How can Stephen Hawking say there "IS NO God" (i.e., with certainty)?

[Uriel1]

that’s about it; he was speaking outwith his sphere

 

[niceatheist]

How was he doing that? Quantum mechanics was part of his sphere. Yes, it is, from an empirical point of view, a pretty wild claim (but then again, I’d argue string theory, as it currently sits, suffers the same problem, and I have no problem calling string theorists scientists). We do see pretty strange QM interactions even in the modern universe, and in this case I’m sure he had virtual particles in mind. And certainly, talking about a primordial singularity is well within the domain of physics, since one way or another, at the moment of the Big Bang, QM was the master, as classical physics couldn’t even function at the temperatures and densities of that earliest moment.

 

[Uriel1]

Science cannot prove or disprove God
He might have said he was unsure of God’s existence, but to say there is “no God” is outside his competence

 

[niceatheist]

His competence as a scientist, but not as a person. His statement wasn’t in a published paper, it was more of a final testament. You’re free to agree or disagree.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Based on modern physics, are we really FREE to agree or disagree?

 

[niceatheist]

Because we don’t have a theory that unifies quantum mechanics and classical physics, we have no tools with which to describe those earliest moments. What space time geometry might look like at the temperatures and densities at the moment of the Big Bang is something nobody can really guess. We can reasonably hypothesize that in that earliest epoch the fundamental interactions were unified, and that quantum effects operated on far greater scales than they do now. Notions like causality and entropy might not even work, or even apply, it what might have been an epoch of chaos.

But it’s all just largely supposition until we have a quantum explanation for gravity. The classical version, General Relativity, completely breaks down under conditions of extreme or infinite density. As I said early, classical physics simply does not work at the point of the Big Bang. We can hope a theory of quantum gravity may eventually allow us to probe those first moments, or come up with some sort of explanation, but that’s been the confounding area of physics for over half a century. String theory offers a possible solution, but a lot of physicists find it very complex (which may be an aesthetic objection, but physicists do like parsimony), and find some string theorists tendency to go even beyond the as of yet untestable hypothesis to talk about branes and multiverses ten steps too far.

Where God might fit into this, or not, is not even a question at this point, at least from a cosmological point of view. And even if physicists came up with a quantum theory of gravity and a reasonably rigorous explanation for the cause of the big bang (if such a concept even has any meaning), I doubt it would satisfy many people.

 

[Uriel1]

He was writing the book with his science hat on

 

[niceatheist]

It’s one of his popular science books. If you’re going to criticize his science, then pick out one of his papers that say “there is no god”. Scientists are allowed to have opinions too, even ones you don’t like

 

[Wozza]

Science cannot prove or disprove God
He might have said he was unsure of God’s existence, but to say there is “no God” is outside his competence

Is it within your competence to say there is?

 

[Uriel1]

In a science book? I think not
That’s analogous to the Pope writing a book about popular religion and saying there is no quantum science to support a spontaneous generation of life

 

[niceatheist]

He’s made similar, if somewhat less direct speculations before. Again, if you have a problem with his science, then it’s his published work you should refer to.

 

[Uriel1]

No, his expertise was science, but he wrote a philosophical/theological thesis in a popular science book so needs to be called out. He has no experience in the field and made an unsupported claim

 

[niceatheist]

I think it’s a big stretch to say he has no experience.

 

[Uriel1]

Really? So show me his philosophical/theological qualifications

 

[AlNg]

For an informed philosopher’s discussion of cosmology, see http://www.commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/grunbaum-the-poverty-of-theistic-cosmology.pdf

Thank you for this link. I had some similar concerns about the contingency arguments.

 

[Augustinian]

How can someone say there IS NO God, therefore implying certainty?

Stephen Hawking, when he was alive, was considered to be the Smartest Man in the World.

That kind of image meant that every word he said was considered to be not just as important but more important than the previous. That kind of cachet makes everything he says to be said with certainty.

 

[bradleesargent]

The concept of God bothered Hawking his whole life and he couldn’t ignore the idea of whether or not there was a God:

Stephen Hawking - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hawking did not rule out the existence of a Creator, asking in A Brief History of Time “Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence?”[138] In his early work, Hawking spoke of God in a metaphorical sense. In A Brief History of Time he wrote: “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God.”[139] In the same book he suggested that the existence of God was not necessary to explain the origin of the universe. Later discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the existence of God was also compatible with an open universe.[140]

 

[AlNg]

Stephen Hawking, when he was alive, was considered to be the Smartest Man in the World.

Who ever said that he was the smartest man in the world when he was alive? i don’t see where he had much to say about high temperature superconductivity.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

ProdglArchitect:

The scale of change doesn’t change the fact that it’s still change.

One possible problem with your argument is that holy Scripture reports that God has changed. Perhaps you will argue that these changes were not essential changes, but the same thing can be argued about the universe as a whole. That essentially, on the macro level, there have been no essential changes in the universe, only non essential ones on the micro level.

I would argue that God did not change, but rather that we humans have to categorize behaviors in terms that we understand. All of God’s action / inaction is derived from His unchanging Justice and Mercy. We interpret it as change because the circumstances in our reality change, but that doesn’t mean that God changed.

You’re confusing the two philosophical uses of “necessary”

Necessary can be used to mean either “cannot fail to exist” or “does not depend on anything else for its existence”

Those are strictly separate. For example: If God cannot fail to exist, and God cannot fail to create the universe, then the universe is necessary in the sense that the universe cannot fail to exist , but is not necessary in the sense of not depending on anything else.

No, I’m not. That discussion was focused entirely on the second of your definitions. If something can be some other way, there must be a reason it is the way it is. Hence, there are external reasons for its current state, making it contingent. (hence, per the second definition, non-necessary).

However, both qualities you listed are true of God. He cannot fail to exist, and He is not dependent on anything else for His existence.

 

[Gabika50]

In the same token as he said that “physics was to know the mind of God” Many believe that if God were all kind and good and loving, “he would not do this to me” ie give me this disease.