STEPHEN HAWKING, THE MULTIVERSE, AND GOD

“Before his death at the age of 76, Stephen Hawking was generally considered one of the smartest people on Earth. He was a world famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist.” https://owlcation.com/humanities/Stephen-Hawking-Says-There-Is-No-God-Heres-Why

Despite his intelligence, he credited mindless “spontaneous creation” as the Creator of the universe:

·       “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 Grand Design, 2010)

Is God any less plausible than “spontaneous creation” – everything springing uncaused, out of nothing, into existence with all its elegance, functionality, and the appearances of design? Add to this, the immutable laws of science in all their elegance and universality amidst an expanding universe.

In the El Mundo interview, Hawking said:

·       “When people ask me if a God created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the Big Bang, so there is no time for God to make the universe in. It’s like asking directions to the edge of the earth; The Earth is a sphere; it doesn’t have an edge; so looking for it is a futile exercise.”

Perhaps God created the universe at the same time that He created space and matter? In fact, the laws of science seem to rule in favor of God. For one thing, the law of entropy requires the dissipation of all things and not their development. The First law of thermodynamics argues that matter/energy can neither be created or destroyed. This argues against any gradualistic growth in matter (and perhaps even space and time), as naturalism would require.

Hawking had also argued in favor of the multiverse in order to account for the phenomenal fine-tuning of the universe. Where would the multi-singularities, the seeds for the creation of new universes come from? The contraction and destruction of prior and infinite numbers of universes? And what would produce the needed big-bangs to generate them?

It seems that Hawking’s formulation “makes no sense.” However, when you are committed to finding a God-substitute, things make sense that might ordinarily just produce laughter.