Monday, May 16, 2011

Hawking on God





("Our glorious galaxy Milky Way - from the Kofa Mountains, Arizona", a picture from this site)



"What could define God [is a conception of divinity] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God. They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible." - Stephen Hawking

Although this statement was made by Hawking as a refutation of the existence of God (the God "most people would think of" "with whom one can have a personal relationship"), this same statement makes all the more the Christian revelation of God more resplendent, unique and awesome.

That it "seems most impossible" given "the vast size of the universe and how insignificnat an accidental human life is" is precisely the point. The nature of God is love. God in his love became man – Jesus Christ – to show us the depth, breadth and height – actually infinitesimal. How can a God so great be mindful of an insignificant human life? The Psalmist (Psalm 8) asked this a long time ago –

Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set
your glory
above the heavens.

From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praiseb
because of your enemies,
to silence the
foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your
fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what
is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beingsc
and crowned
him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your
hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds,
and
the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord,
how
majestic is your name in all the earth!



But God has loved us, and continues to love us, and has made us the crowning glory of his creation with his divinity shared to us - the dinivity of love.

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