Ideas Have Consequences

“Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something.” These are the latest “profound” words from British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. It is in Hawking’s latest work that Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion”, claims, “it finishes off God. Darwin kicked him out of biology, but physics remained more uncertain. Hawking is now administering the coup de grace” But what does this physicist and atheist mean by his theory of “spontaneous creation”?

I will allow the brilliant man speak for himself in these recent words from a British publication. “The universe created itself out of 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”-Stephen Hawking, The Times. There it is brilliance at the height of Godless science or maybe we should call it foolishness. Richard Dawkins speaks foolishly about it when he says, “I know nothing of the details of physics, but I had always assumed the same thing”. Since Mr. Dawkins is ignorant on the subject of physics he is glad that Mr. Hawking agrees with him. Be careful that you do not question their brilliance and be found among the backward of the world believing God created everything from nothing. Mr. Dawkins is looking for a theory from the school which David Robertson calls ABGism – Anything But Godism, and he has found it in biological theories and now in Mr. Hawking’s physics. Mr. Dawkins chooses aliens as the depositors of matter that evolved into the earth we now inhabit and Mr. Hawking chooses nothing to create the something of the universe.

But how does Mr. Hawking get something from nothing without an agent acting? He explains, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing”. Laws such as gravity or motion are descriptions of the created order being acted upon under certain conditions. The law does not do anything. Sir Isaac Newton can sit under an apple tree all day and wait for the law of gravity to do something but it will do nothing all day because the law is not the agency. The law of gravity is observed under the condition that an apple is acted upon by a force called gravity and it falls from the tree. We can take a baseball and a bat place them on the ground and wait for the law of motion to do something, but we will be waiting all day until a person lifts the bat and ball tosses the ball into the air and swings the bat striking the ball and sending it through the air. The law of motion is observable when there is agency. It is this kind of logic with this kind of science which caused Isaac Newton to believe that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have sprung out of chaos. But Mr. Hawking prefers chaos and foolishness to God and wisdom. Does all this really matter?

Yes it matters! Scientists like Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins and writers like Phillip Pullman and Christopher Hitchens are motivated by a common radical atheism that is bent on an anti-theistic revolution through science and free thought. Hawking says, “Just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the apparently miraculous design of living forms could appear without intervention by a supreme being, the multiverse concept can explain the fine-tuning of physical law without the need for a benevolent creator who made the Universe for our benefit…this makes us in a sense the lords of creation.” In these theories that Mr. Hawking puts forward the “science” is undergirded by thought that is free from any logic and sound reasoning. But as long as it accomplishes his purpose that does not matter. It matters because ideas have consequences.

The apostle Paul in Romans 1:21-22 says, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,” Foolish free thinking scientist ignore the invisible attributes of God in his divine nature and eternal power from what they clearly perceive in all of creation and suffer the wrath of God as they suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom.1:18-20). Ideas have consequences. Adam and Eve believed the lie in the garden and fell into sin, misery and death bringing all creation into that same futility. Ideas have consequences. However, the same God that created all things from nothing and let light shine out of darkness has sent his Son into the world to redeem the world from the futility of sin, misery and death. And it is through faith in the Son that redemption and restoration is secured. Ideas have consequences. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1Jn.5:12). Believing and acting on those ideas have life and death consequences.