

Stephen Hawking, belief in God and the multiverse


Physicist Stephen Hawking is certainly not the first scientist to dismiss thousands of years of religious belief, but he’s the latest. And he’s got a new book.

Hawking and Caltech physicist Leonard Mlodinow, in “The Grand Design,” tackle questions both scientific and philosophical, exploring man’s understanding of how life came to be.

The authors argue that physics, and specifically a derivation of string theory called M-theory, can explain the beginning of the so-called multiverse, making God immaterial to the equation.

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” says Hawking. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.


Accepting the idea that M-theory can give an explanation for why life exists is probably a leap of faith in itself, unless you are as smart as Hawking.

Others remain skeptical, including Craig Callendar, a philosophy professor at the University of California, San Diego:

M-theory in either sense is far from complete. But that doesn’t stop the authors from asserting that it explains the mysteries of existence: why there is something rather than nothing, why this set of laws and not another, and why we exist at all. According to Hawking, enough is known about M-theory to see that God is not needed to answer these questions. Instead, string theory points to the existence of a multiverse, and this multiverse coupled with anthropic reasoning will suffice. Personally, I am doubtful. (New Scientist)

Either way, it’s pretty good buzz for a book launch.

Categories: General
Chris Preovolos

3 Responses

  1. Dan O'Connor says:

    Any theory within the natural cannot explain how the natural came into existence. That requires the SUPERnatural (God)

    I’ve got my own article arguing for God’s existence on my blog:

    and here

  2. eddie s says:

    Hawkins is just bitter about his physcial condition and has been ranting at God for years about it..Plus we have a huge ego to go with it…So I have no doubt God may be sending Egotist Hawkins a message of some type…and it is all Theory but since the Bible has been around for 2000 years and there has been thousands of so called experts studying the Bible and there is proof, not a theory, that the Bible is an actual document to which sites, graves, etc. etc. can be physcially seen,,,versus a couple of egotistical arrongants thinking they are God’s, I will remain a believer instead of a deceiver…And the more they try to dissuade one that this is no God, they just continue to prove that there is a God or a supreme being who put all of it together, making these arrogants, ignornant fools…..but then again with most learned men Ignorance is bliss, or the “take” from the next book!

  3. Cletus the Impaler says:

    Theories are just that, theories, educated guessed, based more on unproven assumption then they are based on fact. If they were fact, then they would not be theory. I don’t believe Mr. Hawking is as smart as people play him out to be.