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MtnDwellar
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I don’t know if Hawking ever came across it, but to the best of my knowledge, The Big Bang Theory was created by Chuck Lorre. 
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Brucejlb
Guest
As human parents we we would not deliberately subject our children to pain and suffering if we could prevent it. Are we suggesting that we are better parents than God ?
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Brucejlb
Guest
It is a nice thought but what about the children who have been gassed in the ovens during WW2. And what about the ones who died during the many crusades and other conflicts. How were they supposed to light a candle?
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Mboo
Guest
it is when one is inhabited by the wisdom of the world that one sees things thus. These gassed children and the others are probably in Heaven, God himself probably lit a candle for them considering that the children have not yet their own will. And maybe if these children lived to adulthood they would be in Hell … You have to trust God everything he does or allows is good! we must only seek how to collaborate for our own salvationIt is a nice thought but what about the children who have been gassed in the ovens during WW2. And what about the ones who died during the many crusades and other conflicts. How were they supposed to light a candle?
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womanatwell
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There is a spectrum of behavior and “pain and suffering” we can consider.
Would you let your children do anything they wanted without punishment? Even sitting in a corner taking a time-out is pain and suffering to them.
But since you take an extreme example of the gas chambers, I will too take an extreme example and hope you will not be offended. What if your son or daughter gave strong signs of planning to shoot up a school? Would you rather let them do that or report it and live with the fact they would probably be confined for a long time? Though jail may not be cruel and unusual punishment, it could certainly be considered panful for them. You would not subject them to this “IF” you could help it, but what if you knew they were determined to do this unless someone forcibly stopped them? Would you take the chance other lives could be lost?
Our priest said this morning that any sin is offensive to an infinitely perfect God. So even the small sins can’t be ignored. God has made us and knows what is best for teaching us how human nature works. If we never knew pain, we wouldn’t appreciate the lack of pain. If we did not know challenge, we would not know what overcoming challenge feels like. And the most challenging thing on this earth for humans is to believe correctly and help others believe correctly. The most important thing we can do is have the faith that Jesus Christ is part of the Holy Trinity of God and He came to Earth to redeem our sins.
Would you let your children do anything they wanted without punishment? Even sitting in a corner taking a time-out is pain and suffering to them.
But since you take an extreme example of the gas chambers, I will too take an extreme example and hope you will not be offended. What if your son or daughter gave strong signs of planning to shoot up a school? Would you rather let them do that or report it and live with the fact they would probably be confined for a long time? Though jail may not be cruel and unusual punishment, it could certainly be considered panful for them. You would not subject them to this “IF” you could help it, but what if you knew they were determined to do this unless someone forcibly stopped them? Would you take the chance other lives could be lost?
Our priest said this morning that any sin is offensive to an infinitely perfect God. So even the small sins can’t be ignored. God has made us and knows what is best for teaching us how human nature works. If we never knew pain, we wouldn’t appreciate the lack of pain. If we did not know challenge, we would not know what overcoming challenge feels like. And the most challenging thing on this earth for humans is to believe correctly and help others believe correctly. The most important thing we can do is have the faith that Jesus Christ is part of the Holy Trinity of God and He came to Earth to redeem our sins.
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Brucejlb
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Do you really think that God is that heartless that he would let these children be gassed in the ovens?
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Mboo
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Oh, you would not be so cruel to let a doctor give your child a painful injection? it hurts him, he shouts etc.
You look at things with the wisdom of the world …
You look at things with the wisdom of the world …
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IWantGod
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Let me ask you, if you knew that a greater evil would occur if God saved them, would he still be wrong in your eyes?Do you really think that God is that heartless that he would let these children be gassed in the ovens?
We have to be careful to make sure that our criticism is coming a place of knowledge and reason and not from a place of limited knowledge. Because for all you know God has to allow some evil to happen in order to save everyone that can be saved.
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IWantGod
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The Catholic simply has faith that this is true. The basic principle is that God allows evil for the greater good.Let me ask you, if you knew that a greater evil would occur if God saved them, would he still be wrong in your eyes?
We have to be careful to make sure that our criticism is coming a place of knowledge and reason and not from a place of limited knowledge. Because for all you know God has to allow some evil to happen in order to save everyone that can be saved.
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Mboo
Guest
Attention, when God allows evil, is first because it is right. And as a bonus he gets a bigger benefit.
It is not morally lawful to do evil for good, so the evil that God allows is first and foremost just in himself.
It is not morally lawful to do evil for good, so the evil that God allows is first and foremost just in himself.
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IWantGod
Guest
Let me ask you, if you knew that a greater evil would occur if God saved them, would he still be wrong in your eyes?Do you really think that God is that heartless that he would let these children be gassed in the ovens?
We have to be careful to make sure that our criticism is coming from a place of genuine knowledge and reason and not from a place of limited knowledge and limited understanding. Because for all you know God has to allow some evil to happen in order to save everyone that can be saved.
The Catholic simply has faith that this is true. The basic principle is that God allows evil for the greater good.
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afthomercy
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It is but a small stretch to say that just like the laws of science, so also the principles of logic/mathematics/reason break down inside the Singularity/before the BB. If I’m not wrong, Hawkings has ascribed two qualities to the SIngularity, viz. (a) it pre-existed or was self-caused and (b) nothing else existed. As we believe that the Triune God is beyond reason, we can say that He was inside the Singularity, holding it together, or that He and the Singularity were one and the same. At the instant of the BB, the Triune God either (a) created matter instantaneously or (b) He ‘let go’ of the sub-atomic particle he had previously created and let it unravel as per the laws of logic/mathemathics/reason/science that He himself (instantaneously) wrote.
If the above view is kosher, then we can safely say that Hawkings’s Singularity does not contradict Christianity!
If the above view is kosher, then we can safely say that Hawkings’s Singularity does not contradict Christianity!
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MountCarmel
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Stephen Hawking really lost the plot in one of his later statements, that, “Because there is a Law of Gravity, that things can ‘be created’ from nothing”. Dear Mr Hawking, 'Laws do not and cannot exist in isolation to that which they proscribe - just as that which is proscribed, cannot exist in isolation to that Law. They are in effect two sides of the same ‘coin’.
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womanatwell
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I agree that Stephen Hawking said physical laws break down before the Big Bang using General Relativity, but that is why he uses quantum gravity. That in turn is why he says the universe has no boundary. I think reason is a different category than physical laws and I don’t know if he had anything to say about it. What I do know is that the Church believes God made Creation out of nothing. In my opinion, this would exclude a sub-atomic particle that we consider a singularity as any kind of origin of creation, though it may have been used as a tool:
The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate—or is it? .
Man is made in God’s image, including intelligence and reason. There are many benefits to that but there are limits:
Also we believe God has always had reason:God creates freely “out of nothing.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 296).
Though people want to reconcile religion with science, we have to remember that scientific theories can change. Most scientists thought the universe was infinite in time until more modern measurements of electromagnetic waves of stars. Most scientists then thought the universe would eventually collapse until they believed the stars are moving apart at accelerating speeds. And now, there is controversy over that:Because God creates through wisdom, His creation is ordered: “You have arranged all things through measure and number and weight” (CCC 299).
The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate—or is it? .
Man is made in God’s image, including intelligence and reason. There are many benefits to that but there are limits:
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p4.htm#IHuman intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason, even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. This is why faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this truth: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.” (CCC 286).
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IWantGod
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Nothing he has said contradicts Christianity. God is not bound by physical laws so God does not have to be before the universe in-order to be the cause of physical reality because he is not a temporal being… I disagree however with the idea that the principle of non-contradiction breaks down at any point whatsoever. It’s because of that principle that Christianity is alive and kicking and atheism is absurd.
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afthomercy
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In saying that “reason breaks down” inside the Singularity, I meant it in the context of human reasoning. Our God-endowed reasoning power takes us upto the BB, but fails to penetrate it because our ‘mental engines’ aren’t designed for pre-BB travel. Hawking was right in saying that "if we discover a complete theory (the Theory of Everything or TOE as its called), it should in time be understandable by everyone, not just by a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God. Well, good luck to them, but its another ‘Tower of Babel’ project, since its not in God’s plan that we should penetrate that frontier from this side of eternity.
Pope St. John Paul II was right in trying to discourage him and other scientists attending a cosmology conference at the Vatican from trying to figure out how the universe began. Hawking quoted the Pope as telling the scientists, “It’s OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God.” He added that the Pope believed “God chose how the universe began for reasons we could not understand.” Hawking did not say when the Vatican meeting was held. I would like to imagine that If the Holy Father had preferred to use Hawking’s terminology, he would have told him that “Along with the laws of science, human reasoning also breaks down inside the Singularity!”.
Pope St. John Paul II was right in trying to discourage him and other scientists attending a cosmology conference at the Vatican from trying to figure out how the universe began. Hawking quoted the Pope as telling the scientists, “It’s OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God.” He added that the Pope believed “God chose how the universe began for reasons we could not understand.” Hawking did not say when the Vatican meeting was held. I would like to imagine that If the Holy Father had preferred to use Hawking’s terminology, he would have told him that “Along with the laws of science, human reasoning also breaks down inside the Singularity!”.
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AlNg
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This would not make sense to a Jew or a Muslim since they believe that God is one person, not three.At the instant of the BB, the Triune God…
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AlNg
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Where does he use quantum gravity? I thought that there was no coherent theory of quantum gravity at this point in time?I agree that Stephen Hawking said physical laws break down before the Big Bang using General Relativity, but that is why he uses quantum gravity.
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womanatwell
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You are right, quantum gravity is theoretical. Scientists are trying to use it to explain what happens in very small spaces. In Hawking’s lecture, he explains that quantum gravity leads to the theory of imaginary time. This is part of his theory. I didn’t put the link directly to his lecture about it before because they said it can’t be reproduced etc., but I think the link itself to this lecture would be OK to add here:
http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html
See the 16th paragraph, although it would be good to read the whole article if you want to know more about his theory. It is not that long.
http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html
See the 16th paragraph, although it would be good to read the whole article if you want to know more about his theory. It is not that long.
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womanatwell
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I liked your post. I did not know about JPII’s comments and think they are wise. I did read somewhere that Hawking said he meant that “knowing the mind of God” was really an expression to describe the knowledge humans could have when they figured everything out. In other words, the concept of God would be expendable.
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