I can also make a statement, not as strange as Hawking's, that can catch your attention, and also have a meaningful proof. The statement is "We are all accidents".
Each of us today have a direct ancestry extending back several thousand years which would total over a thousand persons for just 10 generations. Each of these persons came to many forks in the road of life where they had to choose which path to take. At any of these forks where the choice would lead to a different mate, the subsequent future descendants would be different persons because of the different DNA combinations. Another way of stating the case, multi-millions of young men were killed in wars before they sired families. If the wars had not occurred, multi-millions of their descendants would have been born. Restating this thought; bullets, and bombs are not selective in their victims, thus the survivors in many situations were determined by chance (in other words, no one could say what caused the bomb fragments and blasts to hit specific persons). Bombs were not dropped to hit specific individuals, nor was artillery aimed at specific persons.
One could state that God directed the gunfire, however that constitutes belief, not reason. I think my logic is stronger than that of Stephen Hawking, a world renown thinker.
I am reminded of a discussion I had with an atheist many years ago about the origin of matter. We agreed there were only two logical concepts that the human mind could possibly, maybe, somewhat, vaguely comprehend: creation ex nihilo or eternity. That is, either something always existed or something came into existence from nothing…and there our discussion ended as we realized the unlikelihood that either proposition would ever be ‘proven’ and, even more discouraging, as we saw that even if one of them was proven, our yearning for understanding and meaning in this here life still wouldn’t be satisfied. So I am basically in the camp with those who say that science and religion ask different questions. As far as I can see, the ‘spontaneous creation’ cited in Hawking/Mlodinow’s book is equivalent to ‘creation ex nihilo’ and, as Henry astutely points out; this is no more of a scientific assertion than the Bible’s assertion, “God said, Let there be light, and there was light!”.
ReplyDeleteThe issue is the ‘spontaneous’ or the ‘nihilo’ and, as the Catholic Herald writer says, nothing CAN define these things except faith. So, I think faith in God is essentially and fundamentally a choice of will. Certainly a case for faith can be made and some may thereby be persuaded...and to make such a case is, I believe, something of a duty for the believing Christian. But I also realize that some may not be persuaded and a case against faith can also be made thereby persuading some in that direction as well. Why does any given individual go one way versus the other? I don’t know, but it seems again there are only two logical concepts that the human mind could possibly, maybe, somewhat, vaguely comprehend: predestination or free will. My son and I debate this and somehow he seems to be able to maintain both concepts as true simultaneously. My mind doesn’t quite grasp that though and I believe in free will… maybe I should call it ‘spontaneous will’ :-)… and suppose God designed it that way so He would enter into relationship only with those who choose Him by faith and not by reason.