Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case

by Frank Turek

Has gravity ever created something from nothing? How about the second law of thermodynamics? Even macroevolution, if it’s true, isn’t capable of creation out of nothing (ex nihilo). Impersonal forces, which we call natural laws, can’t create—they merely govern what’s already there, provided no one intervenes. Atheist Stephen Hawking famously declared, “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing” (The Grand Design, 180). With all due respect to Dr. Hawking, that is nonsense. Gravity is not a creative force and didn’t exist until the universe was created. Dr. John Lennox wrote a book refuting Hawking’s atheistic assertions (called God and Stephen Hawking). For a shorter response, see his article titled, “As a scientist I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God.” September 3, 2010, The UK Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html, accessed July 3, 2014. [5] In an interview at the end of the Kindle edition of his book, Dr. Krauss said he can’t definitely say there is no God but then said, “It is highly unlikely, of course. But what I can claim definitively is that I wouldn’t want to live in a universe with a God—that makes me an anti-theist, as my friend Christopher Hitchens was.” Lawrence Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing (New York: Atria Books, Kindle edition, 2012). [6] In a ...