Three questions reason alone cannot answer

An initial response to: “Hawking: God did not create Universe”^[1] 

Article by David Hollands, who is currently a Christian believer from west London.

Why do we seek answers?

In Stephen Hawking’s new book, The Grand Design^[2], he states:

We each exist for but a short time and in that time explore but a small part of the whole Universe. But humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the Universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the Universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.

But firstly I would like him to answer: Why do we wonder? Why do we seek answers? Stephen, can your methodological naturalism give me an explanation please? “It must have been evolutionarily beneficial for our species, the mind is a mere byproduct,” is the usual evolution of the gaps reply. Sadly, that’s the only response you get these days. “Evolution did it! Evolution did it!” The unthinking mantra repeats, now it will be “the Universe did it. The End.”

I’m afraid, I’m not satisfied by that kind of response, but what can I do, to who can I turn? My mind by default tends towards an inference to the best explanation approach and, if I’m truly honest with myself, this M-theory stuff is inexplicable. So I must rely on the wisdom of another, someone who understands M-theory, someone who knows best. Yet again I have to put my faith/trust in someone else. Someone who has more knowledge than me, I must submit to his authoritative brain and just believe.

Or is there an alternative? “God has set eternity in the hearts of man,”^[3] says the preacher.

Who can we trust?

With the “climate-gate” fiasco still rumbling on, the trustworthiness of some of the findings of some modern science has been brought, rightly or wrongly, into question. The following questions have arisen: How is “scientific knowledge” transmitted to us? Is the medium/media/method trustworthy? Who is accountable to whom?

These kinds of questions have been asked of the New Testament for centuries. So what? Well, what is the difference between popularised modern science and these, to use the Dawkinsian phrase^[4], “ancient scribblings?” I would posit, not as much as people think.

Whilst the new Atheists or the old obstinate agnostic^[a]s are still scrabbling around in the dark matter, considering any supernatural revelation impossible, Christians say they have the very words of God: “I am the light of the world, he who follows me shall never walk in darkness but have the light of life.”^[5] 

I have a choice, to trust an obscurantist, eccentric, and possibly elitist scientist or Jesus the carpenter of Nazareth who says^[6]: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

How should I live?

Popularised modern science offers no help living through the ups and downs of life. Making decisions is rather difficult.

Yet Christians have the way of love articulated by the apostle Paul^[7]: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”