I have a deep respect for the life and work of Stephen Hawking. What an amazing mind! His gift to the world of physics was priceless. I found his practical and down-to-earth ability to explain very complex ideas in simple terms quite helpful. What’s more, his gift of encouragement to those with disabilities was profound.
It should be no surprise, however, that I find a couple of his proclamations very problematic, if not contradictory. As reported by USA Today, Hawking said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.” “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”[1] Of course, as a theist, I do not agree with this statement. However, this is not the quote that I find the most intriguing. You may be surprised by the one I find to be so revealing, and in a very subtle way.
In a lecture on black holes, Hawking described the shape of a black hole as spherical, yet not perfectly spherical. He went on to say, “One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist.”[2] Do you see the problem? To elaborate on it, I must refer to the great mind of C.S. Lewis.
One of Lewis’ antagonists once retorted that there is “no meaning to life.” To this Lewis replied, “If there is no meaning to life, how is it we have come to know what meaning is all about?[3] In other words, if there were no meaning to the universe, we would not know what meaning was in order to identify its absence!
Do you see it now? If, as Hawking asserted, there is no such thing as perfection, how is it we have come to know what perfection is? How, if it does not exist, have we been able to identify its absence? By what standard are we declaring that this universe is imperfect?
I am not refuting the imperfection of the universe. In the book Slices of God, you will find that I am convinced our universe is indeed imperfect. In fact, I believe it is broken. What I am arguing is that by insisting that there is no such thing as perfection, Hawking ironically argues that it does exist. As soon as we are convinced of the absence of one entity, we find ourselves proving its existence.
We must then ask the question, “Where does perfection exist?” Hawking, as well as many other physicists, believe the universe is comprised of 11 dimensions. Most of these physicists believe the 7 “extra” dimensions (beyond 4-dimensional space-time) are tiny, curled-up, invisible dimensions that only serve the subatomic quantum realm. Perhaps, but there may be more to these dimensions “than meets the eye.”
I believe that in some extra-dimensional realm, perfection does exist. You may call such a realm “the next domain,” “heaven,” “the afterlife,” or by any other name, but therein exists perfection and ultimate meaning. Some call this perfection by a more common designation: God.
If there were no perfection or afterlife, Hawking would not have argued for their nonexistence and you would not be reading this post.
– Sam Augsburger
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/03/14/heaven-fairy-story-what-stephen-hawking-says-happens-when-people-die/423344002/
[2] http://www.newsweek.com/stephen-hawking-quote-life-universe-aliens-dead-843692
[3] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1952), 39.
