During the Battle of the Bulge, American troops in the Belgian town of Bastogne were surrounded by German armored units. On Dec. 22, 1944, the German commander sent Gen. Anthony McAuliffe a demand for surrender or be annihilated in two hours’ time.
Gen. McAuliffe sent the following reply:
To the German Commander:
NUTS!
— The American Commander
I don’t know why, but that’s where my mind went when I read this bit of news about über-physicist Stephen Hawking:
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… set the universe going.
Materialists—those who deny that there is anything supernatural and believe that everything is just matter and energy—are acting like the Germans around Bastogne, demanding full and unconditional surrender from those of us who believe God exists.
NUTS!
The problem Prof. Hawking faces is that his position is illogical. Any middle-school student can grasp this:
- Everything that happens has a cause.
- The universe happened.
- Therefore, the universe has a cause.
- But the universe contains all known matter, energy, space, and time.
- Therefore, the cause of the universe must be immaterial, immensely powerful, and must transcend space and time.
Sounds like God, doesn’t it? It doesn’t necessarily prove the God of the Bible, but it does show the need for a creator with the attributes of God.
Against this argument, Prof. Hawking offers “spontaneous creation,” saying that the universe can create itself. But that’s like saying someone is his own mother or father, that a chicken hatched from an egg it laid the day before.
It’s like saying that the creation of the universe was like a magician at a child’s birthday party pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Except there’s no child, no birthday party, no magician, and no hat.
This isn’t deep, complicated physics. It’s what happens when really smart people set out to find the answers they like, not the answers they need. Make no mistake: Stephen Hawking is smarter than I will ever be. But wisdom isn’t the same as intelligence. In this sin-darkened world, even the brightest and smartest people will refuse to see the evidence God has presented to bring himself glory.
“This isn’t deep, complicated physics. It’s what happens when really smart people set out to find the answers they like, not the answers they need.”
Wow! So true! I wonder if recognition for a different idea has any thing to do with such thinking?
I think there is a temptation to do that even in the Christian walk – reading what we like and skipping the hard stuff. For example, reading about grace and skipping the passages of repentance.
Sometimes when I read stuff like this I am so humbled by the understanding that God gives. I could so easily have had this mindset. What a great creator! What a great God!