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Whose design are they, Hawking & Lennox? God and Stephen Hawking by John C. Lennox (2011) is a small booklet, only 96 pages of 4.5 by 7 inches format. Even so, Lennox would do a better job by curbing himself to the first half of the volume. It’s, in essence, a Sunday morning sermon written by a mathemati- cian, a praised one (in the field of religion, that is, no so much in mathematics). Actually, I’ve enjoyed reading the first half in which Lennox dismant- les the Hawking’s arrogant and science-less writing in The Grand Design (2010). Hawking says "physics leaves no room for God". "Physics", that’s the arrogant part of it. Hawking, the physicist, feels an urge to answer the ultimate questions of life because "philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern development in science, particularly physics". "Physics", that’s the arrogant part of it. I’m with Lennox at this point, I’ve dealt with it earlier [101031]. Lennox stays focused on Hawking but I would like to add the hole pack of leading contemporary physicists who are responsible for an inept marriage of cosmology and elementary particles physics [110130]. Thanks to them, Lennox could treat his anti-physics agenda as a religious dispute - black matter and black energy are in the same category with the miracles like virgin birth and resurrection.And when it comes to miracles, in the second part of the booklet, Lennox turns from a vigorous anti-atheist to a below average pro-theist. True, he took a dreadful assignment to defend a general religious belief through the Christianity variation, a rather primitive variation. I’ve expected some thought provoking paragraphs, like those in The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong (2006). Nothing of the sort. Instead, you read: "By themselves, the laws of nature cannot rule out the possibility of the supernatural power. When a miracle takes place, it is the laws of nature that alert us to the fact that it is a miracle." Wow! Even more miraculous: "If God creates a miraculous spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. The laws at once take over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy follows, according to all the normal laws. and nine months later a child is born." Well, a good story for the Virgin Mary’s husband Joseph. Then, seriously, how could God - so busy creating everything from nothing - find time and priority to create a spermatozoon in the body of a single virgin? Why not a flock of them to ensure at least one success - by that time He should have enough experience after His many creation failures. |
Besides, why Lennox took Hawking, an easy target, a sitting duck, on his cross-hair? Why not some vibrant moving target? Me, for instance. When I’m trying not to be a physicist. |
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