“Philosophy is dead,” Stephen Hawking once proclaimed, but the brightest minds in the world didn’t receive the notice. When the renowned physicist debated that the universe could make itself up, no spark of divinity needed, he didn’t merely stir a few controversies—he lit a fire under philosophers, theologians, and even scientists. The outcome? A good, rolling debate that’s as exciting as it is mind-bending.
For all those who enjoy pondering the greatest questions—why anything is here instead of nothing, and might the universe simply just pop into being all by itself? There’s an entire universe of academics who agree Hawking’s responses are only so far from the final word. Here are some of the most fascinating refutations that still keep the argument in the universe going, new, and fascinating without end.
1. The Fine-Tuning Puzzle: Too Perfect to Be a Coincidence?
The universe is not haphazardly constructed atoms, it’s delicately tuned for life. If gravity were slightly weaker or stronger, stars (and therefore life) would be out of luck. The physics of the past 40 years has shown us that the chance of there being such a fine tuning coming about by accident is incredibly small (the figures in basic physics are precisely as they must be).
Hawking’s multiverse theory attempted to circumvent that by hypothesizing that there are countless universes, each with varying laws, so it would not be surprising if we happened to be in one that works. But wait: if all the universes share the same laws (as Hawking subsequently formulated), the fine-tuning problem does not go away, it shifts a level higher. Why are all the universes fine-tuned?
Philosopher Robin Collins and astrophysicist Hugh Ross contend that the mathematically low probability of life-friendly conditions cries out for design, not chance. Even Hawking’s own co-author, Roger Penrose, decided that the multiverse solution had no empirical evidence and was more of a mathematical trick than a scientific fact.
2. The Cosmological Argument: Does the Universe Need a Cause?
The traditional cosmological argument, philosophers ranging from Plato to Aquinas to Leibniz have grappled with it, has posed the question: Why something and not nothing? Hawking’s response was that the universe might plop into existence out of nothing by the laws of physics. But nihilists such as William Lane Craig and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy remind us of an important difference: Hawking’s “nothing” is not actually nothingness. It is a quantum vacuum, already equipped with laws and energy (their terminology does not have the normal sense of “nonbeing” but is “the quantum vacuum”). The “law out of nothing, nothing comes” remains firmly in position. As Richard Swinburne nicely expresses it, “It is very unlikely that a universe would exist uncaused, but rather more likely that God would exist uncaused.” (Swinburne 1979: 131–32). Conclusion The existence of the universe appears to require an explanation other than physics, a non-contingent, necessary cause.
3. The Kalam Comeback: Everything that comes to exist will have a Cause
The kalām cosmological argument, reconfigured by philosopher William Lane Craig, is a piece of elegant simplicity: Everything that exists comes to exist because there is a Cause. The universe exists. The universe will have a Cause.
Hawking’s scenarios, as fantastical as they are with imaginary numbers and no-boundary assumptions, still necessitate a beginning. Objections to Hawking point out that the start of the universe is not to be dismissed by clever mathematics or loopholes of the quantum (the reason God created the universe and the fact that the universe exists are simultaneous events). Immanuel Kant famously claimed that causes don’t necessarily precede effects in time, maybe they’re simultaneous, as with a hammer breaking a window. This keeps open the possibility of an everlasting, special purpose precisely what theists intend.
4. The Principle of Sufficient Reason: Everybody Getting Everything Explained
Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason (PSR) is a philosopher’s steed: everything contingent has a sufficient reason to be. Hawking’s strategy, charge his critics, suspends this principle. If the universe is contingent—if it could not have been, then how in the world does it exist at all? The Stanford Encyclopedia identifies the contingency of the universe can’t be dismissed as a brute fact (the cosmological argument is at the center of efforts to respond to the questions). The PSR requires an explanation, and most philosophers take the best shot to be a necessary being, one that exists due to its own nature, something many equate with God. Even the multiverse itself is not exempt: why is there a multiverse, and why do the laws that it has?
5. Physics, Philosophy, and the Death of Philosophy Not So Fast
Hawking famously declared, “Philosophy is dead,” believing that science now possesses the keys to the universe alone. But as both scientists and philosophers have also pointed out, his own argument is filled with philosophical assumptions. The idea of “model-dependent realism” reality is whatever our best current scientific theories claim it to be, is nearer to metaphysics than physics (Mlodinow and Hawking are thereby radical antirealists). Their critics contend that renouncing philosophy doesn’t remove its questions. Instead, it might just keep them in the wings, unchallenged. And as one philosopher remarked with dry wit, “The man who says he has no use for philosophy is the one who is most likely to be deceived by it.”
The cosmic struggle ignited by Hawking’s provocative utterances is far from finished. From fine-tuning to causes in the early days, and from the quantum vacuums to the principle of sufficient reason, the globe’s most inquisitive minds continue to comb the universe’s largest questions. The only thing that is certain is science and philosophy are collaborators in the pursuit, not competitors. For the answer seekers, the excitement is in the process, and the universe is an open invitation to think about, question, and examine.
