Brief Answers to the Big Questions

Underscoring the theme of Knowing the Universe Through Science, Hawking begins the book’s arguments by declaring that the laws of science make a god unnecessary. He doesn’t insist that God doesn’t exist, but he doesn’t believe that such a being exists, certainly not one who interferes with the universe. For Hawking, the laws of science are god enough. Hawking’s argument lays bare the schism between science and religion. Science is a form of empiricism, the belief that we find truth by thinking about data we obtain through the senses; conversely, religions believe that divine intervention reveals truth. Where advocates for science and religion clash, each group retreats to its fundamentals, and reconciliation is hard or impossible for them.

Over the centuries, scientific discoveries have explained the natural reasons for phenomena—lightning, earthquakes, diseases, and the like—that in the past were attributed to gods. When the predictions of science prove accurate, people begin to adjust their lives accordingly. In recent decades, fewer people belong to organized religions. For them, scientific knowledge is sufficient to explain their world’s events and phenomena.

Religion in the modern world has gradually ceded its explanatory power to science, and the realms in which it can still lay a claim—the creation of the universe, the purpose and meaning of life, the destiny of humanity—have become increasingly smaller. However, people yearn for reasons to live, and religion provides those answers. To take away all justification for a god, as Hawking’s theories about the origin of the universe appear to do, is perhaps to empty our universe of meaning, making it sterile and pointless.

Hawking unwinds some of this when he attests to his ongoing sense of wonder at the magnificence of the universe. In addition, he takes heart in the continuing presence of life and consciousness in his and others’ descendants—and he doesn’t completely rule out the possibility of a god who set forth the laws on which the universe began and continues to evolve. His position is thus somewhat akin to that of deists, who believe in a god who doesn’t interfere with the cosmos.

Hawking argues that God couldn’t have decided “before” the universe existed to create it because time doesn’t exist outside the universe. Critics may counter that if space and time don’t exist beyond the cosmos, then perhaps neither do the laws of physics that operate within the universe—including the quantum mechanical principle that permits a universe to get started in the first place. If no such laws exist beyond the cosmos, then the cause of the universe remains open to conjecture, and God might yet have a place in creation.

Hawking’s publicly expressed disbelief in a personal god made him a target of religious leaders and those sharply critical of science. They go to great pains to point out the flaws and mistakes in scientific efforts, and they make a target of Hawking for his bold stance on topics that religious adherents believe are best left to their own ways of thinking. His views often offended many on the political right, but as a person who endured a grave illness for more than half a century, he had little to fear from their opprobrium. The author mentions some of his views, with his characteristic bravado, later in the book.