In the beginning God…

Well, actually, when it came to the creation of the Universe, God just wasn’t necessary.  So says Stephen Hawking, famed theoretical physicist, in his new book, Grand Design.

“There is no heaven or afterlife…; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,” he writes. “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 Big Bang was a natural event which would have happened without the help or involvement of God, he argues.  “That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions–the single sun, the lucky combination of Earth-sun distance and solar mass–far less remarkable and far less compelling as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed…” he writes.

Thankfully, Hawking has been everywhere and seen everything in the entire universe, and he was there when the Big Bang happened.  So it is fitting that he should speak decisively and authoritatively on these matters.  Heaven knows we need…  (Oops!)  Everyone knows we need a clear word on why we’re all here and how it all began.

Hawking’s book is being hailed as ground-breaking.  Truth be told, though, his argument is not original.  His approach is used by many and it’s really quite simple:  eliminate God from the equation, and you have no responsibility to Him. In a nutshell, if there is no Creator God, you owe Him no allegiance.  So if you don’t want to answer to God, all you have to do is make sure He doesn’t exist, and… POOF!  just like that He disappears!  Now you’re free to do as you please.

The Bible talks about Hawking and others like him: “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Professing to be wise, they became fools…” (Romans 1:20-22)

I think I’ll stick with “In the beginning God…”