Stephen Hawking Quotes

Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention. (The Catholic Church, on the other hand, seized on the big bang model and in 1951 officially pronounced it to be in accordance with the Bible.

I just don't understand why the idea of the universe creating itself is a rational one

The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.

Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe.

There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don't know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it's because he's ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they're responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I'd want nothing to do with them.

[The evidence from cosmology] determines that the cause of the universe is functionally equivalent to the God of the Bible, a Being beyond the matter, energy, space, and time of the cosmos.

I was there when Abbe Georges Lemaître first proposed this [Big Bang] theory. ... There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. .... It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

If we say that God has always been, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always been?

All that my work has shown is that you don't have to say that the way the universe began was the personal whim of God.

Then assuredly the world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time.

I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need of God.

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one.

It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions.

I don't say things like "the grace of God." All that's white noise to me, not because I'm an intellectual. For many people, it's gibberish. Likewise, the idea that the Koran was dictated by an archaic illiterate is a fantasy.

So multiverse or not, we still have to come to terms with the origin of the laws of nature. And the only viable explanation here is the divine Mind.

I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very very low.

The idea of a Being who interferes with the sequence of events in the world is absolutely impossible

The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate.

I believe God did create the world. And I think we're finding out more and more and more as to how it actually happened.

We have grown so accustomed to the idea of divine love...that we no longer sense the awe that God's coming should awaken in us.

The big bang theory requires a recent origin of the Universe that openly invites the concept of creation.

People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.

It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe without the agency of a Supreme Being.