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    Is God Unnecessary?: Why Stephen Hawking Is Wrong According to the Laws of Physics
    Is God Unnecessary?: Why Stephen Hawking Is Wrong According to the Laws of Physics
    Is God Unnecessary?: Why Stephen Hawking Is Wrong According to the Laws of Physics
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    Is God Unnecessary?: Why Stephen Hawking Is Wrong According to the Laws of Physics

    By Walter Alan Ray

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    When Stephen Hawking, the most famous scientist living in the twenty-first century, published The Grand Design, he provoked a lively response in the media. Hawking wrote that the laws of physics make God unnecessary when explaining the origin of the universe and everything in it.

    In Is God Unnecessary?, author Walter Alan Ray presents nine reasons why Hawkings thesis is mistaken. Ray does not use philosophical or theological arguments, but presents the same laws of physics that Hawking says demonstrate his position. Ray examines

    Hawkings Apparent Miracle;
    Hawkings assumption that Charles Darwin explained the origin of human life;
    the question Can something come out of nothing?;
    the cosmological constant in Einsteins equations, the factor that Hawking considers the most impressive coincidence;
    Hawkings solution to the completely incomprehensible value of the cosmological constant; and
    how physics and mathematics join in showing that in the current state of our knowledge, physics and mathematics do have something to say about the origin of the universe.

    Ray determines that the laws of physics and mathematics show there are two possible answers to the question How did we come to live in a universe that is as astoundingly fine-tuned as ours?. The arguments presented by Ray in Is God Unnecessary? show neither of these two answers is the solution proposed by Hawking.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateOct 15, 2012
    ISBN9781475954647
    Is God Unnecessary?: Why Stephen Hawking Is Wrong According to the Laws of Physics
    Author

    Walter Alan Ray

    Walter Alan Ray grew up in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, as the son of a career Diplomat. Ray earned both a BS and an MS in electrical engineering from MIT. He earned an MDiv degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and a PhD in biblical studies from Princeton Theological Seminary. He worked as an electrical engineer at Microsoft Inc. in South Pasadena for three years and was the senior pastor of Glenkirk Church in Glendora, California, for thirty-one years. "I am dazzled by what Walter Ray has written and enthusiastically recommend it to you for consideration. Walter started his college career graduating as an engineering major at MIT, and subsequently received a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Princeton Theological Seminary. He then spent thirty-one years as a Presbyterian Pastor before his retirement. I believe only someone like Walter with his complex spiritual background could have produced such a book. To gain an impression of the manuscript's scope look at the fresh material in the table of contents. I believe this book will have a substantial impact on its readers." - Dr. James Likens, Prof. of Economics, Emeritus, Pomona College

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      Book preview

      Is God Unnecessary? - Walter Alan Ray

      Copyright © 2012 WALTER ALAN RAY

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-5463-0 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-5464-7 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012918639

      iUniverse rev. date: 10/10/2012

      Contents

      Preface

      Introduction

      1. Hawking’s Apparent Miracle

      2. A Reference to Darwin by Hawking

      3. Can Something Come from Nothing?

      4. The Mother of All Physics Problems

      5. Would 10⁵⁰⁰ Universes Be Enough?

      6. Would an Infinite Number of Universes Be Enough?

      7. The Surprising Result of Applying the Laws of Physics and Mathematics to the Origin of Our Universe

      Conclusion

      Appendix The God Experiment.

      Endnotes

      Preface

      Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.

      —Blaise Pascal, Pensées

      I was walking across the Charles River Bridge, which connects Boston to Cambridge. It was about one in the morning, and I was heading back to MIT, where I was a sophomore in electrical engineering. It was a beautiful, clear, starlit night. Looking up at the stars, a thought entered my mind: Walter, what if there is a God? The question was to myself because I considered myself an agnostic. My reply was this: No, I do not think there is, because he has never tried to communicate with me. I arrived back at my fraternity house and did not think about God much for the next several years.

      I have written an Appendix entitled The God Experiment to comment upon my journey from agnosticism.

      One of the truly stunning statements I have heard recently in the world of science came from Stephen Hawking, the most famous scientist living in the twenty-first century. He stirred up a great amount of discussion and media response with his latest book, The Grand Design.¹ In this book Hawking says the laws of physics show us that God is unnecessary because the laws of physics explain the origin of our universe.

      I decided to get The Grand Design and read about this remarkable statement. I read the book and afterward did not think Hawking’s statement was supportable by the laws of physics that he selected. I read the book again carefully and decided I wanted to pursue Hawking’s thesis about the laws of physics showing that God is unnecessary.

      What could possibly have equipped me to write a book showing the greatest living scientist in the world to be mistaken in saying that the laws of physics show God is unnecessary? Here is a partial answer to this question.

      I have long been interested in science, learning, and teaching. While I was in graduate school at MIT, I had the opportunity as a teaching assistant to teach MIT sophomores the basic course in electrical engineering.

      After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT, I worked at Microdot Inc. for several years as an electrical engineer and as a project engineer. While working at Microdot I designed a magnetron high-power generator that doubled the power output of the device that Microdot was using at that time.

      Following this, I tapped into another interest that led to my earning a master of divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and a doctoral degree in biblical studies from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. While I was in graduate school at Princeton Theological Seminary, I had the privilege of teaching Greek to first-year students. Teaching electrical engineering and Greek each involved doing further research and study in preparing myself to teach, and each was an experience I thoroughly enjoyed.

      Then I served as pastor of Glenkirk Presbyterian Church in Glendora, California.

      During all this time, I held on to a deep interest in our cosmos, and since my years in college, I have enjoyed studying and reading about the works of our leading cosmologists and physicists.

      This brings us back to Hawking and the laws of physics.

      Stephen Hawking is so well known that when he spoke at the California Institute of Technology in January 2011, people waited

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