aas@sat.datapoint.com (Adrienne Stipe) (12/15/89)
Does anyone know anything about a book called "A Brief History of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes" by Stephen Hawking? My husband heard that it was a defense of creationism, and wants to read it. However, I heard that the author does not believe in God. I'd appreciate any input on this. My husband and I are both Christians. [I haven't read it, but I am rather confident that it is not a defense of creationism. If it were, it would not be appropriate to discuss it here, since I redirect discussion of creationism to talk.origins. If anyone who has read it sees any theological implications of the book that are worth commenting on -- and which are not better suited to talk.origins -- feel free to enlighten us. --clh]
dfm@att.att.com (12/17/89)
I have read Mr. Hawkings' book (actually, I've read it twice -- it is fun reading, but not what I would call "light"). It has been a while since then, and I am writing this from memory, so what I say may not be exactly right, but should be pretty close. This book is definitely not a defense of creationism, in the traditional sense. Mr. Hawkings is, in this book, attempting to answer questions about the nature of the universe and how God created it. He makes no bones about his belief that the universe was created by God, but he clearly does not accept the Biblical account. He also, if my memory serves correctly, states that a more important question than how God created the universe is why He did -- Mr. Hawkings states that in trying to answer that question, he is trying to know the mind of God. He is clearly an immensely intelligent human, and may very well be able to come more closely than anyone else now, but I think he is reaching a little too far, here. Dennis F. Meyer att!ihlpl!dfm AT&T Network Systems 708/510-2277
cjh@petsd.ccur.com (12/19/89)
Somebody from San Antonio asked whether _A Brief History of Time_ was
explicitly religious, in particular, whether it defended creationism.
I read the book with some enjoyment, as a tour-de-force of explaining
difficult ideas in modern physics without any equations at all. It
never explicitly deals with religious matters. However, I got the
impression that Hawking was laying the groundwork for a non-theistic
view of the cosmos, as something which is self-sufficient and has no
need of being created. His argument actually got rather technical
(still without equations!); and I would take exception to it for
technical reasons. I don't go into these because:
(a) they are abstruse;
(b) he is, after all, *Stephen Hawking*, and I am only me;
(c) I am not sure I really know, from this book, what his model is;
(d) I don't think that the physical issues control the theological
issues.
Peace,
Chris
(201)758-7288 106 Apple Street, Tinton Falls,N.J. 07724st0o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Steven Timm) (12/19/89)
I have read S. Hawking's book. It is neither (in my opinion) a defense of creationism nor a book by an author which shows disbelief in God. Some creationists may take Hawking's new theories of the origins of the universe as "disproving" the standard theory of the hot big bang. Others are concerned by his thesis that the universe did not really have a beginning. Hawking was quoted (I don't believe it's in this book ) "Even if we did have a theory of everything, we would still be forced to ask what breathes life into the equations and make them move" (rough paraphrase).
firth@sei.cmu.edu (12/21/89)
In article <Dec.14.23.45.28.1989.14958@athos.rutgers.edu> aas@sat.datapoint.com (Adrienne Stipe) writes: >Does anyone know anything about a book called "A Brief History >of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes" by Stephen Hawking? >My husband heard that it was a defense of creationism... First, I have read the book, and recommend it to anyone interested in current thinking about cosmology. Hawking is not only a brilliant scientist, he can write a reasonable popular book. Secondly, I'll venture to comment about it. (For those who care, I studied theoretical physics at Cambridge under Paul Dirac, among others, so have some claims to competence.) The book is not in any sense a defence of creationism; indeed, Hawking's attitude to God is much the same as Laplace's: "I have no need of that hypothesis." The issue that seems most interesting is that of the 'Big Bang'. If we look at the universe, we see that it has been changing over time. As best we can determine, by projecting our current knowledge backwards, and asking what the universe was like earlier in time, we reach a "singularity": a moment in time when the universe was very small, very hot, and very dense, and at which our methods of retrodiction break down. This is the moment of the big bang. It is tempting to identify that moment as the moment of Creation. But it is not the traditional creation: if it occurred it was a very long time ago (about 18 thousand million years), and what was created was very different from today's heavens and earth. Hawking does not take this stance. His answer to the obvious question "what came before the big bang?" is not "the spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters", is not even "I don't know". His answer is to say that the question is meaningless. The analogy he gives is interesting. On the Earth, we have North and South. We can ask "what is north of Algiers?" and get the answer "Marseilles", perhaps. We can then ask "What is north of Marseilles?" and get the answer "Orleans". And so on. As we go further north, the distance around the earth contracts, and if we project our measurements far enough north, it contracts to a point, a singularity. So the ulimate answer to "what is north of X?" is "the North Pole", the singularity. And the question "what is north of the North Pole?" is meaningless; there is nothing north of the North Pole. Similarly, says Hawking, our dimension of time terminates at the pastward singularity; there is nothing before the Big Bang. Moreover, recall that these are the answers of a physicist. Hawking's argument makes a case that the question "what came before X" is a question of physics, not of religion; this is evidently an argument hostile to creationism, which rests ultimately on the belief that for some "X" the question "what came before?" is indeed a religious one. I think he makes a pretty good case, too. But that still leaves a lot of other religious questions. Robert Firth [I think this is about as far as this topic can go without becoming a discussion of creationism, something I'm unwilling to have in this group. --clh]