Season 5 Podcast 44, A New Voice of Freedom, Argument for the Existence of God, Episode 35, “Science and Faith B ‘Self-Existing Law’.”

A New Voice of Freedom

Season 5 Podcast 44, A New Voice of Freedom, Argument for the Existence of God, Episode 35, “Science and Faith B ‘Self-Existing Law’.”

In last week’s episode we introduced the following quote from Stephen Hawking’s book, “The Grand Design.” In this episode I want to explore its implications further.

Over the centuries many, including Aristotle, believed that the universe must have always existed in order to avoid the issue of how it was set up. Others believed the universe had a beginning, and used it as an argument for the existence of God. The realization that time behaves like space presents a new alternative. It removes the age-old objection to the universe having a beginning, but also means that the beginning of the universe was governed by the laws of science and doesn’t need to be set in motion by some god. (Stephen Hawking, “The Grand Design)

Let’s take the statement, “the beginning of the universe was governed by the laws of science and doesn’t need to be set in motion by some god” to its logical conclusion.

The first response any theist should ask is, “Where did the laws of science come from?” It assumes that science self-exists. In other words, science is God because it precedes law. It is an inherent contradiction. But let’s be fair. Language is seldom precise. Though it is dangerous to say what someone else meant, let’s assume that Mr. Hawking meant that laws came first. But that still begs the question, ‘Where did laws come from?’

A theist would claim that the existence of law is strong evidence for the existence of intelligent design, and intelligent design is evidence of God. That puts science right back where it started, having to explain the origins of law.

The alternative is that laws self-exist. That is the most logical assumption since Mr. Hawking denies the existence of God, unless of course, as with the creation of the universe and the origin of life, he, meaning science, wishes to argue that laws were created by chance. But surely the probability of that is so small that even science would reject it.

However, the self-existence of law poses three major logical problems:

1. The age of the universe

2. The accidental universe

3. The existence of life.

Let’s take those in order.

First The Age of the Universe

Understanding the First Law of Thermodynamics, we know that matter and energy have neither beginning nor ending. They cannot be created or destroyed. They too must self-exist. The self-existence of law means that the organization of matter and energy through law has no beginning or ending. In short, the universe should be infinitely older than it is, older than time, as old as law itself. Science claims the universe is 13.7 billion years; however, that is merely last week on the cosmic scale; otherwise, science must claim that laws are latent and wake up now and then which is contrary to law, logic, and science. If laws wake up, they must go back to sleep.

The number one argument against the self-existence of law is the age of the universe. If law self-exists and matter and energy self-exist then creation must reflect that and in effect be from everlasting to everlasting. You have the problem of infinity. That goes back to the claim of Aristotle that the universe has always existed.

Second, The Accidental Universe

Science claims to have solved two of the greatest dilemmas of creation—the creation of man, and the creation of the universe. Their conclusion is that the universe was organized by accident and life was organized by evolution. Let’s first consider the accidental universe.

Mr. Hawking is correct in claiming that the beginning of the universe was governed by law.