Stephen Hawking And The Chief Rabbi

One of my greatest frustrations with some people of faith is their recruitment of famous scientists to justify their beliefs. These folks have long played this game with Albert Einstein who famously used the word “God” in several public pronouncements. When he saw how his words were being abused, he tried many times to correct the public record:

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere…. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science,” New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930

Professor Stephen Hawking was co-opted in the same manner. In A Brief History of Time he wrote about his search for a unified theory:

If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.

While there was no need to assume that this was a classical theistic statement, believers were thrilled to have such a quote and ran it into the ground. Now the headlines are claiming that, with the publication of his new book, The Grand Design, he has changed his mind. (He has done no such thing.)

For anyone not familiar with the new book (written with Leonard Mlodinow), it very clearly states that the laws of the universe require no creator. I assume that Dr. Hawking will no longer be held out as a model of a theistic scientist, though I would have assumed the same of Einstein.

In Hawking’s native England one of the first to rebut the book’s conclusion was Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. His article, published in The Times of London, asserted that scientists do not understand the purpose of religion. (You can read it here.) Apparently, its purpose is not to explain the creation of the universe:

There is a difference between science and religion. Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation. Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. They are different intellectual enterprises. They even occupy different hemispheres of the brain. Science – linear, atomistic, analytical – is a typical left-brain activity. Religion – integrative, holistic, relational – is supremely a work of the right-brain.

Science, he tells us, can only explain how things happen. Religion tells us why. We know that they are two very different intellectual enterprises. How do we know this? Apparently the scientific discoveries regarding the brain’s centers of cognition teach us that religion is a whole different thing than science.

Here’s another bit of Lord Sacks’ article:

The Bible is not proto-science, pseudo-science or myth masquerading as science. It is interested in other questions entirely. Who are we? Why are we here? How then shall we live? It is to answer those questions, not scientific ones, that we seek to know the mind of God.

He must be referring to a bible that I am unfamiliar with. The one I’ve been studying for thirty years is extremely interested in all kinds of questions of how. It’s got a detailed creation narrative (okay, two detailed creation narratives), stories galore in which the natural course of things is interrupted by supernatural interventions and tons of morally questionable acts by a deity who justifies it all by his great superiority at world making:

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof…(Job 38:4)

Well, Lord Sacks, we now have understanding and it can also provide us with meaning. This meaning goes well beyond the Iron Age morality and interpretations of the world presented to us by traditional religion.

I’ll conclude by noting that the Chief Rabbi seems to accept the principles of Darwinian evolution. He might want to pop his head out of the House of Lords some time to take notice of what is being taught in Orthodox schools throughout the world. They seem committed to the bible’s creation narrative. The world is 5771 years old. Adam and Eve were real people. And the snake talked. Really.

Stephen Hawking and the Chief Rabbi