Recently, The Guardian published an interview with Stephen Hawking (
Here ) where he expounds on life, death, and the beginning of the universe, among other things.
In response to Mr Hawking's views , The Washington Post published this from Nicholas Wright:
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It’s depressing to see Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant minds in his field, trying to speak as an expert on things he sadly seems to know rather less about than many averagely intelligent Christians. Of course there are people who think of ‘heaven’ as a kind of pie-in-the-sky dream of an afterlife to make the thought of dying less awful. No doubt that’s a problem as old as the human race. But in the Bible ‘heaven’ isn’t ‘the place where people go when they die.’ In the Bible heaven is God’s space while earth (or, if you like, ‘the cosmos’ or ‘creation’) is our space. And the Bible makes it clear that the two overlap and interlock. For the ancient Jews, the place where this happened was the temple; for the Christians, the place where this happened was Jesus himself, and then, astonishingly, the persons of Christians because they, too, were ‘temples’ of God’s own spirit.
Hawking is working with a very low-grade and sub-biblical view of ‘going to heaven.’ Of course, if faced with the fully Christian two-stage view of what happens after death -- first, a time ‘with Christ’ in ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise,’and then, when God renews the whole creation, bodily resurrection -- he would no doubt dismiss that as incredible. But I wonder if he has ever even stopped to look properly, with his high-octane intellect, at the evidence for Jesus and the resurrection? I doubt it -- most people in England haven’t. Until he has, his opinion about all this is worth about the same as mine on nuclear physics, i.e. not much.
As for the creation being self-caused: I wonder if he realises that he is simply repeating a version of ancient Epicureanism? i.e. the gods are out of the picture, a long way away, so the world/human life/etc has to get on under its own steam. This is hardly a ‘conclusion’ from his study of the evidence; it’s simply a well known worldview shared by most post-Enlightenment westerners. It is the worldview which enables secular democracy to consider itself an absolute, despite its numerous and rather obvious failings right now. The depressing thing is that Hawking doesn’t seem to realize this and so hasn’t even stopped to think that there might be quite sophisticated critiques of Epicureanism, ancient and modern, which he should work through. Not least the Christian one, which again focusses on Jesus.
Of course, the old set-up of the ‘science and religion’ debate was itself deeply influenced by this same worldview, and needs realigning. In fact, the ancient Christians would have been shocked to see their worldview labelled as a ‘religion.’ It was a philosophy, a politics, a culture, a vocation... the category of ‘religion’ is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
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Excuse me Rev Wright, I think Mr Hawking is emminently qualified to speak on the origins of the Universe. Perhaps he can't speak to your religion. But, he cancertainly use reason and science to show it's implausable. Just because his findings don't point your way, does not mean he can't speak expertly on a subject.
Evidence for the resurrection? Are you kidding? What evidence have we? Ancient writings done a generation (or more) removed can scarcely be counted as evidence. Or am I wrong? I wonder if Rev Wright has examined this evidence objectively as well.
As to Wrights claims of Hawking's "Epicurean" stance (ie. God is not really in the picture anyway): I can't argue that. Can anyone show me how God is in the modern picture? We haven't heard much from him since he knocked up that virgin. What has he done these last 2,000 years?
Then, Rev Wright closes with the old "Christianity isn't a religion and Jesus didn't establish it as such" argument.
I'm sorry, Rev Wright. But in John 16:6 when Jesus says, " “
I am the way and
the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.", he is doing just that. He is establishing a religion, not a philosophy, not a really cool way to behave, but a religion !
But, I understand. That eletronic voice thingie kinda creeps me out too ;-)
