Stephen Hawking's new book "The Grand Design"

[jeffreyclong]

I'm surprised no one has weighed in on this yet. Also, I didn't find a topic category for apologetics which I was also surprised by.

Finding decent, unbiased reporting on the science behind the book is nearly impossible. Reviewers focus on his comments on God. The New York Times even critiqued the writing style as a snarky.

I've been of the opinion that traditional apologetics has been coming under increasingly legitimate fire. The old defenses of God's existence are deteriorating under new understandings of the universe and textual study of the Bible. If I understand correctly, Immanuel Kant wrote one of his books for the explicit tearing down of St. Thomas Aquinas' proofs for the existence of God.

This does not lead me to the conclusion though that God doesn't exist. I believe that the evidence for God are found in the person of Jesus who transcends apologetics.

My Sunday School group is going to be discussing the news surrounding the book. Unfortunately, I don't have the time, money and intelligence to read it prior to the class. Does anyone have any experience with the book itself, or interviews with Hawking on the book? I'd appreciate any insight.

Jeff

[steve]

Haven't had the time to read it, unfortunately. However, when I read "A Brief History of Time" (by the same author), when it was first published, I found it over my head (like almost everyone else who read it). I don't know if this one will be less inscrutable.

[darinhouston]

I haven't listened to this yet, but you might get something from this 15 minute podcast from Hugh Ross' group.

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3 ... 3-HRJZ.mp3

[mattrose]

I don't think the initial summaries of the book sound very impressive at all. Ancient atheists suggested that matter was eternal (and therefore, there was no need for God). Science later revealed that matter did have a beginning (the big bang, so to speak) and so atheists have been waiting around for a new theory on what's on the other side of the big bang other than God. As far as I can tell, Hawking is simply theorizing that natural laws, rather than nature itself, are the eternal thing. Gravity, for instance, is eternal. He believes that eternal gravity can explain the emergence of matter. He has no answer for why the law of gravity exists and is only speculating about how gravity could 'act' on nothing and suddently produce something that turned into everything. Perhaps it sounds 'over our heads' b/c he's full of hot air. More likely, Hawking is simply another scientist with a prior commitment to naturalism allowing that commitment to force his hand into some, if we took a step back and put his thoughts into common english, fairly boring suggestions.

I'm interested in why you are feeling that the arguments for God's existence are being overwhelmed. I sense great momentum being made in some of the stronger arguments. Of course there are weaker one's that have been used, but, for my own part, the philosophical evidence for God is stronger than ever before.

[steve7150]

I'm interested in why you are feeling that the arguments for God's existence are being overwhelmed. I sense great momentum being made in some of the stronger arguments. Of course there are weaker one's that have been used, but, for my own part, the philosophical evidence for God is stronger than ever before.http://www.matthew94.blogspot.com







The one consistent theme we learn from the advance of science is that life and existence is being revealed as more and more complex and it becomes clearer and clearer that the more we know, the more we realize we don't know. This does'nt prove God but it does suggest an intelligence much bigger then the material universe can reveal.

[darinhouston]

It sounds like the press gets him wrong again. Everyone's all abuzz that Hawking's theology has changed and that he has now proclaimed that God isn't necessary to sustain creation. But, it seems he's still a Deist and still depends upon (and admits the need for) the existence of a transcendant (if impersonal) god and that the laws of physics still depend mathematically on their being a God to have created them but only that once those laws are created, they are sufficient to bring the universe into being without an overt act on behalf of God. I'm afraid I fail to see a theological difference.

[darinhouston]

As coincidence, I haven't heard it yet but UK radio's excellent Unbelievable? radio program today is on the subject (with guest Allister McGrath)

http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable

Featured Programme:

This week on Unbelievable : Hawking, God & the Universe

Stephen Hawking made headlines around the world when he announced that his M-Theory of cosmology has led him to conclude God did not create the universe and its "fine tuning" is the result of a multiverse. Oxford mathematician and physicist Sir Roger Penrose worked alongside Hawking in development gravitational singularity theorems. Roger is not himself a religious believer and is a member of the British Humanist Association. But he believes Hawking is wrong about M-theory, and that God's existence doesn't need to be dragged into things. Alister McGrath is professor of Theology at Kings College London. His 2008 book "A Fine Tuned Universe" claims that there is fruitful discourse between Christian faith in God and the evidence of the Universe's "fine tuning" for life we see from science. They discuss where they disagree with Hawking's book "The Grand Design", whether God can be an explanation for our fine tuned universe and Roger's own CCC theory of the Universe published as "Cycles of Time: an Extraordinary new view of the Universe"

[jeffreyclong]

[quote="steve7150"]I'm interested in why you are feeling that the arguments for God's existence are being overwhelmed. I sense great momentum being made in some of the stronger arguments. Of course there are weaker one's that have been used, but, for my own part, the philosophical evidence for God is stronger than ever before.http://www.matthew94.blogspot.com

If God is God, we don't need to argue for him? He's God. If we have to argue for him, then he isn't revealing his God-ness, which makes defending his existence moot.

Romans 10:17 says "faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ."

...not stronger arguments.

Jesus has decided to be unseen and bless those who believe nonetheless (John 20:29)

[darinhouston]

If God is God, we don't need to argue for him? He's God. If we have to argue for him, then he isn't revealing his God-ness, which makes defending his existence moot.

Romans 10:17 says "faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ."

...not stronger arguments.

Jesus has decided to be unseen and bless those who believe nonetheless (John 20:29)

Of course, Rom 1:19-25 also says "what can be known about God is plain ... because God has made it plain.... For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made."

[mattrose]

If God is God, we don't need to argue for him? He's God. If we have to argue for him, then he isn't revealing his God-ness, which makes defending his existence moot.

Romans 10:17 says "faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ."

...not stronger arguments.

Jesus has decided to be unseen and bless those who believe nonetheless (John 20:29)

I think you misunderstand the nature and purpose of apologetics. We don't do apologetics as evangelism, but as pre-evangelism. Conversion comes by faith, but many people have walls built up against the Gospel that prevent them from even considering faith. Apologetics exists to show that believing in God does not go against reason (negative apologetics) and may even be quite reasonable (positive apologetics). The disciples didn't simply insist that people believed, they explained what they had witnessed and THEN called for repentance and faith.

If God is truly the creator, evidence for him is literally everywhere