know the mind of God" but has made an apparent U-turn in his latest book, the Grand Design.
His latest argument is that the laws of physics – and not God – were behind the Big Bang which resulted in the universe.
He says in the book: "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. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
The book, co-written by the American physicist Leonard Mlodinow and published on September 9, sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have created itself out of chaos.
Prof Hawking had previously appeared to accept the role of a creator, writing in A Brief History Of Time in 1988: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God."
But Revd Professor Alister McGrath – an Ulster academic at King's College in London who has an international reputation in Christian apologetics – asked: "So where do the laws of physics come from, then?"
Downpatrick-born Mr McGrath, who has an extensive background in molecular biophysics and theology, said: "Hawking just moves the problem back one stage."
Norman Nevin, professor emeritus of medical genetics at Queen's University Belfast and a lay preacher, 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.
"In his previous book Hawking said that if all the laws of physics come together into one law then we should know the mind of God. But there is no scientific evidence for what he is now claiming."
Rev Dr Robert Beckett, minister of North Belfast Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the holder of a PhD in animal genetics, said: "Louis Pasteur discovered the basic law that life does not originate from non-living matter."
He added: "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.
"I bring my Christian pre-suppositions to science to interpret data and Hawking brings his atheistic pre-suppositions. But both are positions of faith – science cannot prove or disprove God.
"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."
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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