This article first appeared in The Tablet on 11 September 2010, pp 4-5, following the publication of the book by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design Stephen Hawking is not the first scientist to declare God obsolete. But his latest findings following his researches into the origins of the universe provoke profound questions about our perceptions of God and the relationship between science and theology. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist… It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” Such were the fighting words excerpted in the press from Stephen Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design, co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow. So no need for God, science has it all sorted. In the late 1920’s, the Belgian mathematician (and Catholic priest) Georges Lemaître had … Continue reading →