Does Hawking worship an unknown god?

StePHEN HAWKING WORSHIPS THE “UNKNOWN GOD”

(Please click the above link for the whole article)

...Hawking understands well the ultimate atheist dilemma. It is not whether or not evolution can explain the the genesis of life. It is not whether God shows his face here and there. It is not even whether spiritual bodies can be scientifically proven. It is the problem of existence itself. Where did everything come from? The law of cause and effect says that there must be a sufficient explanation for existence. If there is no God, then there is no answer to the question, Why is there something rather than nothing?

However, Hawking has the answer. In his new book (from what I understand) he argues for the reality of multiple universes. From here he argues that if there are many universes (possibly an infinite number), one will have characteristics in physics that are much different than ours. One of these characteristics may be that it does not have to abide by the law of cause and effect. If so, in this universe, something can come from nothing.

At this point I pause and say to myself, Stephen Hawking believes in a god. You see, this is not so much unlike the tentative belief that aliens created our universe held by Richard Dawkins. In both cases, you have to have something above and beyond us which explains our existence. There must be something/someone which exists outside of our universe to explain the existence of our universe since the laws of our universe militate against self-creation. For Hawking there is a “universe” out there which is responsible for all things. Hawking’s creative universe where something can come from nothing carries the same basic and essential characteristic of the Christian view of God: transcendence. Sure, Christians add attributes to our understanding of God such as intelligence, love, and intervention, but the essential realm of existence is the same. God resides in a realm where the laws of physics do not have the same application. Why? Because he created them. They had their genesis with him through the creation of our time/space universe. God, in his essence, has no relation to time, space, or matter, therefore, he is not “under” the laws we are under. What we call heaven (often as a metonymy for God), Hawking calls “the universe where the same rules do not apply.” What this “universe” is like would most certainly be a great mystery to Hawking, but it exists nonetheless. Why? Because it must exist. There simply must be a sufficient explanation for all things. Therefore, Hawking believes in a mysterious creator of all things. Whether this creator is personal or not is not the issue right now. The point is that Hawking invokes a mysterious creator he calls “Other Universe.” This puts him in the religious camp of either pantheism or deism.

Does he worship this “other universe”? It depends on what you mean by “worship.” He credits it with the creation of all things, believes in its power and transcendence, and, now, is evangelizing on its behalf. But he does not have a relationship with it and does not believe it cares about him. Like Paul walking through Athens and noticing the alter built to the “unknown god” (Acts 17:23), Stephen Hawking has a similar alter with the same kind of generic name: “Another Universe.”

The point is that ultimately you have to avoid the “Where did it all come from?” question if you want to be a consistent atheist. Hawking’s pronouncement that God is not necessary dies the death of his own qualification. His faith step here is in the right direction, but needs to go further. I simply call on him to see that this God has revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ and call us to a life of recognition and service to him.

Having said this, I do say what a brilliant mind Hawkins truly does have. Even though he is an unbeliever, he shows God’s image so brightly in many ways.

Is Atheism Irrational? NY Times

Alvin Plantinga
This is the first in a series of interviews about religion that I will conduct for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is Alvin Plantinga, an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, a former president of both the Society of Christian Philosophers and the American Philosophical Association, and the author, most recently, of “Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism.”

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.

THE STONE

Is Atheism Irrational?

By GARY GUTTING

(Materialism and Evolution can't be both True)

 ...First, if materialism is true, human beings, naturally enough, are material objects. Now what, from this point of view, would a belief be? My belief that Marcel Proust is more subtle that Louis L’Amour, for example? Presumably this belief would have to be a material structure in my brain, say a collection of neurons that sends electrical impulses to other such structures as well as to nerves and muscles, and receives electrical impulses from other structures.

But in addition to such neurophysiological properties, this structure, if it is a belief, would also have to have a content: It would have, say, to be the belief that Proust is more subtle than L’Amour.

...GG: That does seem to be a hard conclusion to accept. But won’t evolution get the materialist out of this difficulty? For our species to have survived, presumably many, if not most, of our beliefs must be true — otherwise, we wouldn’t be functional in a dangerous world.

Materialism can’t be sensibly believed, at least if, like most materialists, you also believe in evolution.

AP: Evolution will have resulted in our having beliefs that are adaptive; that is, beliefs that cause adaptive actions. But as we’ve seen, if materialism is true, the belief does not cause the adaptive action by way of its content: It causes that action by way of its neurophysiological properties. Hence it doesn’t matter what the content of the belief is, and it doesn’t matter whether that content is true or false. All that’s required is that the belief have the right neurophysiologicalproperties. If it’s also true, that’s fine; but if false, that’s equally fine.

Evolution will select for belief-producing processes that produce beliefs with adaptive neurophysiological properties, but not for belief-producing processes that produce true beliefs. Given materialism and evolution, any particular belief is as likely to be false as true.

GG: So your claim is that if materialism is true, evolution doesn’t lead to most of our beliefs being true.

AP: Right. In fact, given materialism and evolution, it follows that our belief-producing faculties are not reliable.

Here’s why. If a belief is as likely to be false as to be true, we’d have to say the probability that any particular belief is true is about 50 percent. Now suppose we had a total of 100 independent beliefs (of course, we have many more). Remember that the probability that all of a group of beliefs are true is the multiplication of all their individual probabilities. Even if we set a fairly low bar for reliability — say, that at least two-thirds (67 percent) of our beliefs are true — our overall reliability, given materialism and evolution, is exceedingly low: something like .0004. So if you accept both materialism and evolution, you have good reason to believe that your belief-producing faculties are not reliable.

But to believe that is to fall into a total skepticism, which leaves you with no reason to accept any of your beliefs (including your beliefs in materialism and evolution!). The only sensible course is to give up the claim leading to this conclusotherion: that both materialism and evolution are true. Maybe you can hold one or the , but not both.

So if you’re an atheist simply because you accept materialism, maintaining your atheism means you have to give up your belief that evolution is true. Another way to put it: The belief that both materialism and evolution are true is self-refuting. It shoots itself in the foot. Therefore it can’t rationally be held.

This interview was conducted by email and edited.

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Gary Gutting is a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and an editor of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. He is the author of, most recently, “Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy Since 1960″ and writes regularly for The Stone.