I watched Discovery Channel’s Curiosity presentation entitled, Did God Create the Universe? With this post I am asking for your comments on this show.
The show was an interview with Dr. Stephen Hawking as a follow-up to his recent book The Grand Design. Personally, I was amazed that the producers and Dr. Stephen Hawking himself could conclude that our universe could very well have come out of nothing and that no cause was really needed to effect creation of all that we see, feel and hear. In other words, our visible and continually expanding universe could be the result of nothing and came from nothing (ex nihilo).
Hawking bases this possibility on the discovery of black holes, which are characterized by gravitational forces so great that not even light can escape their pull. As they implode on themselves there is no light emanating from them and with no light there is no time and theoretically, no beginning. With no beginning, one could postulate that there is no need for a cause, a creator or a God. I would agree with this, but cosmologists have found overwhelming evidence for the beginning of our universe with the sudden explosion of a “Big Bang”.
Stephen Hawking’s suggestion that the universe could have been formed out of the nothingness of a pre-existing black hole confounds me. Did this black hole always exist? Was it eternal? Where did it come from? This is where Dr. Hawking’s philosophy counters his science. While Hawking, the world’s most recognizable scientist, continues to battle ALS, he is intent on answering the question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” I applaud his efforts to address such a deep question and I certainly respect his superior intellect, but I would argue that Stephen Hawking is trying to address a philosophical and spiritual question by applying basic scientific principles.
To me, Hawking is leaving his familiar turf of science and swimming in the deep waters of philosophy where the empirical scientific method does not float.
Think back to the creation of the universe coincident with the creation of time itself. Science can, and does, measure remnants of the big bang and expansion of the universe with the help of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). But the key here is that this is measurable because it is “observable” and observation is the backbone of science. Before the Big Bang, there was nothing to measure or observe and we entered into philosophical “what ifs.” Without light or measureable things like background radiation there is nothing to “see” and this is where science turns itself over to philosophy – and yes, theology.
In other words, there is nothing behind the curtain of creation. Did it therefore all come from nothing? Or did an immeasurable entity operating outside the bounds of our physical constraints CAUSE it to happen?
To me, for every effect there is indeed a cause. To me, it’s all very simple: the very existence of our universe is an effect caused by a Creator.
