Title: God and Stephen Hawking
Author: John Lennox
This is the first book I’ve read by John Lennox. I picked it up as it offered a response to Hawking’s Grand Design. The first thing I did was examine Lennox’s credentials and, I must say, I was more than impressed. Lennox is a Professor of Mathematics and a contemporary of Hawking at Oxford University. I was intrigued to examine the arguments of a Christian apologist who also engaged in something as logical as advanced mathematics. Lennox did not disappoint.
Hawking may be the “Grandmaster of Physics” but Lennox immediately establishes that the author of The Grand Design fails in his attempts to engage in the metaphysical. Lennox defines the battle as one between Theism and Atheism with scientists on both sides (rather than one between Science and Faith) and makes the case that Hawking’s assertion that philosophy is dead qualifies as a philosophical statement (thus revealing the inconsistencies in Hawking’s position). Lennox then proceeds to systematically destroy Hawking’s philosophical position.
Of particular interest was Lennox’s attack on Hawking’s primary alternative to God, M-theory (or multiverse). Lennox explores the proposition of the multiverse and makes the case that M-Theory in and of itself does not provide an adequate alternative to a Divine Creator.
I found it quite refreshing that Lennox approaches his subject matter as one who obviously respects knowledge and respects the sciences while also believing in Jesus Christ. Lennox is a scholar of the highest caliber and destroys any notion that Theism is somehow contrary to science.
I recommend his book for anyone who has read Hawking’s The Grand Design as well as for any Christian who is approaching a study of the sciences. At the very least, Lennox aptly demonstrates how to recognize when statements of science deviate into the realm of the metaphysical.
I greatly look forward to reading more John Lennox.
DYING 2 SELF 