The “enlightened” atheist camp recently made the headlines again with Stephen Hawking’s claim in his latest book, The Grand Design, that the universe was not created by an outside force, but instead created itself (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/02/stephen-hawking-big-bang-creator). This is an interesting hypothesis considering we have yet to find a single material thing which created itself out of nothingness. Instead, every material object ever encountered in known human history has something else as the author of its existence. In fact, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, the changing nature of the created world itself demands an unchanging cause outside of time and the material world for its existence – the “uncaused cause.” However, according to intellectual atheists, such as Hawking, we’re to buy their nonsense based solely on their word as “academics,” since they can offer us not a single shred of evidence as proof of their claims that the universe somehow created itself from nothing.
Hawking claims the laws of gravity are responsible for the creation of the universe. As with most atheist theories which claim “anything but God” for the creation of the universe, he fails to tell us what caused the laws of gravity. We’re to believe they just happened and then poof (or bang), the universe came to be. Stephen, no matter how you slice it, my friend, you eventually reach a point where you are forced to admit, if you’re intellectually honest, that an immaterial cause caused material existence to come into being. Even if we go with Richard Dawkins’ explanation that “intelligent alien design” (i.e. extraterrestrials – little green men) are responsible for creating life on earth, a “theory” which he describes (http://www.theoligarch.com/richard-dawkins-aliens.htm) to Ben Stein in the documentary Expelled, Dawkins must still eventually account for the existence of the space aliens. To do anything other than this leaves us with a “poof, there it is” explanation for the creation of the universe. We’ll come back to this point shortly.
Yet another chink in the armor of the atheist’s “it all just happened by random chance” theory is the fact the universe obeys certain natural laws (including the laws of gravity which Hawking cites). Not only does the universe obey certain natural laws, man is able to use his reason to discover and explain these laws. If it’s all random chance, why is there such natural order? If it’s all random chance, why did man just happen to receive the reasoning ability to discover, understand and explain these natural laws? Are we honestly to believe the universe not only randomly formed, but randomly formed with ordered laws and human beings who just happen to posses the right kind of minds to discover these laws instead of believing a Creator caused the existence of an ordered universe and created man in His image with the capacity to discover these natural laws and thereby come to know something more about his Creator? As we consider these facts, we come to see just who is actually making an incredible leap of faith to hold onto his belief system.
The Catholic Church has never held that Genesis is a factual account of creation. Instead, the Church has always taught that Genesis is an allegorical story and its main point is not to explain the how of creation, but to explain the why of creation: an infinite, all-powerful, all-loving God who created as an act of His own free will; not out of necessity, but because He chose to do so. Belief in the “Big Bang” theory is not at all inconsistent with Catholic theology. It becomes inconsistent though when one claims the Big Bang created itself.
Atheists reject creationism (here meaning a fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis as a “blow-by-blow” account of creation – again, this is not the position on Genesis held by the Catholic Church) as nonsense, but then cling to their own version of creationism. There’s no difference in believing God made everything “magically” appear in the form it’s in now and believing the universe “magically” created itself out of nothing. Both “theories,” for anyone who takes the time to look at the facts, are nonsense. The theist position is the only one which accounts for all the facts of the universe’s existence in a consistent manner.
Seeing that the atheist position is such nonsense, we must ask why so many believe in anything but God. For the vast majority of non-academic, secularized people (including those who nominally claim to be religious, but live their lives as agnostics or practical atheists), I believe they like the idea of there being no God (or at least not one which has any real impact on reality) since it frees them to rationalize every sort of deviant, self-destructive behavior in which they chose to participate. If there’s no God, there’s no ultimate Truth – and certainly no ultimate judgment; everything’s relative, so let’s party!
What about the academic and intellectual atheists? For most of these people, I believe it comes down to simply vanity. They believe they are the most educated, most important people on the face of the planet. They see themselves as gods on earth – the power holders, the deal makers. To admit God exists it to admit the existence of a power higher (and more intelligent) than themselves. Such a notion is anathema to these people. Such a notion would mean they are not the ultimate judges of right and wrong, life and death. I honestly believe most of these people are so full of themselves, they simply cannot fathom such an “outlandish” and “quaint” notion as God.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter since the preponderance of evidence, which can be arrived at by the use of natural reason alone (as so superbly demonstrated by St. Thomas Aquinas), overwhelmingly points to the existence of a Creator who stands outside of time as a non-material being and the uncaused cause. But take heart, atheists, as Antony Flew demonstrated (http://www.theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/21PbAr/Apl/FlewTheist.htm), God continues to offer Himself to you; all you need to do is accept His invitation.
Hawking’s argument is surprisingly weak, given the nature of his intellect.
The minute physicists defined “nothing” as anti-matter and matter, which, by probability theory separate given an infinite amount of time, they have done two things that are “something.”
1)Invoked physical laws that existed before the big bang.
2) Accepted the existence of “matter” as eternal, given that “nothing” consists of said matter and anti-matter.
To invoke Occam’s razor by saying the “God hypothesis is not necessary” is patently absurd, given the assumption of the eternity of matter and anti-matter.
As we are in world and living in this world only for god .but some other people in this world think that they are the superior but that is their wrong idea because all that denends on god ….
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Dear Steven,
This is difficult to follow for those of us whose understanding of physics is very limited. I can follow your post with some effort–Tom’s comment is simply beyond me.
But that limitation may make it easier to understand another point: You can’t answer these people. They can’t answer you. You can’t have a conversation with them. The problem is not their presumed “vanity”, but language.
They understand only the language of the intellect, so that’s the language they speak when they say they don’t believe there is a God. But you can’t argue God in that language.
Everyone–theists and atheists alike–believes in that which they KNOW. The intellectual atheist does not believe in God because he doesn’t know him. It’s really not any more complicated than that. But God is spirit (“spirit and truth”; not intellect and fact.). And their spirit is dormant, undeveloped, perhaps moribund, even dead. Whatever its condition, it never developed a capacity for knowing–perhaps because they learned at some forgotten point to limit their faith (“belief”) to only intellectual matters.
But the bottom line is that you can’t have a conversation with them. Spirit has no (verbal) language. No dialogue is possible with one whose sole means of knowing–therefore whose sole means of communication–is limited to intellectual.
What Anthony Flew perceived was not an intellectual grasp of God, but the pitiful finitude of the intellect. Once one perceives that limitation, they are able to open a door to other kinds of knowing. When they do (it requires their permission), at that very instant, spirit literally blows in, its restraint removed, and all of the hosts of heaven sing. A believer is born. Did you ever notice how he is tongue-tied, almost unable to speak–in any language but joy? Spirit is not pre-verbal, but post-verbal. It’s not just difficult to go back to the limitations of intellectual language; for most of us, it’s impossible. In any case, we know that you can’t find God in that tiny little neighborhood of the intellect; he’s too big for such a little address of fact or theory-based-on-fact. He requires the entire incalculable cosmos of truth, which, while it contains that little neighborhood, is way bigger–beyond any kind of human language.
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Dear Dena,
I must respectfully disagree with you that the issue is language and some sort of “disconnect” between faith and science. While this notion of “we can’t talk to them and they can’t talk to us” is popular today, it is fundamentally and completely wrong.
First, you don’t need to have any sort of in-depth understanding of physics in order to understand every physical object MUST have a cause. When atheist scientists promote their “anything but God” theories, they always, like Hawking, get to a point where, without God, they must claim something happened from nothing — a complete impossibility. Hawking claims the laws of gravity caused the universe to form. That’s fine; I have no problem with that theory. My problem is with his refusal to address what caused the laws of gravity to come into existence. Claiming something happened from nothing is complete and utter nonsense. Even the most basically educated person should be capable of seeing the absurdity of this notion.
Second, the existence of God can be postulated from purely rational argument — without having to resort to religious arguments. I suggest you visit the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and look at his rational proofs for the existence of God. Rational proof exists; atheists simply chose to ignore it. It’s not a matter of language. It is a matter of vanity and a refusal to accept facts. Despite the currently popular myth, if you take time to do your own research, you will rapidly discover belief in God is the rational position, while atheism is quite irrational and requires a much larger “leap of faith” in order to cling to its religious tenants.
It’s not that Atheists can’t understand the language; it’s that they don’t want to. In reality they know their belief system rests on a foundation with as much solidity as a house of cards. They know their position is fundamentally irrational. It’s not so much they don’t believe God exists as much as they don’t want God to exist. Therefore, in order to cling to their religion, they simply ignore the multiple inconsistencies in their belief system.
Finally, while society today often claims that faith and science are somehow mutually exclusive, this is not an assertion shared by the founders of modern science, such as Galileo and Newton, nor is it an assertion claimed by the Catholic Church. In fact, the Church has consistently maintained exactly what the founders of modern science believed — that faith and reason are mutually supportive since both work towards the same goal — discovery of the truth. Since God is the ultimate Truth, both are oriented towards God. The founders of modern science believed their work helped rationally prove the existence of God, thereby complementing our knowledge of God obtained by Divine Revelation.
Protestant Reformation paved the way for the split between science and theology. This division was exacerbated during the Enlightenment, as man turned his back on God. Despite this, most intellectually honest mathematicians and physicists admit the inherent beauty of mathematics provides an extremely strong indicator for existence of a higher intelligence responsible for natural law. As my university mathematics professor once quipped, “For me, God is in a set of partial ordinary differential equations.” Not all scientists are atheists, and those who aren’t, like my old professor, readily admit they see the God at work in their formulas and equations.
Space precludes an extended discussion. However, I strongly recommend you read the article “Fearful Symmetries” by Stephen M. Barr in the October 2010 issue of First Things, as well as Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio (On Faith and Reason) – available online at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html. I also highly recommend you read The Godless Delusion by Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley in order to understand atheism and its inherent irrationality.
The reality is as John Paul II tells us:
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”
Thank you for taking the time to read my post and for your comment. I always welcome honest discussion and dialogue.
– Steve Schultz
Dear Steven,
Thanks for replying to my comment. We don’t disagree, actually. I just didn’t make myself as clear as I intended (again). Certainly, rationality doesn’t exclude the existence of God (though I must say that those who rely solely on their own rationality to “prove” him will eventually run into difficulty–but that’s a different topic). Or this may be an instance of the diffulty of communication to which I made reference.
But no. I didn’t mean that faith and reason are incompatible, and certainly not “mutually exclusive”. I only meant that God transcends the language of rationality, or any other language. One’s faith in (may also be read as “knowledge of”) God is ultimately–“post verbal” is the term I think I used. I’ll refer to St Thomas Aquinas’ remark after producing the beautiful Aristotelian logic of the Summa Theologica: “All my words are straw.”
Reason is a gift from God–it is not itself God.
p.s.
To be specific, the comment was intended to illustrate the difficulty/impossibility in a mutual understanding grounded in semantics that results from epistomological pluralism. The transcendance of God’s reality is, in that context, “post-verbal”.