Some of you may have seen a news article circulating every major news outlet. With provocative titles such as “God did not create the universe, says Hawking,” and “Why God Did Not Create the Universe,” one would expect to find some new scientific discovery/argument proving that the universe is capable of creating itself – no God needed. After reading the articles, however, that expectation will quickly turn into disappointment.
Stephen Hawking is probably the most famous physicist alive. While he is clearly a brilliant man, his case for the sufficiency of natural processes to account for the origin of the universe is truly embarrassing. Consider the following claim: “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.”
Where to begin! First, while Hawking is attempting to explain how something could come from nothing, he only explains how something (the universe) comes from something else (physical laws, namely gravity). True nothingness is the absence of any and all existents, including physical laws. So from whence come the physical laws?
Thinking to Believe 