In my personal development work, I invariably touch on the existence and nature of God – if I don’t raise the subject, it emerges as an obvious line of discussion for most of my clients. In this context, I am intrigued, to say the least, to observe what is emerging from Stephen Hawking’s publicity machine ahead of the forthcoming publication of his new book later this week. (After all, they are only trying to sell books!)
I read from that pre-launch leaks that Hawking will state that it wasn’t necessary for God to ‘light the blue touchpaper’ that set off the Big Bang or Creation. Obviously, his publicists know how to spin that pre-launch publicity! Instead he will state that our universe’s coming about was an inevitable consequence of physics. I’ll hold off commenting on the book until I’ve actually read it – but I wonder how this latest perspective on God can be squared with the findings of quantum physics – often weird and wonderful to the normal mind – that confirm that our universe is responsive and that, being an indivisible and integral part of a greater whole, we actually play an ongoing creative role in our own lives. Again, how can it be squared with Einstein’s pursuit of evidence of God or the current rush to discover the so-called God Particle?
But I’m even more intrigued. From the Hawking’s comments quoted in the pre-launch publicity that I have read, Hawking’s views on God – for an apparently intelligent man – are founded on an absurdly narrow, almost fundamentalist, interpretation of who or what God is! He talks of there being no evidence that God made our world solely for the enjoyment of humankind. It appears that his perception of God goes little further than Genesis! Perhaps a little like Richard Dawkins – who doesn’t know his Gospel of Thomas from his Gospel of Peter! – Hawking’s perspective might just be a little too narrow to conceptualize the magnitude and reality of God.
It is beyond doubt that Hawking is one of this planet’s greatest minds. But could it be that God, with her or his PhD in creation, is looking down on the star kid in kindergarten with a little smile?
