The Case for a Creator (20 page)

When actress Shirley MacLaine asked Hawking whether he believes God created the universe, he replied simply, “No.”
⁴¹
He told the BBC: “We are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer suburbs of one of a hundred thousand million galaxies. So it is difficult to believe in a God that would care about us or even notice our existence.”
⁴²

In a chapter called “The Origin and Fate of the Universe” in
A Brief History of Time
, Hawking says: “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?”
⁴³

I broached Hawking’s theory to Craig. “It sure sounds like he has finally managed to put God out of business,” I said.

“Not quite,” replied Craig.

When I asked him to explain why not, Craig pulled a piece of paper and pen out of his top drawer. “Let me draw you two pictures that will clarify what I mean,” he said.

“The standard Big Bang theory can be represented by a cone,” he said, drawing what looked like an empty sugar cone from Baskin-Robbins. “The point of the cone represents the beginning of the universe—the singularity where the Big Bang occurred. It’s the beginning point, and it has a sharp edge to it.
⁴⁴
The expansion of the universe, as it gets older and grows, is represented by the cone’s overall expanding shape.”

I nodded that I was tracking with him. Then he took a second sheet of paper and began drawing a picture of Hawking’s theory. “Hawking’s model is like a cone, too, except it doesn’t come to a point.” He drew a picture of what resembled a badminton birdie; instead of coming to a sharp point, the end of the cone was rounded.

“As you can see, there’s no singularity. There’s no sharp edge. If you were to start at the mouth of the cone and go backward in time,” he said, his pencil tracing the long side of the cone, “you would not come back to a beginning point. You would simply follow the curve—and suddenly you would find yourself heading forward in time again.”

This was consistent with the way Hawking’s biographers envisioned his theory. They said it would be like walking northward until you reach the North Pole, and then suddenly, if you keep walking, you find yourself heading south.
⁴⁵
“There is no beginning and no end—no boundaries,” one writer explained. “The universe always was, always is, and always shall be.”
⁴⁶

Craig put down his pencil. “Presto!” I exclaimed as I looked at his drawing. “No beginning, no singularity, no Big Bang—no need for God.”

Craig grimaced. “Let’s think about this for a minute before you come to that conclusion,” he said.

THE WORLD OF IMAGINARY NUMBERS

“Has Hawking made a mistake?” I asked. The mere suggestion sounded impossible!

“I think he has made a philosophical error by thinking that having a beginning entails having a beginning point. And that’s simply not the case,” Craig replied.

He pointed toward his rendering of Hawking’s model. “Granted, there isn’t any singular point here, but notice this: the universe is still finite in its past. It still has a beginning in the sense that something has a finite past duration. In other words, pick an interval of time—say, a second, a minute, or a year. For any finite interval of time you pick, there are only a finite number of equal intervals prior to that time. And in that sense, Hawking’s model has a beginning. Even he says that the universe has an origin out of nothing in the sense that there’s absolutely nothing that comes before it.

“So this would be an example of a model that has a beginning but doesn’t involve a singularity. That’s what many scientists are trying to come up with, because the laws of physics would apply all the way back. They don’t break down in a singularity. And that’s more palatable to them.”

Before I could ask another question, Craig added: “Now, I’ve been taking Hawking’s model at face value, but it’s also important to note that he is only able to achieve this rounding-off effect by substituting ‘imaginary numbers’ for real numbers in his equations.”

“What are imaginary numbers?”

“They are multiples of the square root of negative one,” he said. “In this model, they have the effect of turning time into a dimension of space. The problem is that when imaginary numbers are employed, they’re just computational devices used to grease the equations and get the result the mathematician wants. That’s fine, but when you want to get a real, physical result, you have to convert the imaginary numbers into real ones. But Hawking refuses to convert them. He just keeps everything in the imaginary realm.”

“What happens if you convert the numbers into real ones?”

“
Presto
, the singularity reappears!” Craig said. “In fact, the singularity is really there the whole time; it’s just hidden behind the device of so-called imaginary time. Hawking concedes this in a subsequent book he co-authored with Roger Penrose.
⁴⁷
He said he doesn’t pretend to be describing reality, because he says he doesn’t know what reality is. So Hawking himself recognizes that this is not a realistic description of the universe or its origin; it’s merely a mathematical way of modeling the beginning of the universe in such a manner that the singularity doesn’t appear.”

I was amazed! Even though Hawking’s Internet site says his theory implies that the universe “was completely determined by the laws of science,”
⁴⁸
even he wasn’t able to successfully write God out of the picture.

“What’s important to understand, Lee, is how reversed the situation is from, say, a hundred years ago,” Craig continued. “Back then, Christians had to maintain by faith in the Bible that despite all appearances to the contrary, the universe was not eternal but was created out of nothing a finite time ago. Now, the situation is exactly the opposite.

“It is the atheist who has to maintain, by faith, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, that the universe did not have a beginning a finite time ago but is in some inexplicable way eternal after all. So the shoe is on the other foot. The Christian can stand confidently within biblical truth, knowing it’s in line with mainstream astrophysics and cosmology. It’s the atheist who feels very uncomfortable and marginalized today.”

As I sat there in Craig’s office, my mind could conjure up no rational scenario that could derail the inexorable logic of the
kalam
argument. The philosophical and scientific evidence of contemporary cosmology was pointing persuasively toward the conclusion that a personal Creator of the universe does exist. This was powerful stuff—and I still had a long way to go in my investigation.

I wondered, however, how a cosmologist or physicist might respond to Craig. As compelling as the
kalam
argument undeniably is, does it really have the potential to change the mind of a scientist? Or would it merely become fodder for more and more creative—or, as some might say, desperate—counter-arguments and objections? Christians often caution that a skeptic cannot be argued into the faith. Yet if someone were sincerely open-minded, could Craig’s case be sufficient to prompt a personal verdict in favor of God?

I mused about this aloud to Craig. He thought for a moment and then launched into a fascinating story about a doctoral dissertation, a handmade booklet, and a changed life.

PHYSICAL LAWS, SPIRITUAL LAWS

While in Germany to pursue his second doctorate, Bill and his wife, Jan, were attending a convention of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, a prestigious German organization devoted to promoting international research cooperation between scholars. While chatting with various scientists, they met a prominent Eastern European physicist, who described for them how physics had destroyed her belief in God.

“She said that now when she looks at the world, all she sees is darkness without and darkness within,” Craig recalled. “I remember how that struck me so forcefully. What a description of the modern world’s predicament—utter meaninglessness and despair.

“Suddenly, Jan spoke up. ‘You should read Bill’s doctoral dissertation,” she said. ‘He uses physics to prove the existence of God.’ ”

Craig’s eyes got wide as he relived the scene. “My first thought was, ‘Oh, no! What is this famous physicist going to say?’ But she replied that, yes, she would be very interested in reading it.

“So we gave her a copy of my dissertation on the
kalam
cosmological argument—the very kind of material we’ve been discussing today, Lee. As she read it over the coming days, she started to get more and more excited. She told me, ‘I know these people you’re quoting! These are my colleagues!’ Finally, she returned the dissertation to us and announced, ‘I now believe in the existence of God. Thank you so much for restoring my faith in him.’

“We were thrilled! We said, ‘Would you like to know him in a personal way?’ She was a bit hesitant, but she said, ‘Uh, of course.’ So we asked her to meet us that night in the local restaurant.

“That afternoon Jan and I prepared a little handwritten version of the Four Spiritual Laws, which spell out how a person can become a follower of Jesus.
⁴⁹
When we sat down with her at the meal that night, we opened the booklet and read the first sentence: ‘Just as there are physical laws that govern the physical universe, so there are spiritual laws that govern your relationship with God.’ And she said, ‘Oh, physical laws! Spiritual laws! This is something I can understand! This is just for me!’

“Finally, we got to the point in the booklet that asks whether God is outside of your life or on the throne of your life. She clamped her hand over the booklet and said, ‘Ah, this is so personal! I just can’t answer at this time.’ We said, ‘That’s all right. Let us just explain how you can receive Christ as your personal savior.’ We described how she could pray to ask God to forgive her wrongdoing and to receive Jesus as her forgiver and leader. After that, we let her take the booklet home with her.

“Well, the next day when we saw her, her face was just radiant with joy! She told us she had gone home that night and there in her room had prayed to give her life to Christ. Then she took all her tranquilizers and booze and flushed them down the toilet!

“We gave her a copy of the New Testament and parted ways for several months. When we saw her later at another convention, we wondered what the status of her faith would be. But she had the same joy, the same radiance, and she greeted us with love and told us that her most precious possessions were her New Testament and her handmade Four Spiritual Laws.”

Bill smiled. “You asked whether God can use cosmology to change the life of a scientist,” he said. “Yes, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it happen with all kinds of skeptics. Once I gave a talk at a college in Canada on the
kalam
argument. Afterward a student said, ‘I’ve been an agnostic all my life. I’ve never heard anything like this. I now believe that God exists! I can hardly wait to go share this with my brother, who’s an atheist.’ ”

Craig glanced out the window as he pondered what else to say. Then he turned to me once more. “Certainly there have been earlier ages when the culture was more sympathetic toward Christianity,” he said. “But I think it’s indisputable that there has never been a time in history when the hard evidence of science was more confirmatory of belief in God than today.”

I leaned over and punched the “stop” button on my recorder. I couldn’t think of a better segue to my next interview. Now that Craig had made a powerful case for God as Creator of the universe, it was time to consider the laws and parameters of physics. Is there any credibility, I wondered, to the claim that they have been tuned to an incomprehensible precision in order to create a livable habitat for humankind?

For Further Evidence

More Resources on This Topic

Craig, William Lane. “Design and the Cosmological Argument.” In
Mere Creation
, ed. William A. Dembski. Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998.

——.
Reasonable Faith
. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, revised edition, 1994.

——, and Quentin Smith.
Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Moreland, J. P. and Kai Nielsen.
Does God Exist?
Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1993.

6
THE EVIDENCE OF PHYSICS: THE COSMOS ON A RAZOR’S EDGE

It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. . . . The seemingly miraculous concurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design.

Physicist Paul Davies
¹

Would it not be strange if a universe without purpose accidentally created humans who are so obsessed with purpose?

Sir John Templeton.
²

H
e became a spiritual skeptic when he learned about Darwinism as a student. He worked for a while at a major Chicago newspaper and went to graduate school at an Ivy League university. Spurred by his wife’s Christianity, he later began investigating the evidence for a Creator. With his mind opened by the facts, he ended up shedding his atheism and embracing God, eventually writing a book that recounted his intellectual journey to faith.