This week was one of those weeks where the scientific news (going by Google News - Science / Technology section) gets dominated by the famous physicist Stephen Hawking commenting on his lack of certainty about God and this time his belief that Heaven is a fairy story. I guess I find that forgivable given the subject of his chosen scientific career, the vast entity which is the Universe in time and space and the mathematical laws which seem to govern it. I reckon even a mind like Stephen Hawking can get kind of lost in trying to fathom it and yet completely bowled over the apparent consistency throughout the Universe in the behaviour of its components. We tend to assume that these behavioural consistencies are down to some kind of overall something - that there is something at one end of the Universe (if it has ends) which is also 'there' at the other. In Hawking's case, as with most conventional scientists, he sticks to this something as being 'law' - the 'laws of physics', or, to his thinking, 'science' - science itself. It is as if the only thing which could be at both ends of the Universe and at every point in between has to be the most vast thing your brain can think of, something which can sit between any two points in time and space and at the same time can stretch across billions and gazillions of light years and billions of years of time and yet never change. To him that vast thing can only be science itself. I reckon for some they cannot think that it could be anything more than whatever it seems to be and that something they call 'science' or some kind of governance, hence the term 'laws' of nature. What is strange is that people like Stephen Hawking do not take a little further logical step and say that there could just be one single entity whose existence is so powerful that it has as much affect at one point in time and space as it does at any other point zillions of light years and billions of years away in pace and time. This step is entirely logical because the existence of a single entity with immeasurable power stretching like this and covering every point in between is as close, if not closer, to the concept that scientific law could be an entity so vast that nothing is outside its reach. Why would laws be like that unless there were something or someone driving them - a law enforcer. Laws are nothing unless they are enforced and they are still only as great in their reach as is the power of their enforcer. The idea that laws can exist without an entity which (or who) enforces them is a bit silly to me when I really think about. Jesus Christ's prophets and apostles said it is Jesus Christ himself and the power of His name which enforces the laws of nature in the Universe, and God the Father acting through Him. Hence Jesus Christ is called The Lord Jesus Christ, ruler over God's Creation. There is nothing illogical about just accepting this. His miracles while on Earth around 25AD and His resurrection and ascension prove it to the mind of one who believes. Nowadays He still proves it personally to some, to those who love Him, and even to me. Still mindblowing though - awesome. And to think that this One was on Earth for a time 2000 years ago in flesh and that He was crucified by 'us' and yet the night before that happened he was to be found in secret washing the feet of His disciples to teach them that they too should be able to humble themselves as much toward one another. Wow.
I guess Stephen Hawking and others are not perhaps so much discounting the possibility that the laws of physics and science are enforced by something or someone, so much as demanding the proof - and proof through scientific methodology. Here they seem on one hand to exalt science to being the ruler of the Universe and on the other imply that it is human methodology which is also called 'science' which should be the only methodology by which the enforcer of the Universe's laws should prove itself or His self to them the 'scientists'. Sorry but I don't quite buy it that the human method of discovery called 'science' is the same as the 'science' which is the 'laws of nature' so I cannot go along with asking that the one be the only means to prove the other. Yet He did indeed prove to one of His disciples His human body existence after His resurrection using the methodology dicated by that disciple. Thomas said 'unless I put my finger in the holes in His hands I won't believe He is alive again' (Jesus having had His hands punctured by nails during crucifixion and His disciples having said He had appeared to them alive from the dead) and Jesus when He later appeared to Thomas said 'Here put your finger in the inprint in my hand... stop doubting and believe' so yes I must accept that Jesus' humble character is such that He might indeed prove to the scientists who follow Him that He is the Lord over nature according to their own scientific criteria. I cannot discount it. Maybe the scientists such as Stephen Hawking need to be following Him first though.
