Jane's reading a magazine which has a picture of a T-shirt on the cover. On the T-shirt is written GOD LOVES ATHEISTS - which I rather like. Because it's true. This morning's sermon mentioned what St Peter said, "the Lord is... not wishing that any should perish". There are various old jokes about atheism, such as: "I don't believe in God." "Ah but He believes in you." And graffito: "God is dead (Nietsche)" Added underneath: "Nietsche is dead (God)". However I don't think God is into easy point-scoring. Might not be too much of a problem! I think the truth is that He loves even those who reject Him.
I don't think God will feel too threatened by the eminent MND sufferer and quantum physics professor from Cambridge, Stephen Hawking, asserting that He wasn't needed to explain the Big Bang and that it's simply the inevitable outworking of the laws of physics. My nephew tells me, "the irony about Hawking's comment was that it was based on a very controversial metaphysical part of science that is not backed up with any emperical evidence at the moment (so not really based on much evidence - as many atheists like to pin on the Christians)." Which if true strikes me as odd, as 'a metaphysical part of science' seems an oxymoron. There are two good articles on the internet by men more qualified to comment than me:
Which I suppose in a way was what St Paul was getting at when he said, "Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe" (1 Corinthians 1. 20 21). Annoying for us intellectuals! But good news for everyone - it's not an elitist preserve.
I don't think God will feel too threatened by the eminent MND sufferer and quantum physics professor from Cambridge, Stephen Hawking, asserting that He wasn't needed to explain the Big Bang and that it's simply the inevitable outworking of the laws of physics. My nephew tells me, "the irony about Hawking's comment was that it was based on a very controversial metaphysical part of science that is not backed up with any emperical evidence at the moment (so not really based on much evidence - as many atheists like to pin on the Christians)." Which if true strikes me as odd, as 'a metaphysical part of science' seems an oxymoron. There are two good articles on the internet by men more qualified to comment than me:
One a comment by Professor John Lennox from Oxford - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html
And the other by astrophysicist, Professor David Wilkinson of Durham - http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=429496055821&id=615659947
"The science Stephen Hawking uses raises a number of questions which for many opens the door to the possibility of an existence of a creator and for many points to the existence of a creator." Dr Wilkinson, in an interview in the Times, identifies three aspects of Stephen Hawking's argument which might actually lead to belief in a Creator: purpose of the universe, the origin of the 'laws' and its intelligibility. Though his own faith, he says, rests not on arguments from creation but from the historical and experiential evidence of the person of Jesus.
Which I suppose in a way was what St Paul was getting at when he said, "Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe" (1 Corinthians 1. 20 21). Annoying for us intellectuals! But good news for everyone - it's not an elitist preserve.
Where is the ad-man of this age? A Brief History of Time was meant to have had such good sales partly because of Hawking's comment about knowing the mind of God. This new story smacks of a good marketing campaign.
ReplyDelete