Hawking doubts God, rabbi doubts Hawking

THEORETICAL physicist Stephen Hawking is arguably the greatest mind of our time, and when the former Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University muses on life and the universe, people listen.

So what does it mean for the God-fearing set when the man responsible for advancing the cause of quantum gravity conjectures that God could not have had a hand in the creation of the universe?

In his best-selling book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking accepted the influence of some sort of God in the expansion of the universe. But the scientist caused a stir last week when he repudiated this theory in his new book, Grand Design.

Hawking explores the idea that gravity could have created the universe from nothing, and that it was “not necessary to invoke God to get the universe going”.

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” Hawking wrote.

But according to The Great Synagogue’s Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, Hawking’s research and faith in God aren’t mutually exclusive. “Jewish teaching can accommodate a physical universe that approximates 15 billion years in age; also that we have become what we are now through an evolutionary process, which began with humble amino acids,” Rabbi Lawrence said.

“This does not disprove or negate a creative God initiating and maintaining these processes. It does not negate a God of values and principles, of revelation and judgement. I believe that it is more than complexity and the ability to calculate that distinguishes me from the amoeba or our cleverer cousins, the chimpanzee.”

But science versus God is nothing new, and Hawking, with his own revelation, is both preaching to the scientific choir and falling on the deaf ears of believers.

So what of the agnostics? Will they be swayed? Rabbi Lawrence is unperturbed. “I don’t believe that Hawking has disproved God, but rather said there is no need for a God. That doesn’t mean that we need to accept that there is no God or that there is no spirituality within us.”

ADAM KAMIEN