Brief Answers to Big Questions: Divine Creation, Scientific Creation?

Summary: Divine creation versus scientific creation is in first place out of 10 in Brief Answers to the Big Questions by theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

Stephen Hawking considers ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos as an exemplar of non-religious, scientific explanations of the cosmos; Aristarchus' On the Distances and Sizes of the Sun and Moon: Proposition 13; The Library of Congress Exhibitions -- Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture -- Mathematics: via Library of Congress

The first answer of 10 to the first question of 10 in the last book by a world-renowned theoretical physicist Oct. 15, 2018, addresses divine creation versus scientific creation of the universe.

Stephen Hawking (Jan. 8, 1942-March 14, 2018) brings a creator God versus a creative science up as the first of Brief Answers to the Big Questions. He considers religion and science as respectively contributing comfort and consistency in concerning themselves less or more correctly with the where and why of universal creation. He defers to ancient religions discerning divine deeds in lunar and solar eclipses since "Long ago, the answer was almost always the same: gods made everything."

The best-selling author of space science books for amateurs and non-scientists extracts from equally ancient eras the example of Aristarchus (310?-230? B.C.) for non-religious, scientific explanations.

Aristarchus figured among astronomers and mathematicians in Alexandria, ancient Egyptian city founded in 331 B.C. by Aristotle's (384-322 B.C.) student, Alexander III of Macedon (356-323 B.C.).

The author of Περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων [ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης] (On the Sizes and Distances [of the Sun and Moon]) grasped eclipses as Earth- and Moon-generated. The Earth between the Sun and the Moon and the Moon between the Sun and the Earth, not divine events, respectively heralded solar and lunar eclipses. Aristarchus identified the Moon's itineraries around Earth and the planets' around the Sun, not Earth, and the stars as far-off suns, not chinks in Heaven's floor.

Hawking judges that unchangeable, understandable, universal laws of nature, such as Aristarchus's eclipses, join to justify by 2100 divine creation or scientific creation of the universe.

The co-author with theoretical physicist Leonard Mlodinow of The Grand Design Sept. 7, 2010, keeps God the embodiment of laws of nature, not a human-like being.

The editor of A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein Sept. 29, 2009, looks to Big Bang, quantum and special relativity theories. He mentions Albert Einstein's (March 14, 1879-April 18, 1955) special relativity theory equation, E = mc2, about energy and mass, "two sides of the same coin." The special relativity equation narrows what scientific creation of a universe needs from energy, matter and space to just energy and space for the Big Bang.

Divine creation offers the Big Bang as "moment of creation" for "God who created energy and space" whereas scientific creation occasions "a whole universe for free."

The laws of physics permit scientific creation through negative energy for space and positive energy for energy and matter pairing into zero, as nothing into something.

God qualifies as Big Bang trigger in divine creation even as quantum mechanics queue up scientific creation's photons as randomly appearing, disappearing, reappearing, trigger-happy subatomic particles. Einstein, "probably the most remarkable scientist who has ever lived," revealed in his General Theory of Relativity in 1915 the universe-only realization of space and time. Hawking sees super-strong gravity subduing size, space and time in black-hole stars and an infinitely dense, infinitely small point that spontaneously serves up a Big-Banged universe.
My Brief History Sept. 10, 2013, treats Majorca-based tween summertime studying of Genesis, whose 3:19 citation transmits religiously Hawking's non-religiously, scientifically terming life's termination as dust.

Stephen Hawking considers German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein as "probably the most remarkable scientist who has ever lived"; Albert Einstein, Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property: 1904 photo by Lucien Chavan (1868-1942): Public Domain, via NASA APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day)

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Stephen Hawking considers ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos as an exemplar of non-religious, scientific explanations of the cosmos; Aristarchus' On the Distances and Sizes of the Sun and Moon: Proposition 13; The Library of Congress Exhibitions -- Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture -- Mathematics: via Library of Congress @ https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/vatican/math.html

Stephen Hawking considers German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein as "probably the most remarkable scientist who has ever lived"; Albert Einstein, Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property: 1904 photo by Lucien Chavan (1868-1942): Public Domain, via NASA APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) @ https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap951219.html

For further information:

Hawking, Stephen. 2018. "[Chapter] 1 Is There a God?" Brief Answers to the Big Questions. New York NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen, ed. 2009. A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein. Philadelphia PA: Running Press Book Publishers.

Hawking, Stephen. 2013. My Brief History. New York NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen; and Leonard Mlodinow. 2010. The Grand Design. New York NY: Bantam Books.