Julian Baggini on Stephen Hawking’s deicide
Did Stephen Hawking kill God? It would be easy to be too simplistic about the different “magesteria” of science and religion, argues humanist philosopher Julian Baggini. But even with a nuanced philosophical view of how religion might provide meaning, science is still tripping up even the most sophisticated theology.
Hawking’s “mind of God” was never anything more than a metaphor for an understanding of the universe which is complete and objective. Indeed, it has been evident for some time that Hawking does not believe in anything like the traditional God of religion. “You can call the laws of science ‘God’ if you like,” he told Channel 4 earlier this year, “but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions.”
This reflects an inconvenient truth about science that religion would prefer to ignore. For although it is true that science doesn’t rule out a role for religion in providing meaning, or a God who kick-started the whole universe off in the first place, it does leave presumed dead in the water anything like the God most people over history have believed in: one who is closely involved in his creation, who intervenes in our lives, and with whom we can have a personal relationship. In short, there is no room in the universe of Hawking or most other scientists for the activist God of the Bible. That’s why so few leading scientists are religious in any traditional sense.
This point is often overlooked by apologists who grasp at any straw science will hold out for them.
