Hawking’s recent comments on God have thus unleashed a torrent of attention. In his forthcoming book, The Grand Design, he comments, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

If you know Hawking’s work, these comments won’t surprise you. Of course, he does conclude his Brief History of Time with the claim that if we could discover the fundamental laws of nature, “then we should know the mind of God.” No religious faith underlies this statement, however. The book as a whole argues that God plays no essential role in understanding the physical universe.

In fact, Hawking’s recent pronouncements about God echo the famous comment by the eighteenth-century successor to Newton, Laplace. The emperor Napoleon is said to have asked him, “But where is God in your physics?” Legend has it that the physicist Laplace responded, “Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis.”

One can even find the story that explains Hawking’s attitude. At one point he was invited to Rome by the Jesuits for a conference on cosmology. In his technical paper he explained the view for which he is famous, known as the Hartle-Hawking hypothesis: although the universe has a finite age (it has not existed forever), there is no t = 0, that is, no first moment of time. If there is no “moment of creation,” there is no place for a Creator.

Shortly after delivering his talk, Hawking and the other physicists were invited to an audience with the Pope. The Pope, he reports, told them that “it was all right to study the evolution of the universe after the big bang, but we should not inquire into the big bang itself because that was the moment of Creation and therefore the work of God.” Hawking quips, “I was glad then that he did know the subject of the talk I had just given at the conference.”

It seemed to Hawking that the Pope was warning physicists away from the very questions where they could make the greatest progress. To accept that warning and to stay away from these questions would be to sell out as a scientist. It is as if, at that moment, Hawking resolved to have nothing more to do with the God idea. Or, to put it more carefully: he began to use the idea of God as shorthand for whatever would be the final physical theory about the origin of the universe.

Four Possible Answers

Now the $64,000 question: was he right? Cal Thomas gives a simple response on FOX News: scripture says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” So “if Hawking thinks it’s all foolishness, isn’t that evidence he is perishing?” For many of us, however, important questions of this sort require some rather deeper reflection. Consider the following four possibilities:

First, Richard Dawkins could be right. Shortly after Hawking’s conversations with the press, Dawkins hosted his own “webchat” on the topic. His interpretation was predictably much harsher than Hawking’s own: “Darwin kicked [God] out of biology, but physics remained more uncertain. Hawking is now administering the coup de grace.”

As always, Dawkins’ hyper-critical construal of religion brings out the offensive squad for the Religion Team. The second option is that Dawkins is totally mistaken; physics does have need of the God hypothesis. The arguments are legion: the basic physical constants are “fine-tuned” for the emergence of life, which is firm evidence of God’s providential ordering of the cosmos. The regularities of natural laws can only be explained by God’s character and purpose. The fit between human cognitive capacities and the natural world — for example, our ability to do mathematical physics — is proof God meant us to recognize Him in the natural world. In short, advocates claim, the more physics advances, the more evidence there is of the existence and providential care of God.

Hawking’s third option falls somewhere between the first two. Science can only work when no questions are off limits. The explosive advances in science over the last centuries have removed physics’ dependence on theology. In particular, cosmology supports the “weak” anthropic principle (any universe we find ourselves in must be conducive to the evolution of intelligent life) but not the “strong” anthropic principle (this universe was designed to produce us). Quantum cosmology — using quantum physics to explain the origin of the universe — eliminates the need for any external “push” to get things started. Instead, quantum fluctuations, followed by a period of extremely rapid expansion (“inflation”), might be sufficient by themselves to explain the origin of the universe. And finally, Hawking and friends maintain, if an infinite number of universes in fact compose one “multiverse,” any biophilic features we observe are merely the luck of the draw in this particular universe. No inferences can be drawn about divine creative intent.

God and Mystery

But there is a fourth position. The truth is, recent developments in science do make conclusions about God more difficult. But do they really render the God hypothesis superfluous?

Here I would push back against Hawking. Religion that would block or control the growth of science should be resisted. But it’s simply not true that science has dissolved any role for mystery. As it advanced, twentieth-century physics actually expanded the place for the unknown. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle expresses limits on how fully we can know both the location and momentum of a particle, and the speed of light represents an absolute limit for the speed of information exchange. Limits of knowledge are not excuses for shutting down scientific inquiry and replacing it with answers based on scriptural authority. But they are profound reminders of how much we don’t know. Amazing advances in scientific knowledge lie ahead of us. But nothing in the history of science suggests that our knowledge will be limitless. Indeed, Stephen Hawking has been one of the great voices reminding us of this fact.

Richard Dawkins may wish to use Hawking’s comments to define science as the arch-rival of religion. Returning the compliment, religious commentators proclaim death to science in the name of religion. Careful observers will note that Stephen Hawking’s language has been more irenic. Still, he continues to proclaim that progress in science rules out any notion of God.

But here the great physicist overreaches himself. When believers use claims about God to handcuff science, they act wrongly. But no such conflict is produced when we recognize that deep mysteries lie beyond the limits of scientific knowledge. Religious faith has its origins here, beyond the bounds of empirical demonstration. To declare this region empty of the divine is as much an act of faith as it is to find God here.

Note: This post was originally published at the Huffington Post.

In the spirit of empirical feedback, it would be great to put some of these claims to the test. So I suggest that Dan join me in a brief, one-hour debate on some of these themes while he’s here on campus. Albrecht Auditorium is available, and Claremont Graduate University is ready to make special arrangements for live online streaming of the discussion, so that it can be available to everyone.

There’s a little history behind this call, which you can find here and here. When we were both at the big Darwin Festival at the University of Cambridge in early July 2009, Dan came to listen to my paper on Darwin and theology. Afterwards he publicly expressed his disappointment that such a topic would be on the agenda at the Darwin Fest. Later in the same session I invited Dan to enter into a public discussion with me on some of the broader philosophical and theological questions raised by biology today, even listing some of the topics where (in my view) productive discussion is possible. Dan chose not to enter into that debate. But he did post a blog on Richard Dawkins’ website a few days later, complaining about the session and claiming that “neither speaker had anything to offer.”

Since the debate that Dan calls for is one that I’m eager to join him in, shouldn’t we take a few minutes when he’s on campus here in Claremont to let it happen?

To make this invitation to dialogue more warm and friendly, Iet me close with a personal invitation to Dan:

I had the chance to struggle with these questions this fall. The following podcast gives you a sense of the difficulties and the kind of answer I’d like to give. It’s titled “Living toward an Open Future: What are the Theological Conditions for Hope in an Age of Science?” I offer my special thanks to my hosts, and to the audience members who asked probing questions, at the following institutions: the Humboldt-University in Berlin, Germany, and to the Guardini Foundation and the DFG, who sponsored the conference at which the talk was delivered; St. Andrews Presbyterian College, in Laurinburg, NC, and to the John Calvin McNair Annual Lectureship; McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; and Emmanuel College of Victoria University, the University of Toronto, Ontario.

These are difficult issues, and there is no simple, easy, and definitive answer. Christians in good conscience will come down in very different places. But I do believe that it is important to struggle with the questions. I hope that the podcast will encourage you to ask deeper questions and to begin to formulate your own responses.

Podcast: “Living toward an Open Future: What are the Theological Conditions for Hope in an Age of Science?”

Sometimes the best way to make a point about what science can do is to recognize what it doesn’t do. And no one is better qualified to make this point than the eminent scholar, John Cleese. This clip will not resolve any of the really difficult and interesting debates about genetic and epigenetic influences and how they are related. But it is a good reminder of what we shouldn’t expect genetics to explain.

Rather than getting red in the face about reductionists in general, and genetic reduction in particular, sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

Sample Big Questions

It is not difficult to list the “big questions” in the biology-theology discussion over the 150 years since Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Consider just these seven:

• Is there directionality to evolution? If so, is it a sort of directionality that we should speak of as progress and, if so, why?

• Is this directionality (if it exists) purposive? That is, is it a sort of progress that is analogous to cases of intelligent agents bringing about changes in the empirical world?

• Obviously evolution produces emergent structures, functions, and behaviors. Can these emergent properties be fully (sufficiently) explained in terms of laws, properties, and dynamics occurring at lower levels of organization and at earlier stages in cosmic history? To what extent do explanations given at the level of the emergent properties and dynamics themselves constitute an irreducible part of the scientific results?

• Among the corollaries of the recent debates on emergent complexity is the (still unsolved) question: what is the relationship of biology to physics? This question continues to be unresolved, and more turns on it than is often realized.

• Biologists often complain that physicists overestimate the power of their discipline to answer the deepest and most interesting biological questions. Is it possible that we are similarly guilty of overestimating the significance of our results for explaining distinctively human behaviors, cognitions, symbols, and ideas? What is the role of the human sciences (psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology) as special sciences; do they supplement the biological sciences in understanding human thought and behavior? If they do, as I think, how, why, and under what rules does this work?

• In addition to the obvious similarities of Homo sapiens to other animals, what are the distinctive features of our species? How are those features to be understood philosophically? Which features, if any, are qualitatively different from the other species? How did such qualitative differences arise, and what is their significance? In particular, what are the contributions of evolutionary psychology and what are the inherent limitations that it faces?

• Both ethical and religious beliefs have played an important role in cultural evolution and thus, given co-evolution, have had biological effects, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Can human ethical and religious convictions be fully explained within the framework of evolutionary biology? If not, why not? What are the limits of biological explanation to which this result points? What, exactly, is it that does the limiting here?

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What gradually becomes obvious is that these are meta-biological questions. I suggest that they are natural next questions for humans to formulate when one has understood the biological results. It is on this basis (and only so), I think, that one can understand what theological reflection entails.

– Philip Clayton

Toward the end of the session I had a chance to engage Daniel Dennett in a public debate about my paper. I thought it would be more fun to do a back-and-forth discussion than to harangue him from the podium. So I presented several brief arguments and gave him the chance to respond after each one. He was maintaining that we don’t need God-talk in any form, and I was arguing that classical metaphysical topics, including some that include the concept of God, are of continuing relevance and importance for philosophy today.

Here, in the interests of full disclosure, is the blog that Dan posted on Richard Dawkins’ website in response to that discussion:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,4041,Dennett-at-the-Darwin-Festival,Richard-Dawkins-Daniel-Dennett

I am posting my paper in the “web resources” area of my website , so that you can evaluate the paper in light of the criticisms and vice versa.

You must judge for yourself. I do find it a bit surprising that Dan chose not to mention any of the philosophical questions that we debated. Clearly his rhetoric style here plays to the usual readers of Richard Dawkins’ website who, as one can see, are lapping up his words. But it is a bit of a pity that Dan neglected to mention the call to dialogue, which was the central point of my paper and of our public debate. In fact, isn’t his choice of rhetoric instead of argument an instance of exactly what he is accusing theologians of doing?

One can’t help but see some signs of a philosopher who has rather lost interest in philosophical debate. Contrast that with the pride that many of us found in our discipline when we were undergraduate philosophy majors — the same pride in philosophical inquiry we continue to see in many of our own students. Such students are willing to tackle any conundrum or challenge using the best of human reason. They know that many people will be unwilling to follow “the force of the better argument” — or even to defend their views at all — but (they say) at least philosophers will never shy away from that task. I remember looking up to famous philosophers, including the young Daniel Dennett, as ideals that I sought to emulate.

Readers who follow the link above may not find that the discourse they read quite reaches such high ideals for philosophical discourse. In fact, readers will have a hard time finding any reference at all to the questions and arguments that prompted the Clayton-Dennett debate at the University of Cambridge. Indeed, one might be forgiven for seeing a bit of irony in the situation: it’s the theologian who lays out nuanced philosophical questions and calls to open dialogue, and it seems to be the philosopher who declines the invitation, turning to rhetoric instead.

– Philip Clayton