Definitions
Law of Gravity: A scientific description of how objects with mass attract one another; often understood as part of a broader theory like general relativity.
Scientific Law: A statement describing observed regularities in nature, not necessarily an agent or cause.
Brute Fact: Something that exists or is true without explanation or further cause; it "just is."
Creation ex nihilo: The idea that something (usually the universe) came into existence from absolute nothingness.
Spontaneous Creation: The concept that the universe can arise from nothing due to natural laws or quantum phenomena, without requiring a creator.
M-Theory: A theoretical framework in physics that unifies different string theories and suggests multiple possible universes.
Pantheism: The belief that the universe and God are identical — that everything collectively is divine.
The Argument
It must be admitted that the law of gravity is a mystery. In science, it's valuable to have a way of proving a law false — but with gravity, this is not possible. It is profoundly mysterious. Stephen Hawking claimed the law of gravity causes the universe to make itself from nothing. He was not suggesting that it was a sentient creator or maker.
This is a response to Christian refutations of Hawking. These refutations can be found in John Lennox’s book God and Stephen Hawking, and relevant pages from this book are referenced below.
“Hawking Was Only Giving an Opinion”
Believers in God say Hawking was merely expressing an opinion.
But if it were just an opinion, why do his scientific explanations proceed as if God does not exist? Atheism runs through his science, in the sense that God is conspicuously absent.
Why is there a God rather than no God? Christians answer that God didn’t make himself — he just is. His existence is a brute fact, and they say there’s no need to question it further.
But then, one could equally say that whatever exists is just a brute fact — and there is no answer beyond that.
Christians reject the idea that the universe is a brute fact, seemingly because it contains things that do not need to exist — for example, all those empty galaxies. They argue that brute facts must be the reason for their own existence, i.e., they must exist necessarily, regardless of how it appears.
But perhaps all things are a manifestation of some form of energy that is a brute fact — an energy that keeps itself in existence. Imagine carbon were a brute fact. Creatures made of carbon could be dispensable, but that doesn’t mean the carbon itself is.
The only thing that can be a brute fact is some kind of energy — an essence without intelligence or consciousness. God cannot be a brute fact. If we can imagine a spirit with intelligence, we can also imagine one without it. That would be an essence like God, but not God.
There are simpler and more likely explanations for how things came to be — without invoking God.
And what right has anyone who has not learned and thought as deeply as Hawking to dismiss his findings as mere opinion?
“Hawking Believes in the Big Bang, Therefore He Believes in Creation”
Wrong. The Big Bang idea says that something exploded and became the universe. It is not creation out of nothing — because nothing cannot explode.
Some Christians argue that there was something made from nothing, which then exploded and became the universe. But this is as absurd as having a non-existent wife. At least they admit the Big Bang is not the same as creation.
“Hawking Rejected an Incorrect View of God”
Christians note that Hawking said there was no need "to invoke God to light the blue torch paper to set the universe going" (p. 44). They argue that their God does more than that — he continually sustains the universe’s existence at every moment.
But they also say he started the universe. Hawking only said that there is no need for God to start it — which logically extends to say there’s no need for a God to keep it going either.
Christians exaggerate and distort Hawking’s position.
Hawking never misrepresented the idea of God. For him, God simply meant that which can make something where nothing existed before — creation from nothing. Even if he misunderstood more complex theology, he got that basic doctrine right, and it is that doctrine he rejects. Hawking’s understanding of God is beside the point; what matters is his rejection of creation ex nihilo.
“Hawking Contradicts Himself by Referring to the 'Mind of God'”
He never defined what he meant by God. For Einstein and many pantheists, "God" meant nature or being itself — not a personal deity. Hawking could have been using the phrase in the same way.
It is dishonest for Christians to imply that Hawking meant the Christian God when he referred to the "mind of God."
“Only Lawmakers Make Laws — So Gravity Requires a God”
Christians claim that if gravity is a law, someone must have made that law.
But Christians themselves believe there are eternal laws that God did not make — for instance, the law that God exists and cannot go out of existence. If God didn’t make himself, then he didn’t make the law that he exists.
Eternity is timelessness. Both theists and atheists must admit that some laws are eternal — laws that exist independently of a lawgiver. If a lawmaker must be allowed to make laws, who made the laws that allow him to make laws? It becomes an infinite regress.
If there is no God and nothing exists, it still remains a law that a non-existent man cannot become an accountant.
Laws do not imply a lawmaker. Laws are not commands; they are descriptions of how things behave. "Law" is a metaphor. If it rains every October, we call it "a law" — but it's just a regularity.
Even if nothing existed, it would still be true that 1 apple + 1 apple = 2 apples. This is a law that doesn’t require a maker.
So when Christians claim that atheists say “laws make everything” and therefore a God must make the laws — they are misunderstanding both the atheist position and what "law" means in science.
“M-Theory Made Gravity, and Gravity Made the Universe — But Theories Can’t Make Anything”
This is a caricature of Hawking’s position.
Supporters of evolution don’t say the theory made life evolve — they say the theory describes how it did.
Hawking doesn’t say M-theory makes things. He says it describes how things could arise. He doesn't claim it's proven, only that it is a plausible model.
Wittgenstein’s Point
On page 43, Lennox quotes Wittgenstein, who warned against believing that laws explain the universe when they only describe its regularity.
Saying "the sun rises in the east" is a description, not an explanation. Nobody can fully explain how anything — even a grain of sand — comes to be. Lennox wrongly accuses Hawking of saying that laws create things. We've already shown that's not what Hawking meant.
“Gravity Made the Universe, But It’s Not Nothing — So Hawking Contradicts Himself”
Hawking is saying that gravity and the universe are separate — gravity enabled the universe to emerge from nothing. Christians also say God made the universe, which is separate from him. So why can't gravity do the same?
“Hawking Rejects Free Will — So Why Trust His Thinking?”
This argument says: if Hawking is just a machine, why trust his book?
But we don't need an intelligent force to make a stream before we drink from it. The fact that thoughts arise doesn't mean they aren't useful. Realisations simply happen. Free will does not cause them.
Having free will doesn't mean we can rise above our own intellect. In fact, that would make our intellect less trustworthy. If anything, being embedded in the universe — not standing apart from it — is what enables us to learn.
You don’t need free will to learn what hot or cold feels like. Similarly, we don’t need to know how we acquire knowledge in order to have it. Christianity rejects this because it implies we don't need God — and that makes atheism the true upholder of human dignity.
“Hawking Should Not Speak About God at All — That’s Beyond Science”
This implies that science can do just fine without God — which is an admission that there’s no evidence for him.
God, by definition, is not just a creator, but the reason anything matters. If science can function without reference to God, then God is irrelevant to science.
Science shows us that suffering exists. If suffering contradicts a good God, then science has disproved God. It's unscientific to declare that some ideas are too sacred to question.
Likewise, science should not be forbidden from proving God either — if that were possible. Declaring such inquiries off-limits is not a scientific attitude.
Final Thought
Nobody can match Hawking’s mind, so nobody should claim he is simply wrong. If we say a supernatural cause is needed for all things, then why can’t gravity itself — or some version of it — be supernatural?
Maybe it's a different form of gravity than we know today.