This was actually well appreciated long ago, indeed at the time of the writing of the New Testament documents. Interestingly, the historian Luke, who was a doctor trained in the medical science of his day, raises this very matter. In his account of the rise of Christianity, Luke informs us that the first opposition to the Christian message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ came not from atheists, but from the high priests of Judaism. They were highly religious men of the party of the Sadducees. They believed in God. They said their prayers and conducted the services in the Temple. But that did not mean that the first time they heard the claim that Jesus had risen from the dead they believed it. They did not believe it, for they had embraced a world-view which denied the possibility of bodily resurrection of anyone at all, let alone that of Jesus Christ.
Indeed, they shared a widespread conviction. Historian Tom Wright says:
Ancient paganism contains all kinds of theories, but whenever resurrection is mentioned, the answer is a firm negative: we know that doesn’t happen. (This is worth stressing in today’s context. One sometimes hears it said or implied that prior to the rise of modern science people believed in all kinds of odd things like resurrection but that now, with two hundred years of scientific research on our side, we know that dead people stay dead. This is ridiculous. The evidence, and the conclusion, was massive and massively drawn in the ancient world as it is today.)90
To suppose, then, that Christianity was born in a pre-scientific, credulous, and ignorant world is simply false to the facts. The ancient world knew the law of nature as well as we do, that dead bodies do not get up out of graves. Christianity won its way by dint of the sheer weight of evidence that one man had actually risen from the dead.
The second objection to miracles is that now we know the laws of nature, miracles are impossible. This is Hawking’s position. However, it involves a further fallacy that C. S. Lewis illustrated with the following analogy:
If this week I put a thousand pounds in the drawer of my desk, add two thousand next week and another thousand the week thereafter, the laws of arithmetic allow me to predict that the next time I come to my drawer, I shall find four thousand pounds. But suppose when I next open the drawer, I find only one thousand pounds, what shall I conclude? That the laws of arithmetic have been broken? Certainly not! I might more reasonably conclude that some thief has broken the laws of the State and stolen three thousand pounds out of my drawer. One thing it would be ludicrous to claim is that the laws of arithmetic make it impossible to believe in the existence of such a thief or the possibility of his intervention. On the contrary, it is the normal workings of those laws that have exposed the existence and activity of the thief.91
The analogy also reminds us that the scientific use of the word “law” is not the same as the legal use, where we often think of a law as constraining someone’s actions. There is no sense in which the laws of arithmetic constrain or pressurize the thief in our story. Newton’s law of gravitation tells me that if I drop an apple it will fall towards the centre of the earth. But that law does not prevent someone intervening, and catching the apple as it descends. In other words, the law predicts what will happen, provided there is no change in the conditions under which the experiment is conducted.
Thus, from the theistic perspective, the laws of nature predict what is bound to happen if God does not intervene. It is no act of theft, of course, if the Creator intervenes in his own creation. To argue that the laws of nature make it impossible for us to believe in the existence of God and the likelihood of his intervention in the universe is plainly false. It would be like claiming that an understanding of the laws of the jet engine would make it impossible to believe that the designer of such an engine could, or would, intervene and remove the fan. Of course he could intervene. Moreover, his intervention would not destroy those laws. The very same laws that explained why the engine worked with the fan in place would now explain why it does not work with the fan removed.
It is, therefore, inaccurate and misleading to say with David Hume that miracles “violate” the laws of nature. Once more C. S. Lewis is helpful:
If God annihilates or creates or deflects a unit of matter, He has created a new situation at that point. Immediately all nature domiciles this new situation, makes it at home in her realm, adapts all other events to it. It finds itself conforming to all the laws. If God creates a miraculous spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. The laws at once take over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy follows, according to all the normal laws, and nine months later a child is born.92
In this vein we could say that it is a law of nature that human beings do not rise again from the dead by some natural mechanism. But Christians do not claim that Christ rose from the dead by such a mechanism. This point is of vital importance for the whole discussion: they claim that he rose from the dead by supernatural power. By themselves, the laws of nature cannot rule out that possibility. When a miracle takes place, it is the laws of nature that alert us to the fact that it is a miracle. It is important to grasp that Christians do not deny the laws of nature. It is an essential part of the Christian position to believe in the laws of nature as descriptions of those regularities and cause-effect relationships which have been built into the universe by its Creator, and according to which it normally operates. If we did not know them, we should never recognize a miracle if we saw one. The crucial difference between the Christian view and Hawking’s view is that Christians do not believe that this universe is a closed system of cause and effect. They believe that it is open to the causal activity of its Creator God.
In anybody’s book then, miracles, by definition, are exceptions to what normally happens. They are singularities. However, it is one thing to say: “Experience shows that such and such normally happens, but there may be exceptions, although none has been observed; that is, the experience we have had up to this point has been uniform.” It is an entirely different thing to say: “This is what we normally experience, and we must always experience it, for there can be and are no exceptions.”
However, Hawking appears committed to the view that nature is absolutely uniform: the laws of nature know no exceptions. We have seen that the laws of nature cannot forbid miracles. So how does Hawking know that they cannot happen? In order to know that experience against miracles is absolutely uniform, he would need to have total access to every event in the universe at all times and places, which is self-evidently impossible. Humans have only ever observed a tiny fraction of the sum total of events that have occurred in the universe; and very few of the total of all human observations have been written down. Therefore, Hawking cannot know that miracles have never occurred in the past, or that they might occur in the future. He is simply assuming what he wants to prove. He is expressing a belief based on his atheistic world-view, not on his science.
The problem here is that the uniformity of nature, sometimes called the inductive principle, on which much scientific argument is based, cannot be proved. We noted earlier that David Hume had pointed this out. Alister McGrath argues that “it is an unjustified (indeed, circular) assumption within any non-theistic world-view”.93 McGrath cites no less an authority than the famous atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell:
Experience might conceivably confirm the inductive principle as regards the cases that have been already examined; but as regards unexamined cases, it is the inductive principle alone that can justify an inference from what has been examined to what has not been examined. All arguments, which, on the basis of experience, argue as to the future or the unexperienced parts of the past or present, assume the inductive principle; hence we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question. Then we must either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic evidence, or forgo all justification of our expectation about the future.94
The only rational alternative to such a circular argument, of course, is to be open to the possibility that miracles h
ave occurred. That is a historical question, and not a philosophical one, and depends on witness and evidence. But there is nothing in Hawking’s book that suggests that he is willing to consider the question of whether there is any valid historical evidence that a miracle like the resurrection has taken place. Perhaps history, like philosophy, is also dead?
I agree, of course, that miracles are inherently improbable – although one cannot help wondering if they are as improbable as universes popping into existence from nothing. We should certainly demand strong evidence for the occurrence of any particular miracle. But this is not the real problem with miracles of the sort found in the New Testament. The real problem is that they threaten the foundations of the world-view of naturalism, which holds as an axiom that nature is all that there is, and that there is nothing and no one outside nature that could from time to time intervene in nature. That axiom is not a consequence of scientific investigation. It might just be a consequence of fear that God might somehow penetrate the atheists’ inadequate radar.
Ironically enough, Christians will argue that it is only belief in a Creator that gives us a satisfactory ground for believing in the uniformity of nature (the inductive principle) in the first place. In denying that there is a Creator, the atheists are kicking away the basis of their own argument! As C. S. Lewis puts it:
If all that exists is Nature, the great mindless interlocking event, if our own deepest convictions are merely the by-products of an irrational process, then clearly there is not the slightest ground for supposing that our sense of fitness and our consequent faith in uniformity tell us anything about a reality external to ourselves. Our convictions are simply a fact about us – like the colour of our hair. If Naturalism is true we have no reason to trust our conviction that Nature is uniform. It can be trusted only if quite a different metaphysic is true. If the deepest thing in reality, the Fact which is the source of all other facthood, is a thing in some degree like ourselves – if it is a Rational Spirit and we derive our rational spirituality from It – then indeed our conviction can be trusted. Our repugnance to disorder is derived from Nature’s Creator and ours.95
Thus, excluding the possibility of miracle, and making Nature and its processes an absolute in the name of science, ends up by removing all grounds for trusting in the rationality of science, let alone the uniformity of nature, in the first place. On the other hand, regarding nature as only part of a greater reality, which includes nature’s intelligent Creator God, gives a rational justification for belief in the orderliness of nature. It was this conviction that led to the rise of modern science. McGrath once more: “The idea that nature is governed by ‘laws’ does not appear to be a significant feature of Greek, Roman or Asian conceptions of science; it is firmly entrenched within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, reflecting the specifics of a Christian doctrine of creation.”96
However, in order to account for the uniformity of nature, if one admits the existence of a Creator, the door is inevitably open for that same Creator to intervene in the course of nature. There is no such thing as a tame Creator who cannot, or must not, or dare not actively get involved in the universe he has created. Miracles may occur.
Incidentally, is it not rather odd that Hawking believes in the multiverse and rejects miracles? Isn’t the whole point about multiverses to have enough universes around to ensure that anything can happen? Physicist Paul Davies explains:
Consider the most general multiverse theories…where even laws are abandoned and anything at all can happen. At least some of these universes will feature miraculous events – water turning into wine, etc. They will also contain thoroughly convincing religious experiences, such as direct revelation of a transcendent God. It follows that a general multiverse set must contain a subset that conforms to traditional religious notions of God and design.97
Similarly, according to philosopher Alvin Plantinga of Notre Dame University, if every possible universe exists, then there must be a universe in which God exists, since his existence is logically possible. It then follows that since God is omnipotent and omnipresent he must exist in every universe; hence there is only one universe, this universe, of which he is the Creator and upholder!
If Stephen Hawking is going to avoid God, perhaps the multiverse is not the wisest hiding place after all.
The upshot of all this is that science does not, indeed, cannot rule out miracle. Surely, then, the open-minded attitude demanded by reason is to proceed now to investigate the evidence, to establish the facts, and be prepared to follow where that process leads; even if it entails alterations to our preconceived ideas. We shall never know whether or not there is a mouse in the attic unless we actually go and look! The problem is, some people are more afraid of finding God than they are of finding mice.
Just one more word about Hume. It is worth remembering that, in spite of his objections to miracles, he wrote: “The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion.”98
A final comment
Science and history are not the only sources of evidence for the existence of God. Since God is a Person and not a theory, it is to be expected that one of the prime evidences for his existence is personal experience. To develop this important matter, it would take us far beyond the intended scope of this little book. Nevertheless I wish to add my voice to the many millions who can and would testify to the profound and central role that faith in Christ as Lord has on our lives, bringing assurance of peace with God, a new power for living, and a certain hope based on the resurrection of Christ. Such a hope defies both the death barrier and Hawking’s bleak reductionist notion that we are nothing more than a random collection of molecules derived from the stars. We shall, in fact, outlast the stars.
Hawking imagines that the potential existence of other life forms in the universe undermines the traditional religious conviction that we are living in a unique, God-created planet. I find it faintly amusing that atheists often argue for the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence beyond earth.99 They are only too eager to denounce the possibility that there exists a vast, intelligent being “out there”, namely God, who has left his fingerprints all over his creation.
Hawking’s fusillade will not shake the foundations of an intelligent faith that is based on the cumulative evidence of science, history, the biblical narrative, and personal experience.
Conclusion
I am under no illusion that I have covered all the topics I might or should have covered in this short book. Not only that, many of the topics that have been mentioned deserve much more consideration. I do hope, however, that I have at least managed to communicate to you that the widespread belief that atheism is the default intellectual position is untenable. More than that, I hope that for many of you this investigation of Hawking’s atheistic belief system will serve to confirm your faith in God, as it has mine, and that it will encourage you not to be ashamed of bringing God into the public square by joining in the debate yourself.
I even dare to hope that, for some of you, this little book may be the start of a journey that will eventually lead to your coming to believe in the God who not only made the universe but also conferred on you the immeasurable dignity of creating you in his image, with the capacity for thought and the intellectual curiosity that got you reading this book in the first place. In turn that could even be, as it was for me, the first step in embarking on what is by definition life’s highest adventure – getting to know the Creator through the Son that has revealed him.
John C. Lennox
Oxford, October 2010
1 God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World, London, Allen Lane, 2009.
2 Op. cit. p. 18.
3 Sporting the message: “There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Associating God with worry was surely a masterpiece of misrepresentation. I wonder wh
o thought of it? And as for “probably”…
4 London, Bantam Press, 1988.
5 London, Bantam Press, 2010.
6 From here on I shall refer to Hawking’s book. I adopt this convention simply for convenience of expression. No disrespect is intended for the co-author, Leonard Mlodinow.
7 Op. cit. p. 180.
8 Op. cit. p. 5.
9 Op. cit. p. 5.
10 A. Einstein to R. A. Thornton, unpublished letter dated 7 December 1944 (EA 6–574), Einstein Archive, Hebrew University, Jerusalem cited by Don Howard, “Albert Einstein as Philosopher of Science”, Physics Today, December 2005, p. 34.
11 Advice to a Young Scientist, London, Harper and Row, 1979, p. 31; see also his book The Limits of Science, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 66.
12 The Language of God, New York, The Free Press, 2006.
13 For this and Einstein’s stance on religion and science see the definitive work of Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1999. The citation here is from p. 69.
14 The Meaning of It All, London, Penguin, 2007, p. 32.
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