Milo

The scriptural teaching on the origin of the universe is found in Genesis 1:1, which states that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Steven Hawking attempts to circumvent this truth (or, at the very least, render a Creator logically superfluous to the issue of the beginning of the universe). However, his ideas are not new, but are rather the latest versions of some classic attempts to explain getting something (i.e., the universe) out of nothing.

Hawking’s support for his work comes from the existence of the law of gravity. It is known to physicists that the energy associated with the gravitational force is negative, while the energy associated with most ordinary objects (baseballs, cars, etc.) is positive. It is possible for these positive and negative energies to cancel, resulting in zero net energy. Two situations with the same energy (or zero energy difference) are, in a physical sense, equally preferable. An example would be a soccer ball on the kitchen floor; the ball could sit by the refrigerator or the stove or the table without wanting to roll anywhere else. This is because each position on the kitchen floor which the soccer ball could occupy would have the same energy, so none of the positions is energetically preferable to the others.

Hawking envisions the origin of the universe in a similar way. Since it is possible to think of the creation of the universe as a “zero net energy process,” Hawking suggests that there is no need to explain how it could have been created. But this inference is based not on the physics, but on Hawking’s own philosophical presuppositions. In the example of a soccer ball on the kitchen floor, it is conceivable to imagine the soccer ball sitting anywhere on the floor without needing an explanation; however, it is quite another thing to say that the soccer ball and the kitchen floor came from nothing.

Hawking’s attempts to address this problem are not in any way new to philosophers; it is one of the oldest issues in Epicurean philosophy: “ex nihilo nihil fit” (literally, “nothing comes out of nothing”). Hawking’s ideas may establish that two physical situations (the universe existing versus not existing) are energetically equivalent, but it does nothing to address the issue of cause and effect. No explanation is needed as to why the soccer ball is sitting by the stove rather than by the refrigerator, but an explanation is needed if the ball moves from the stove to the refrigerator. In physics, a change never occurs without an explanation; in philosophical language, an effect never occurs without a cause.

Hawking’s ideas do nothing to address this; the issue of the universe’s origin is the same as it was before. It is not possible to get something from nothing. Only the idea of a Creator can adequately explain where the universe could have come from. Moreover, Hawking’s statement that science will always prevail over religion “because it works” reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the philosophy of science. Truth is not determined by “what works,” but by whether it conforms to the reality around us. When we say that a particular statement is “true,” we are saying that the content of that statement actually describes the way things are. This connection between a statement and the reality it describes is independent of a person and his mind. A statement may be true or false, irrespective of whether or not it appears to a particular person to describe the correct state of affairs. This is what we mean when we say that truth is objective; a statement’s “truth value” is a quality which it possesses independently of a person’s knowledge thereof.

However, once we begin to try to decide whether a particular statement is true or false (as happens in both science and religion), the only way we know how to proceed is to try to test the statement to “see if it works.” As an example, suppose we want to decide whether the statement, “All cats are brown” is true. We can begin our investigation by gathering cats together and inspecting each of them to see if any do not conform to the statement in question, thereby rendering it false. We only need to find one gray cat to know that the original statement is false: not all cats are brown.

But what if every cat we were able to find was, in fact, brown? Clearly, the world does contain felines of many other varieties and colours. In this case, even though the statement “works” (from our investigation, all cats do appear to be brown), it is clearly false. Thus, the issue of whether science or religion “works” is completely irrelevant to the issue of truth in each of these disciplines. While truth can be discovered by noting what works, simply because a statement appears to work does not in fact imply that it is true.

To summarize, Hawking’s reasoning fails on philosophical grounds. Hawking attempts to substitute God with a particular physical law (gravity). However, Hawking fails to address the key issue at hand – that is, the origin of physical law in the first place. Where did the law of gravity come from and how does nothing produce something? A physical law is not nothing. Moreover, Hawking’s conception of a plethora of ensemble universes to escape the conclusion of fine-tuning is philosophically unsound, metaphysically motivated, and less parsimonious than the theistic interpretation.

Why does humanity seek to eliminate God from having had any role in the creation of the Universe? It’s very simple. Humanity hates God and does not want to be subject to God’s law, or held accountable for our actions. As Paul writes in Romans 1, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

The ontological argument is an argument based not on observation of the world (like the cosmological and teleological arguments) but rather from reason alone. Specifically, the ontological argument reasons from the study of being (ontology). The first and most popular form goes back to St. Anselm in the 11th century A.D. He begins with stating that the concept of God is “a being than which no greater can be conceived.” Since existence is possible, and to exist is greater than to not exist, then God must exist (if God did not exist, then a greater being could be conceived, but that is self defeating—you can’t have something greater than that which no greater can be conceived!). Therefore, God must exist. Descartes did much the same thing only starting from the idea of a perfect being.

Atheist extraordinaire Bertrand Russell said that it is much easier to say that the ontological argument is no good than it is to say exactly what is wrong with it! However, ontological arguments are not terribly popular in most Christian circles these days. First, they seem to beg the question as to what God is like. Second, subjective appeal is low for non-believers as these arguments tend to lack hard objective support. Third, it is difficult to simply state that something must exist by definition. Without good philosophical support for why a thing must exist, simply defining something into existence is not good philosophy (like stating that unicorns are magical, single-horned horses that exist). These problems notwithstanding, several prominent philosophers today continue to work on this more unusual form of theological argument.

The word teleology comes from telos which means “purpose” or “goal.” The idea is that it takes a “purposer” to have purpose, and so where we see things obviously intended for a purpose, something had to have caused it for a reason. In other words, design implies a designer. We instinctively do this all the time. The difference between the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore is obvious—one is designed, one is not. The Grand Canyon was clearly formed by non-rational, natural processes, whereas Mount Rushmore was clearly created by an intelligent being—a designer. When we are walking down the beach and see a watch we do not assume that time and random chance produced it from blowing sand. Why? Because it has the clear marks of design—it has a purpose, it conveys information, it is specifically complex, etc. In no scientific field is design considered to be spontaneous; it always implies a designer, and the greater the design, the greater the designer. Thus, taking the assumptions of science, the universe would require a designer beyond itself (i.e. supernatural).

The teleological argument applies this criteria to the whole universe. If designs imply a designer, and the universe shows marks of design, then the universe was created. Clearly, every life form in earth’s history has been highly complex. A single strand of DNA equates to one volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The human brain is approximately 10 billion gigabytes in capacity. Besides living things here on earth, the whole universe seems designed for life. Literally hundreds of conditions are required for life on earth—everything from the mass density of the universe down to earthquake activity must be fine-tuned in order for life to survive. The random chance of all these things occurring is literally beyond imagination. The odds are many orders of magnitude higher than the number of atomic particles in the whole universe! With this much design, it is difficult to believe that we just got lucky. In fact, top atheist philosopher Antony Flew’s recent conversion to theism was based largely on this argument.

In addition to being used to demonstrate God’s existence, the teleological argument also exposes shortcomings in the theory of evolution. The Intelligent Design movement in science applies information theory to life systems and shows that chance cannot even begin to explain its complexity. In fact, even single-celled bacteria are so complex that without all of their parts working together at the same time they would have no survival potential. That means those parts could not have developed by chance. Darwin recognized that this might be a problem someday just by looking at the human eye. Little did he know that even single-celled creatures have too much complexity to explain without a creator.

The cosmological argument derives its title from observing the world around us (the cosmos). It begins with what is most obvious in reality: things exist. It is then argued that the cause of those things’ existence had to be a “God-type” thing. These types of arguments go all the way back to Plato and have been used by notable philosophers and theologians ever since. Besides being philosophically evident, science finally caught up with theologians in the 20th century when it was confirmed that the universe had to have had a beginning. So, today, the arguments are even powerful for non-philosophers. There are two basic forms of these arguments, and the easiest way to think of them might be what are called the “vertical” and the “horizontal” forms. These titles indicate the direction from which the causes come. In the vertical form, it is argued that every created thing is being caused right now (imagine a timeline with an arrow pointing up from the universe to God). The horizontal version shows that creation had to have a cause in the beginning (imagine that same timeline only with an arrow pointing backward to a beginning point in time).

The horizontal is a little easier to understand because it does not require much in the way of philosophy to grasp. The basic argument is that all things that have beginnings had to have causes. The universe had a beginning; therefore, the universe had a cause. That cause, being outside the whole universe, is God. Someone might say that some things are caused by other things, but this does not solve the problem. This is because those other things had to have causes, too, and this cannot go on forever. Why not? Let’s take a simple example: trees. All trees began to exist at some point (for they have not always existed). Each tree had its beginning in a seed (the “cause” of the tree). But every seed had its beginning (“cause”) in another tree. See where this is going? You can’t have an infinite series of tree-seed-tree-seed because no series is infinite—it cannot go on forever. All series are finite (limited) by definition. There is no such thing as an infinite number because even the number series is limited (although you can always add one more, you are always at a finite number). If there is an end, it is not infinite. All series have two endings actually—at the end and at the beginning (if you don’t see why this is true, try to imagine a one ended stick!). But if there were no first cause, the chain of causes never would have started. Therefore, there is, at the beginning at least, a first cause—one that had no beginning. This first cause is God.

The vertical form is a bit more difficult to understand, but it is more powerful because not only does it show that God had to cause the “chain of causes” in the beginning, He must still be causing things to exist right now. Once again, we begin by noting that things exist. Second, while we often tend to think of existence as a property that things sort of “own”—that once something is created, existence is just part of what it is—this is not the case. Consider a simple example of the triangle. We can define the nature of a triangle as “the plane figure formed by connecting three points not in a straight line by straight line segments.” Notice what is not part of this definition: existence.

This definition would hold true even if no triangles existed at all. Therefore, a triangle’s nature—what it is—does not guarantee that one exists (like unicorns—we know what they are, but that does not make them exist). Because it is not part of a triangle’s nature to exist, triangles must be made to exist by something else that already exists (such as I drawing one on a piece of paper). But it also does not exist simply because of what I am. So, I have to be given existence as well. This cannot go on forever (no infinite series, remember?). Therefore, something that does not need to be given existence must exist to give everything else existence. Now apply this example to everything in the universe. Does any of it exist on its own? No. So, not only did the universe have to have a first cause to get started; it needs something to give it existence right now. The only thing that would not have to be given existence is a thing that exists as its very nature. It is existence. This thing would always exist, have no cause, have no beginning, have no limit, be outside of time, be infinite . . . sound familiar? It should! It is God!

There are only two possible explanations for the existence of the universe and mankind: chance or design. America’s educational system aggressively promotes the former view, while excluding the latter. Explicitly or by clever implication, this outrageous lie bombards us everywhere. As a consequence, the public at large takes for granted, as scientific fact, that the universe is a spontaneously self-generated, evolving, closed system that happened by chance, and is thus purposeless and amoral. Destructive as this falsehood has been, science poses a far more subtle danger which has deceived multitudes of Christians. 

  Many of this century’s greatest physicists have issued grave warnings against mixing science and religion. Einstein said, “…scientific theory has nothing to do with religion.” Schroedinger declared, “[Science] knows nothing of…good or bad, God and eternity.” Yet the church has imagined that an alliance with science would bring to Christianity greater prestige and acceptability. Christian psychology is one example of this unholy partnership. There are others equally deadly. Beware! Einstein was right. Science and God don’t mix! 

  Science is today’s secular religion, the new paganism. At its altars the world worships human achievement and anticipates the day when its high priests will have unlocked every secret of the universe and harnessed its unlimited power, conquered space and all disease, and will have achieved virtual immortality for man and enthroned him as master of the universe. This ancient lie of the Serpent to Eve, kept alive in pagan religions and the occult, now, having donned the mask of modern science, is ripening to reap God’s wrath. Only this self-deifying dream explains the continued suicidal practice of free sex in spite of AIDS education programs. Such reckless folly reflects the vain hope––and in some quarters the demand––that science will somehow (and soon) find a cure for even that dread scourge. 

  Science is legitimate when it examines the universe and acknowledges God’s existence on the basis of observable intelligent design. But when it proudly denies the Creator, it leads to the very worship of creation that Paul, in Romans 1:18-32, declares to be the endemic error that darkens the minds of all mankind. The ecological movement has its ecotheology. Georgetown University professor Victor Ferkiss approvingly says it “starts with the premise that the Universe is God.” Carl Sagan, the high priest of cosmos worship, declares, “If we must worship a power greater than ourselves, does it not make sense to revere the sun and stars?” No! It takes little insight to see the similarity between a native bowing before a stick or stone which he credits with some occult power, a witch worshiping “Mother Nature,” and a university professor crediting mystic evolutionary forces with producing the human brain. 

  We endorse scientific investigation of the physical world. The problem comes when science claims that matter is all there is and that everything, including human consciousness and morality, can be explained in scientific terms. That boast pushes God out of His universe; and man, no longer in God’s image, becomes a stimulus-response conglomeration of protein molecules evolving to “godhood.” Such was the atheistic medical model of Freud upon which psychology, in an attempt to establish a “science of human behaviour,” was founded. The consequences have been devastating to the church. 

  It is so obvious that human behaviour can’t be scientifically explained, yet the lie persists. C. S. Lewis wrote, “If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind. …” That simple logic destroys Darwinism. If man is the chance product of impersonal evolutionary forces, then so are his thoughts—including the theory of evolution. 

  To escape the embarrassing contradictions, most psychologists traded Freud’s medical model for the newer humanistic and transpersonal psychologies. The latter pretend to deal with soul and spirit and are thus far more seductive and deadly. Many evangelicals imagine that psychology, now that it wears a “spiritual” mask, is compatible with Christianity. One of the premiere inner healers, Rita Bennett, writes, “I was born again of the Spirit….But my ‘soul’ part is another matter. The Greek for ‘soul’ is psyche. My soul is my psychological nature….” Try to find that in the Bible!

  Echoing Freud, Bennett refers to “a vast area called the unconscious” that Christians “are not able to reach directly” but which governs our behaviour. “Everything that happened to you, even from the time you were a tiny baby, is recorded in your memory,” says Bennett, and is “subconsciously” affecting you in ways you can’t understand. The only hope for change is through the sacred rituals of psychology, the new religious science of the soul. Bennett and other inner healers sanctify psychology’s pagan rituals with Christian terminology and by visualizing Jesus present in the process––an occult technique for inducing contact with spirit guides, who are only too happy to pose as “Jesus” or “Mary.” 

  Christian psychologists naively accept the perverse extension of materialistic science into the realm of soul and spirit. They have brought into the church the twin lies of “mental illness” and the Bible’s lack of insight into these new maladies. Most evangelicals now believe that this new science of mind, rather than Scripture, can explain why we act as we do and how we can change. To explain wrong behavior, however, as “mental illness” caused by past traumas turns sin, for which one is morally accountable to God, into a “sickness” beyond one’s control. Instead of saving sinful souls through Christ alone, Christian psychology pretends to cure sick minds with therapy. Spiritual problems now have scientific diagnoses and cures unknown to biblical prophets and apostles. 

  The similarity to Christian Science is obvious. Its founder, Mary Baker Eddy, determined to unite science with religion, called Jesus a scientist who knew the laws of mind that govern the universe. There is no sin, sickness, pain, death. We create these illusions with negative thoughts and can cure ourselves with a new, scientific faith––positive thinking. Like Unity’s founders, Myrtle and Charles Fillmore, Ernest Holmes patterned his similar cult, The Church of Religious Science, on the same delusion: “Science of Mind teaches that Man controls the course of his life…by mental processes which function according to a Universal Law…that we are creating our own day-to-day experiences…[by] our thoughts.” Behold, the creature has become Creator, as Paul warned in Romans 1! 

  The god of Unity/Religious/Christian Science is an impersonal Universal Mind or “higher power”—one with the cosmos and subject to universal laws which man, too, can master. This god exists to give man what he wants and holds no one morally accountable. All is a matter of positive or negative thoughts, which activate this god-energy according to universal laws. One need only act scientifically. The connection to the positive/possibility thinking of Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller, and to the positive confession* of Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, et al., is again undeniable. (*By confession they mean to speak forth.)

  Crediting Fillmore and Holmes with making him a “positive thinker,” Peale says, “through prayer you…make use of the great factor within yourself, the deep subconscious mind…[which Jesus called] the kingdom of God within you….Positive thinking is just another term for faith.” His thesis is obviously false; many atheists are positive thinkers, but Jesus said faith must be in God (Mk 11:22). Peale, a 33rd degree Mason who found “eternal peace in a Shinto shrine,” denies the necessity of both the virgin birth and the new birth. He writes, “Your unconscious mind… [has a] power that turns wishes into realities when the wishes are strong enough.” It was Peale who pioneered the merger of theology and psychology which became Christian” psychology. 

  Let me repeat: God needs no help from science. Mixing science and religion turns God into an impersonal energy source to be tapped by scientifically applying universal laws. Peale writes, “Just as there exist scientific techniques for the release of atomic energy, so are there scientific procedures for the release of spiritual energy….God is energy.” That is occultism––the worship of creation (natural forces) instead of the Creator. When the witch doctor slits a rooster’s throat, sprinkles the blood in a certain pattern and mumbles a formula, the spirits must do their part. Occultism operates by the laws of cause and effect. 

  Peale’s most famous protegé is Robert Schuller, who says Christ died to sanctify our self-esteem. He calls Peale “the man who has impacted and influenced my thinking and my theology and my life more than any other living person….” Schuller preaches what he unashamedly calls a “man-centered theology” (again the creature is preeminent). He perverts “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” to mean “Believe in the God who believes in you!”—though the Bible warns, “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man” (Jer 17:5). He says it’s destructive of the gospel to call anyone a sinner, and declares, “You don’t know what power you have within you!…You can make the world into anything you choose.” Here is Religious Science in pseudo-evangelical dress. 

  Occultists were the world’s first and only scientists for thousands of years. To work their sorcery through the “laws of manifestation,” occultists have always used three scientific techniques: positive thinking, positive speaking and visualizing. All three are now accepted and used in the evangelical church. No one has promoted these occult techniques as successfully as Paul Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church, in Seoul, Korea.

  Of positive speaking (confession), Cho declares, “You create the presence of Jesus with your mouth….He is bound by your lips and by your words….” As for visualization, the most powerful occult technique, Cho writes, “Through visualization and dreaming, you can incubate your future and hatch the results.” In the foreword to Cho’s best-known book, The Fourth Dimension, Schuller writes of visualization, “Don’t try to understand it. Just start to enjoy it! It’s true. It works. I tried it. Thank you—Paul Yonggi Cho—for allowing the Holy Spirit to give this message to us and to the world.” 

  Cho says God revealed to him that “spirit is the fourth dimension.” Contained within it is a creative force. Cho says God created the universe by visualizing it––and that anyone, occultist or Christian, Satan or God, can create in the same manner through applying “the laws of the fourth dimension.” Yes, one need not be a Christian to tap the energy in the atom––and so it is with the “spiritual energy” of religious science. 

  In full agreement, Kenneth Hagin says God revealed to him that even the ungodly can get miracles by developing “the law of faith.” Charles Capps says God told him that positive confession “is a scientific application of the wisdom of God to the psychological makeup of man….These principles of faith are based on spiritual laws. They work for whosoever will apply these laws.” The common denominator for all such teachers is the heart of religious science: a spiritual force which anyone can activate by scientific application of the laws governing it. 

  The same occultic partnership with science is found in Pat Robertson’s Secret Kingdom. It functions under eight laws “as valid for our lives as the laws of thermodynamics or the law of gravity”—laws that even God obeys. The seventh is “The Law of Miracles.” Robertson echoes Cho, who says that miracles must always conform to the “Law of the Fourth Dimension.” Here is, in fact, a denial of miracles, which don’t exist in religious science. 

  By very definition, miracles are not governed by laws. They override all laws. The classic argument of the atheist is that a miracle is simply a natural occurrence for which science hasn’t yet found an explanation. While we believe in miracles, we must agree that if science can state the laws which govern a situation, then the event is not a miracle at all. What a tragedy that popular teachers, though they speak continually of “miracles,” are promoting Christianized sorcery! Even sadder is the fact that many evangelicals have fallen for a similar lie without knowing it.

  For many Christians, prayer is a religious technique for getting what they want. They imagine that if they can just believe that what they are praying for will happen, it will happen. Is this really faith? No. If we can make something happen by believing it will happen, then we don’t need God. We’ve become gods who create with our minds. “You are a little god,” declare Copeland and Benny Hinn on TBN. “I am a little god!” exults Paul Crouch on international television, and he condemns to hell the “heresy hunters” who say such teachings aren’t biblical. God help us! 

  Hagin writes, “Have faith in your faith.” For these men, faith is a force that operates according to “the laws of faith.” They have substituted the laws of science for the grace of God, who alone can be the object of faith. Biblical faith is believing that God will do what we pray for. That changes everything! No one can have that faith unless he knows that what he is praying for is God’s will. We cannot cause miracles, nor can we cause our prayers to be answered. That’s sorcery. There is no ritual, formula, prayer, demand or technique that man can use to bring about a miracle. Miracles and answers to prayer are the gracious gift of the Creator. 

  God’s grace stands in stark contrast to the laws of Religious Science. Grace instead of law––what a difference! Miracles are by God’s grace alone. And the greatest miracle is the new birth, whereby a sinner is recreated a saint. Even evangelism has been influenced by methodology. Many imagine there is some technique of packaging or presentation that will cause the lost to receive Christ. No! Let us take care to preach the simple, biblical gospel, not with man’s wisdom, which destroys the Cross (1 Cor 1:17), but in the power of His Holy Spirit. We dare not attempt to arouse the unsaved with psychological or salesmanship techniques, such as are often employed in emotionally charged revivals and crusades. 

  The Holy Spirit must convince and convict with God’s truth. There is no procedure or ritual which can cause a sinner to pass from death to life. The new birth is a miracle of God’s grace which only He can accomplish. Unlike the scientific application of laws to release spiritual energy, we must approach the God of the Bible as unworthy sinners trusting His grace and mercy. We must humbly confess that there are no formulas that we can think, speak or visualize that will require Him to respond to us. 

  Then how do we know whether, or how, God will respond? We can rely upon God’s promises because of His integrity and love––not because He is bound by scientific laws. However, as the old poem goes, “God has not promised skies always blue, flower-strewn pathways all our life through….” God’s Word does not promise unfailing health, immunity from persecution for His sake or from the cruelties and inequities of this earthly life. He has something far better in mind––an eternal reward for those whom He has “strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness” (Col 1:11) and who, out of love for Him, “[love] not their lives unto death” (Rv 12:11). 

Dave Hunt