Antioch Abouna: The Old Hat Which is Deism

Thursday, September 02, 2010

The Old Hat Which is Deism

So Stephen Hawking has discovered that he does not need the "God hypothesis" to account for creation out of nothing. Spontaneous generation is all that is required ... but you see his "nothing" is not my "nothing" because he is working from an assumption of Deism, whereas I am not.

Hawking on the BBC

This is a classic case of an atheist/former agnostic not knowing much theology. The "God-who-lit-the-blue-touch-paper" is the Deist god .... completely incompatible with most of the worlds major religions ... particularly those which subscribe to the creation 'ex nihilo' (out of nothing) belief.

The Deists, who came to prominence after the Enlightenment, believed in a god who kick-started the Universe but who then left it to its own devices having given it laws to regulate itself. Unsurprisingly these people rejected any form of interventionist god ... so prayer, miracles and the Incarnation (for Christians) went out of the window. The Deists, however, still THOUGHT they needed their god to start the whole thing off.

All that Stephen Hawking is saying is that this is unnecessary .... and I agree with him .... because, although I am an Orthodox Christian and a priest, I am not a Deist.

A spontaneous creation merely describes and explains HOW the Universe came into being. The favourite explanation today is that a quantum irregularity in the substrate vacuum superinflated and the resultant energy field eventually condensed into the baryonic matter that each one of us is made of.

Now, only a Deist god would be needed to nudge that quantum irregularity UNLESS superinflation was built into the irregularity itself. So the "nothing" of which Hawking speaks is not the "nothing" of which (primarily) monotheists speak. Strictly speaking (and here words are inadequate) we believe in "being" from "non-being," ... and whatever that seething quantum vacuum is, it is not "non-being."

So, sorry Stephen, get to grips with the theology please. At least I make an effort with the science.

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From the Fathers

On Repentance

When Abba Sisoes was about to die, and the fathers were sitting with him, they saw that his face was shining like the sun. He said unto them, "Behold, Abba Anthony has come." After a little while he said again, "Behold, the company of prophets has come," and his face shone twice as bright. Suddenly, he became as one speaking with someone else, and the fathers sitting there asked him, "Show us with whom you are speaking, father."

Immediately, Abba Sisoes said to them, "Behold, the angels came to take me away and I asked them to leave me so that I might tarry here a little longer and repent." And the old men said unto him, "You have no need to repent, father." And Abba Sisoes said to the fathers, "I do not know in my soul if I have rightly begun to repent," and they all realized that the old man was perfect.

Then, suddenly, his face beamed like the sun and all who sat there were afraid and he said to them, "Look! Look! Behold, the Lord has come and he says, 'Bring unto me the chosen vessel which is in the desert,'" and he at once delivered up his spirit and became like lightning and the whole place was filled with a sweet fragrance.

On Faith and Science

"Even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. " (St. Augustine on Genesis)