There was no deathbed conversion for famous physicist Stephen Hawking.
“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,” Hawking said before his death.
In his 2010 book, The Grand Design, Hawking asserted that there is no need for a creator to explain the existence of the universe.
Hawking is dead. May he rest in peace. In 2,000 years, no one will know his name. His life, as King Solomon predicted in Ecclesiastes, will be meaningless vanity. But Jesus Christ, a poor carpenter from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, will still be King of the universe.
I doubt Hawking ever read the Bible. He was probably too busy trying to solve the equations of the universe. He made some great discoveries and advanced our worldly knowledge an infinitesimal amount.
Hawking deluded himself that he understood the nature of the universe. We know practically nothing. Just enough to scratch out our human existence.
Hawking was smart, no doubt, but he was not wise. King Solomon was wise, a gift he received from God. King Solomon knew his place in the world.
“I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing of the wind.
“Whatever exists is far off and most profound – who can discover it?
“As you do not know the path of the wind or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”
For Hawking to claim that his tiny bit of knowledge could explain the universe without God is not just unwise, it is patently stupid. Science is useful for our livelihood, but it cannot answer the larger philosophical and theological questions of human existence.
Fortunately, we have the Bible, the Word of God. It will tell us as much as we need to know about the bigger issues of life. Here’s a basic lesson: There is a God and we’re not him.
Like Hawking, we want to be God and know everything. Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge was the first mistake of man, setting down a road of sin, frustration and futility.
We have learned quite a few things, but it has not changed the nature of mankind one iota. We are still helpless sinners, here only by the mercy and grace of God.
When Jesus Christ rode a donkey into Jerusalem the crowd cried out “Hosanna!” They were shouting in Hebrew, “Save us.” They wanted to be saved from the Romans, but Jesus had a higher purpose.
The Merriam Webster definition of “save” is to “stop something from failing or ending; to keep something from being lost or wasted.”
Applying Hawking’s analogy that our minds are just computers, we “save” files and photos all the time. We delete bad photos. Atheist computer geeks are fascinated by the idea that life is some sort of simulated computer game created by an advanced society. But then mention God in that context and religion becomes a silly fairytale.
God can save us by his grace, forever, with all our loved ones intact, in a way we can never comprehend. Or he can delete us forever. It’s his world and he rules. That’s why a wise person should fear God.
Likewise, God can rewrite the program anyway he wants. He can run it backwards, forwards, skip ahead, stop the sun, part a river, annihilate an army and choose a virgin to give birth. He can even raise the dead.
There is a reason those who study the Bible end up believers. How could prophets living hundreds of years before the birth of Christ predict he would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey? Or not be pierced? Or have billions from every corner of the earth one day proclaim him King?
He is risen! Happy Easter!
Wyatt Emmerich is president of Emmerich Newspapers, which owns about 25 newspapers, mostly in Mississippi, including The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at wyatt@northsidesun.com.
