John Lennox, a mathematics professor at Oxford who also is a fellow in the philosophy of science and pastoral advisor, has composed a masterful reply in the form of this short book, to the atheist claims made by last year's best-seller, The Grand Design, written by Hawking and Mlodinow.  The book is intended to address a wider audience than Hawking, responding to typical atheist arguments with a compelling logic and deep understanding of Western philosophy. In addition to this classical apologetics, Lennox also responds to the esoteric physical theories of Hawking with the wry amusement of a Platonic mathematician who actually believes in Math addressing an Aristotelian physicist who merely uses it. It is clear early on that Lennox is neither awed by Hawking's claims nor deferential to Hawking's position. In Lennox' opinion, Hawking has overstepped his culturally-bestowed authority to represent science, and must be publically reprimanded lest science (and faith) fall into disrepute.
 
Stephen Hawking, of course, is the physicist who recently retired from the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge that was once occupied by Sir Isaac Newton. What made him famous may have been his erudite expertise in Black Holes, his famous position, his crippling physical illness (Lou Gehrig's disease in the US, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for everyone else who doesn't know baseball), or even perhaps his incredible fortitude at surviving 40 years with a 5 year prognosis that has left him so completely paralyzed he can only blink his eyes to communicate. In any case, Hawking's 1989 book on the Big Bang, "A Brief History of Time" was a surprising best-seller, in which Hawking suggested that physics may reveal the mind of God. In this 2010 sequel, Hawking comes out of the closet as a full-throated atheist who found the mind of God--and it is Stephen Hawking.

Lennox' systematic dissembly of Hawking's arguments is classic, and for all those who have tried to argue with atheists, this book not just a treasury of knowledge, but an example of a generous but firm rebuttal, of "giving reason for the hope" without giving offense. Not only does Lennox employ an apologetics that stretches from 500BC Aristotle's four causes to modern discussions of "Representative Theory of Perception", or from 18th century Laplacian determinism to 21st century Quantum Realism, but he avoids the speculative philosophizing that mar the apologetics of many of his contemporaries. His defense of Western (or what I like to think of as Christian) science is masterful, and demonstrates the necessity for science to find that delicate balance which neither deifies Nature nor deifies Man, but allows us "to think God's thoughts after him."  In other words, Lennox is a rock-solid Evangelical defending rock-solid science with rock-solid logic. It doesn't get any better than this, for an Evangelical anyway.

However there is something disturbing about Hawking's book, something that doesn't add up. The man is clearly dying, and everything he writes comes with extreme effort. In his condition, every publication, every day could be his last, so why this book? A recent interview took one week for him to compose a few-paragraph response. Likewise, a book of this length could not possibly have been written without the help of his co-author Leo Mlodinow. Then is this book, as Umberto Eco asserts, so philosophically shallow and so scientifically arrogant because it was entirely the work of Mlodinow? Certainly nothing about Mlodinow inspires the sort of admiration that Hawking attracts, but if so, why did Hawking waste his reputation on the cover of the book?

Arrogance or cunning? Incompetence or malice? Recall that atheist Dawkins also divided theists into these same categories, so we are justified in applying it to atheists Hawking and Mlodinow.

In previous blogs, I have suggested there are almost always personal reasons why brilliant scientists adopt a less-than-brilliant atheism, which may be a contribution to Hawking's progressively more militant position between 1989 and 2010. But as I read Lennox' rebuttal, I detected a cat-and-mouse game. Hawking is not so dumb as Eco thinks, laying a trap that Lennox narrowly avoids, but may catch those of us with less charitableness than him. He is playing Post-Modern critic to Lennox' Modern apologetics.

Lennox suspects this, and spends a few pages attacking Post-Modern relativising, but judging by the Post-Modern success of the "angry atheists" such as Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, the public may still be unmoved by the cold rationalism of Lennox, preferring the passionate glory of Hawking. That is, rationalism reached its acme in 20th century modernism, with writers such as Bertrand Russell demolishing, and CS Lewis defending, Christianity in logical terms. This is the form of debate that Lennox imbibed in his morning porridge, and what makes his book a 20th century classic. But the 21st century is all about passion, about anger validating one's opinions, about ad hominem arguments and saving-the-world rhetoric. Post-Moderns do not care about your logic, they care about your passion--are you concerned about the immanent apocalypse, about saving the world? If not, then may your logic perish with you!

And so Hawking has presented his best effort at saving the world. It is about freedom from restraints, freedom from guilt. It is about alternate realities and exploding universes. It is about crushing Black Holes that consume everything and yet finding the information that will survive them. It is about incredibly difficult mathematics in eleven dimensions and the insignificance of man in his pitiful three dimensions, but for the mind that can escape those bounds. In a word, it is about him.

And all Lennox can talk about is the submission to logic and infinite being?

I said Lennox may have narrowly escaped this trap of supplying an old and trite logic for a new and passionate plea, and this is because he ends his book with what, for an old-school British schoolmaster, is a most emotional statement:

I even dare to hope that, for some of you, this little book may be the start of a journey that will eventually lead to your coming to believe in the God who not only made the universe but also conferred on you the immeasurable dignity of creating you in his image, with the capacity for thought and the intellectual curiosity that got you reading this book in the first place. In turn that could even be, as it was for me, the first step in embarking on what is by definition life’s highest adventure – getting to know the Creator through the Son that has revealed him.

For this is the only answer to Post-Modernism, and the most important response Hawking will ever get.