Response To Stephen Hawking

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Faith1960

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I bought the book Science and Myth: With a Response to Stephen Hawking’s The Grand
Design, by Wolfgang Smith, with hopes of a good refutation of Hawking’s claim that God was not needed to start the Universe.

I am completely lost…this book (the only part I’ve read so far is the section that addresses Hwking) is so over my head I can’t make heads nor tails out of it. The section on Hawking can be found in my link below. Can someone translate this for me in basic everyday language?

perennialphilosophyreadings.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/response-to-stephen-hawkings-physics-as-philosophy-by-wolfgang-smith/
 
Cool. I just bought the book and have a thread open on it.

What do you find confusing about the review? Which parts?

God bless,
Ut
 
Faith1960 said:
I bought the book Science and Myth: With a Response to Stephen Hawking’s The Grand
Design, by Wolfgang Smith, with hopes of a good refutation of Hawking’s claim that God was not needed to start the Universe.

I am completely lost…this book (the only part I’ve read so far is the section that addresses Hwking) is so over my head I can’t make heads nor tails out of it. The section on Hawking can be found in my link below. Can someone translate this for me in basic everyday language?

perennialphilosophyreadings.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/response-to-stephen-hawkings-physics-as-philosophy-by-wolfgang-smith/
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All you need to understand is the second sentence that opens Part II.

*“Philosophy is dead,” Hawking asserts, and it is now science that carries “the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” *

This assertion is so juvenile as to disqualify Hawking from all serious consideration as a man of intellect. You cannot do science without philosophy. The attempt to destroy philosophy and replace it with science was repudiated even by Einstein.

“I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today - and even professional scientists - seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is - in my opinion - the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.” Albert Einstein. letter to Robert A. Thornton, 7 December 1944. EA 61-574.

Hawking is one of those who cannot see the forest because he is too close to the trees.

Nor is he a real “seeker after the truth.”

He has an agenda: it is to get rid of God.
 
utunumsint said:
Cool. I just bought the book and have a thread open on it.

What do you find confusing about the review? Which parts?

God bless,
Ut
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The whole part of section 2. I thought he was going to refute Hawking’s claim that the universe came from nothing, on it’s own, without God but I don’t understand anything he’s written.

Could someone please read section 2 of my link and summarize it in English?
 
Well his first point is simply to delineate philosophy from science. What Hawking is doing in the first three chapters of the book is philosophy. The way I understand what he is saying is that science does not give a total explanation of reality. From the get-go with Galileo and Descates, you had a move to mathematize of all physical reality. This move of Galileo was inspired by the philosopher Pythagoras who believed that mathematics was the underlying reality behind the material universe. Aristotle had the 10 causes to describe every physical thing. These were:
  1. Substance
  2. Quantity
  3. Quality
  4. Relation
  5. Place
  6. Time
  7. Position
  8. State or habitus
  9. Action
  10. Affection
As you can see, when you use the scientific method to make predictions, you primarily do this though measurable observations and focus exclusively on category 2- quantity. This is not a bad thing in itself, but it is a constriction of reality as we humanly know it. If you have read chapter 3 of Hawking’s book, you will notice that he tried to reduce all the hard and soft sciences to physics, going from physics to chemistry, to biology, and finally to psychology, but the higher up the chain of sciences you get, the less quantitative methods are effective, the more you have to take into account other categories of reality. In short, there is a whole slew of things being discussed in Hawking’s book that are simply outside of the scope of physics.

I think this is a valid point to make before looking at what Hawking is doing to try to prove that the universe does not need God to create it. Most of the (good) proofs for the existence of God are not scientific. They are philosophical. They rest on intellectual reasoning that look at reality as a whole, not just the limited focus of physics (math).

So that is a commentary on his first point. I’ll check out his next point later. Let me know if this is helpful.

(If you are looking for a discussion based on physics alone about the existence of God, then you have to understand that all such attempts fundamentally point to probabilities. Given X, Y, or Z, it is fundamentally unlikely that the universe began by chance. If that is what you are looking for, then this book by Father Robert Spitzer may be pretty good. amazon.com/New-Proofs-Existence-God-Contributions/dp/0802863833/ref=la_B001K7TYHC_1_1/177-5597049-2118763?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402172044&sr=1-1 He also has some clips on his web site that describes some of the theories in his book magisreasonfaith.org/science_creation.html ).

God bless,
Ut
 
Reading and praying for folks like SH who are trying to deny God his universe…

:gopray2:
 
Here are some possibly helpful links.
The way I look at it is this:
Hawking claims he can explain how the universe “came from nothing.” The problem is his explanation involves appealing to the laws of physics themselves, which certainly aren’t “nothing.” Hence he contradicts himself. I think one place he goes wrong is in assuming that if we understand the mechanisms by which the universe began in a natural way, then we can forget God as an explanation. This is wrong however because the theist argues God exists regardless of the specifics on how the universe began…

firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2010/09/much-ado-about-ldquonothingrdquo-stephen-hawking-and-the-self-creating-universe

firstthings.com/article/2011/01/philosophy-lives

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-are-some-physicists-so-bad-at.html

catholicxray.com/evolution-and-christianity-does-science-show-we-dont-need-god/
 
TomD123 said:
Here are some possibly helpful links.
The way I look at it is this:
Hawking claims he can explain how the universe “came from nothing.” The problem is his explanation involves appealing to the laws of physics themselves, which certainly aren’t “nothing.” Hence he contradicts himself. I think one place he goes wrong is in assuming that if we understand the mechanisms by which the universe began in a natural way, then we can forget God as an explanation. This is wrong however because the theist argues God exists regardless of the specifics on how the universe began…

firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2010/09/much-ado-about-ldquonothingrdquo-stephen-hawking-and-the-self-creating-universe

firstthings.com/article/2011/01/philosophy-lives

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-are-some-physicists-so-bad-at.html

catholicxray.com/evolution-and-christianity-does-science-show-we-dont-need-god/
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Thanks. Do you have a translation for part 2 of Smith’s essay?
 
Faith1960 said:
Thanks. Do you have a translation for part 2 of Smith’s essay?
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Now don’t you think that would be just about impossible? Not only is Smith very obtuse. but Part 2 is very long. Basically, what he is saying is the Hawkings if full of hot air, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. You can take Part 2 and diagram in on paper and answer your own question. If you can’t do that then just go with one of the other links others have provided, they are quite successful after all. I like Haldane’s critique. It is much the same as Smith’s but easier to comprehend.

Linusnd
 
Linusthe2nd said:
Now don’t you think that would be just about impossible? Not only is Smith very obtuse. but Part 2 is very long. Basically, what he is saying is the Hawkings if full of hot air, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. You can take Part 2 and diagram in on paper and answer your own question. If you can’t do that then just go with one of the other links others have provided, they are quite successful after all. I like Haldane’s critique. It is much the same as Smith’s but easier to comprehend.

Linusnd
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I prefer answers from scientists intellectually on par with Hawking.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
*“Philosophy is dead,” Hawking asserts, and it is now science that carries “the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” *.
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He is no philosopher, just another technocrat who thought he knew about philosophy when actually he knows pretty little about it. And you call him intelligent for someone who knows that he doesn’t know and making a pronouncement as if he knows? That’s the problem with specialists, just because they have a PHD after their names, does not make them an expert in everything else. But the PHD title does make them arrogant. We used to call it Permanent Head Damage jokingly.
 
Faith1960 said:
I prefer answers from scientists intellectually on par with Hawking.
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The men in the other links are certainly qualified to answer your question. Well, I’ve tried to help you a number of times, guess I should know better.

Linus2nd.
 
Faith1960 said:
I mean on par with Hawking from a science/physics/mathematics standpoint, not philosophy.
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Anyone else care to jump in here?

I did buy a book by John Lennox and while he sounds informed, he himself, said he’s not in the same league as Hawking, during a video I saw online.
 
ANthony Rizzi comes to mind. He has a nobel prize in physics.

He has some things to say against Hawking. iapweb.org/newsletter_fa11.pdf So here you have an instance of a physicist with a Nobel prize that disagrees with Hawking’s conclusions.

God bless,
Ut
 
Hawking’s arguments are pure inductive reasoning.

He reasons that there are multi-universes each with their own physical laws and therefore while ours appears to be designed perfectly for us, we are just lucky to live in this one. No designer is needed - hence no God.

His own logic says that our universe appears to be perfectly suited for life to evolve. Change it a little bit and it collapses into lifelessness. That in itself is an answer since it says that if the multi-universe hypothesis is wrong, then his inductive logic has essentially proved the existence of a creator, or at least made it plausible (which is all that inductive reasoning can do).

It is convenient that at the moment when the cosmology theories point to a designed universe, they drop the bomb that a new, unprovable theory points to a multi-verse. By definition these theories of multi-universes are unprovable.

For example, one multi-verse concept is that parts of the universe that are so far away, light can never get here. So those universes live completely independent from ours. We are free to theorize that they have different laws making them lifeless. And since there could be infinitely many of the them, then we just happen to live in a good one.

James Clerk Maxwell (Father of electromagnetic theory) argues that since the universe appears to have universal laws that apply everywhere, that this implies a common creator. The multi-verse theory says that physical laws are just random local phenomenon.

Inductive reasoning is not the only form of reasoning. Deductive reasoning starts with a simple observation and if taken to be true, higher ideas can be known with certainty. But for a person who has never encountered God, inductive reasoning in search of him is all there is.

For those who have encountered him, higher things can be deduced from knowledge of him.

These two forms of reasoning (inductive and deductive) are both valid and where truth exists, it agrees with both types of reasoning.

I find Hawking’s cosmology to be comforting in that it exists comfortably with the knowledge I have of God. I can take my knowledge of God and deduce the same things that his inductive reasoning arrives at - that the universe is designed.

The only difference comes in when he says that his theory of multi-verses explains away God. Show me a universe where the physical laws are different? It doesn’t exist. It is just a theory. And by its own definition it can’t be proved right or wrong since it is unobservable to us by definition.

I claim they are at the end of where inductive reasoning can lead. They have taken it as far as possible.

Now go back to deductive reasoning. Search first for God in the human heart, in Christ, and when you find him, you can start to deduce from there. There is no limit to what we can deduce. Hawking has shown us the limit of inductive reasoning.

The problem with Hawking is he assumes that one can use inductive reasoning alone from a chair, and just your mind and induce if God is out there or not. I note that other thinkers throughout history who have approached the question that way (purely inductively) arrive at similar nihilistic conclusions.

I am reminded that St. Paul did not induce God. He encountered him. We can encounter him too. But that requires first to seek him.

I pray for Hawking. It may be that with his physical condition he is unable to escape the limits of his own inductive reasoning. Perhaps he cannot experience things from which to begin deductive reasoning from.

Hawking is a pure inducting reasoner, and has shown us the limits of that approach.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
This assertion is so juvenile as to disqualify Hawking from all serious consideration as a man of intellect. You cannot do science without philosophy. The attempt to destroy philosophy and replace it with science was repudiated even by Einstein.
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This is correct since science is a method which acquire knowledge of what is composed from what is simple contrary to philosophy which acquires knowledge of what is simple from what is composed.
 
For Catholics who really are Catholic the universe did not create itself. That is Catholic Dogma. A Catholic may not intentionally doubt this truth. It is a Revealed truth and God does not lie. And if other universes exist, God created them as well.

Hawkings is not God, no matter how much some Catholics seem to wish him to be one.

Nor does one need to be a Hawkings doppelganger to find the holes in his reasoning, one does not even to be a scientist. All one needs is common sense, the ability to understand what one is hearing or reading and to apply logic to that. And to suggest that Philosophers cannot answer Hawkings because they are not scientists is pure rubbish, a sign of a prejudiced mind, an immature mind, perhaps a groupee mentality.

Linus2nd
 
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