Stephen Hawking was a brilliant man
Many people will rightly be reminding us of Stephen Hawking’s many achievements and of his great character. I hope we can all admire the way he made the most of his life in spite of, or possibly because of, his terrible illness. I will not go into a lot of detail here about the man or his achievements, as others will do it so much better than I could. However, I do want to comment on one aspect of his life. His atheism.
Stephen Hawking rejected the possibility of there being any kind of Supreme Being
You might expect Christians to sigh with relief at his passing. Some may do so. I do not. I am glad someone set out the case against Christianity – and all religion – so well. His writings, notably The God Delusion, gave us a proper challenge. He forced us to think.
It was a pleasant change from the usual anti-Christian cliches:
- I’ve never read the Bible because it’s a load of rubbish
- I don’t believe in God because church services are boring
- Christians are hypocrites: the vicar never visited me when I was sick
- Evolution proves God didn’t create the universe
- There are so many religions, they can’t all be right.
You probably know of a few more. Stephen Hawking delved far deeper.
Was that good? Yes. It is true that what does not kill you strengthens you. Faith needs testing. But so does its antithesis.
We Christians owe Stephen Hawking a great debt of gratitude.
By now, he has probably discovered whether he was right or wrong about God. Although he never seemed to give God the benefit of the doubt, let us hope God will be more generous.