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A New Creation Story: Beyond Religion and Science

Stephen Hawking made worldwide news with his sound bite about how the universe was created.

Specifically, he said that a Creator is not needed to explain how the universe began. Behind the sound

bite was a deeper insight, which is that one law of nature -- gravity -- transcends space and time.

Therefore, as long as gravity exists, multiple universes can unfold out of nothing. Among scientists

this proposition has raised eyebrows and no doubt will be discussed for a long time. But let's look atthe larger picture. The discussion about creation has grown stale. On one side, science sticks by its

basic principles: The laws of nature govern the universe, randomness prevails over any possible

pattern or design, and all phenomena, including the human mind, can be reduced to physical

properties. On the other side, religion sticks to its basic principles: God or the gods created the

universe, the hand of the creator can be seen everywhere in nature, and human beings are connected to

the divine, giving us a privileged position in the cosmos.

To resolve this opposition, dozens of books have attempted to reconcile science and faith. Yet without

a doubt science has the upper hand. The modern world is willing to throw out any number of beliefs

about God if the facts don't fit. Science isn't willing to throw out a single piece of data, however, to

satisfy an article of faith. The net result is that science has become bolder. The old position was thatphysics is separate from metaphysics. But Hawking's statement that a Creator is unnecessary is

nothing less than a metaphysical statement. In fact, it points the way to abolishing metaphysics

altogether. Why bother with God when science is on the verge of delivering a Theory of Everything?

The problem is that just at the moment when science is poised to strike the last blow, it has gotten

stuck. Metaphysics hasn't been defeated; rather, physics has been forced to peer into the domain of

God with no way forward. Hawking himself has been forced to concede that there is no Theory of

Everything. There is only a patchwork of smaller theories, each competent to explain a specific aspect

of nature, but with no unifying principle. This statement isn't going down well among cosmologists.

They want a unified model based on mathematical certainty, not a shrug of the shoulders. They

already know that time and space emerged from the quantum void, but this nothingness has to be

explained. Otherwise, it could contain absolutely anything. Hawking states quite firmly that it cannot

be explained. He clings to gravity as a substitute for God, since without gravity, creation falls apart.

Some scientists refuse to be shocked; others refuse to give up. Cosmologists earn their paycheck by

winning grants based on the latest mathematical model for how the universe came to be. But to an

outside observer, Hawking's basic insight that the human mind will never be able to pierce the

quantum vacuum feels like a direct challenge to science's story of creation. It doesn't support religion's

creation myths, not by a long shot. But Hawking has deeply considered the big picture of cosmology

and declared the game over, if the game is a perfect model that will unify all the laws of nature. An

outside observer would also conclude that it might be too early to give up. Perhaps we can moveforward if creation depends on basic principles that neither science nor religion has accepted so far.

Which is exactly what is happening in the forefront of speculative thinking. Religionists are trying to

rethink God in light of quantum mechanics; scientists are looking to spiritual traditions for glimpses

into the realm that transcends the five senses. A new creation story is trying to be born, and although

nobody knows the outcome yet, here are the new founding principles that currently vie for acceptance:

1. Just as matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, neither can information. Beyond the

display of physical processes, information fields may be the key to how the universe became

organized from apparent chaos.

2. The universe may contain more than information. It could be imbued with proto-consciousness. That is, the raw ingredients of mind may be inherent in nature at the quantum

level.

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3. God could be a constant presence in evolution. Instead of creating the universe and then

standing back from his (or her) creation, the deity may exist in every atom and molecule as the

tendency to evolve.

4. Human values may be imprinted in creation. Plato first declared that our sense of love, truth

and beauty derived from the perfect love, truth and beauty that exist beyond the physical

world. Today, these so-called Platonic values may be provable in a new way, as universal

consciousness that orders and patterns the forms of nature.

5. Mathematics may be the key to nature's organizing power. If mathematical laws are the true

building blocks of creation, then we don't need a creator. We have symmetry, order,

complexity and harmony embedded in abstract form through a higher order of mathematics

that transcends time and space.

6. The observer is also a participant in creation. The universe we look upon is a perfect home for

human beings because our minds are entangled with the laws and processes that create mind.

To explain how the universe came about, you first must explain what the mind is. The two

cannot be separated. There is no reality "out there" independent of the observer.

7. Design dominates over randomness in nature. Although we see apparent chaos at the quantum

level as particles collide and interact, an invisible force urges these processes into more

complex forms, eventually resulting in the most complex form of all, DNA. Candidates forsuch a shaping force are evolution, intelligence, creativity and even a God who likes to

experiment.

One way or another, a new creation story will emerge from one or more of these basic principles. To

win the day, it must conform to the data being collected about the universe. It must also not contradict

quantum physics, which to date is the most successful scientific theory ever propounded. Yet it is

evident that quantum physics has probably reached its theoretical limit, even though not every

physicist -- or most physicists -- realize it.

The limit to any system occurs when its accepted foundation comes into question. In this case,

advanced thinkers are asking questions that were unheard of in the past: What is mathematics? What isgravity? What is a natural law? Instead of being metaphysical questions, these have turned practical.

Until they are answered, the nothingness that Hawking has peered into remains dark, inert and empty.

Yet we know it cannot be empty. Our brains are the product of DNA. DNA is the product of

information arranged in a chemical code. Chemicals are the result of quantum interactions at the

subatomic level. Quantum interactions wink in and out of the quantum vacuum. Moving backwards,

that's as far as the modern creation story goes. Whatever step it takes next will have to be a step into

the void. Will we discover the mind of God there? Without using religious terminology, we must

discover something that allows us to go back up the ladder from a void to the human brain. Otherwise,

creation will have accidentally hit upon mind. Physics, including Stephen Hawking, continues to bet

on the latter proposition, but more and more it faces impossible odds.