By now you have probably heard: world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, co-author of a new book, The Grand Design (published this week), has stated that God does not exist and there is no need to include God in our story of how the universe was formed. He says that the science of physics answers all the creation questions and God had no roll in any of it. He states that God in unnecessary in understanding the world and how it was created.
This “news” reminded me of something I read on the web last weekend. The NY Times publishes a regular column called The Stone, written by contemporary philosophers. In this week’s column, an atheist questions why so many more people are willing to follow their non-scientific faith instead of enthusiastically supporting the world of science. This author is Tim Crane, also an atheist and a Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He writes “religion commands and absorbs the passions and intellects of hundreds of millions of people, many more people than science does.” He believes one of the reasons for this is that science demands proof of its hypotheses while religion does not. Basically, he states that religious people are willing to accept things that they don’t understand as a mystery.
OK, but why is that? Why are believers willing to accept that God created the world, that God rules the universe, when non-believers cannot? I believe this acceptance is a gift from God. He offers it—this ability to believe His truth without scientific proof–to us all, and we just have to accept it.
“There is, to be sure, a certain wisdom which we express among the spiritually mature. It is not a wisdom of this age . . . No, what we utter is God’s wisdom: a mysterious, hidden wisdom, God planned it before all ages for our glory.” ~ 1 Corinthians 2:6, 7
The temptation to follow the latest opinions of well-known scientists and or scholars of the day doesn’t shake the faith of those who accept His gifts. Faith—it will help you see through the ‘false prophet’s’ proclamations.
Tim Crane should use his scientific intellect and deduce from his observations that there must be something to this religion thing if so many people believe it, even more than they believe in science.
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