Professor Hawking on
Life and God


GEAE's Spiritist Messenger 059 - February 2005

Editorial

Dear Readers,

The December 12 2004 issue of The New York Times brought to the public an interview with Professor Stephen Hawking, under the title “The Science of Second-Guessing”. Although we are not here to comment on that interview, there are some answers by Professor Hawking that are worth pondering upon. Let us see some of them.
How can we know if you qualify as a genius physicist, as you are invariably described?

The media need superheroes in science just as in every sphere of life, but there is really a continuous range of abilities with no clear dividing line.


That’s to us a perfect answer, one that shows how deep Professor Hawking’s understanding of humanity is. There are no dividing lines anywhere in humanity. The division in the evolution grades present in the Codification are there for the sole purpose of organizing our thoughts and not to show that there are real border lines between one grade and another.
Are you always this cheerful?

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

Seriously, how do you keep your spirits up?

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.

How many of us with no more than a few problems to deal with succeed in being so serene about our problems? As happened to Einstein before, the media uses to describe Professor Hawking as one that doesn’t believe in God. Even spiritist lecturers once in a while refer to him that way. However, can we really believe that a Spirit with such an understanding of life and humanity, with such an acceptance of his physical limitations and gratefulness for his remaining opportunities can be a materialist? We don’t think so. Let us listen to another answer and see if we can come to a conclusion.
Do you believe in God?

I don't believe in a personal God.

Oh, here we are! Professor Hawking does not believe in a personal God. But neither do we, Spiritists, isn’t that so? God is the Supreme Intelligence, Primary Cause of All Things. A person is necessarily a creature. God is the Primary Cause of everything, including all creatures in our universe and in any other universe that may exist. A personal “god” is a creature and so it cannot be God.

Professor Hawking knows that no matter how far we place God as a creator, science will always be able to reach there and show that such a creator does not exist. This certainty however doesn’t make him an atheist. As the above quoted answer shows, he perceives that God cannot be a person or anything else possible to prove by science.

Let us take a look at Question 11 of The Spirits’ Book and, in particular, to Kardec’s comment.
11. Will man ever become able to comprehend the mystery of the Divinity?

"When his mind shall no longer be obscured by matter, and when, by his perfection, he shall have brought himself nearer to God, he will see and comprehend Him."

The inferiority of the human faculties renders it impossible for man to comprehend the essential nature of God. In the infancy of the race, man often confounds the Creator with the creature, and attributes to the former the imperfections of the latter. But, in proportion his moral sense becomes developed, man's thought penetrates more deeply into the nature of things, and he is able to form to himself a juster and more rational idea of the Divine Being, although his idea of that Being must always be imperfect and incomplete.

As we can see, Professor Hawking is someone to whom we must listen with attention no matter whether he is talking about science or any other issue. Whenever we feel weak and incabable of accomplishing our duties, let us remember what he said in the interview. Instead of loosing our time having expectations about what we will or will not be able to accomplish, let us reduce our expectations to zero, work hard towards our goal and accept the results as a bonus when they come. Instead of caring about how other people will evaluate us, let us just do our best no matter what they think of our performance. In short, let us be cheerful all along, confident that all that happens to us are only tests intended to help us in our evolution.

Much Peace

Renato Costa - Editor