Q&A: The Question of God According to Hawking
The Question of God According to Hawking
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Are you familiar with the late Stephen Hawking’s claim that the question of whether there is a God is as meaningless as asking where the edge of the earth is (since it is round), because before the Big Bang there was no time, and therefore there was no time at which God created the world?
What do you think of this? I know many arguments claiming that it is unlikely that there is a God, but an argument like this—that God’s existence is an illogical question—is new to me.
https://youtu.be/7L7VTdzuY7Y?feature=shared
Answer
I’m not familiar with it. But it’s a foolish argument, typical of Hawking. Even in physics people ask what was before the Big Bang, and certainly even without time one can ask who is the cause/reason for the world’s existence.
Even without time one can ask who is the cause/reason for the world’s existence? The absence of time only sharpens the question of what preceded the Big Bang! Hawking’s argument is the kind of sleight-of-hand argument that slick lawyers make before the judge at the sentencing stage. Arguments that usually don’t hold water.