Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge and one of the most influential theoretical physicists of the late twentieth century. His scientific reputation rests on work in general relativity and quantum gravity, particularly the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems, the prediction of Hawking radiation from black holes, and contributions to no-boundary cosmology developed with James Hartle. While these results were technical, Hawking became a central public figure in debates over the relation between cosmology and theism through his bestselling popular books. A Brief History of Time (1988) closed with a celebrated reference to knowing 'the mind of God,' which many readers initially took as theistic but Hawking later clarified as metaphorical. The Grand Design (2010, with Leonard Mlodinow) explicitly argued that because of laws such as gravity, the universe 'can and will create itself from nothing,' rendering a divine creator superfluous. This claim drew sharp critique from philosophers and theologians including John Lennox, William Lane Craig, and Alister McGrath, who argued that Hawking conflated physical and metaphysical senses of 'nothing' and overstepped the boundary between physics and philosophy. Critics also noted his dismissive remark that 'philosophy is dead.' Hawking's late position is best characterized as a naturalistic atheism grounded in M-theory and multiverse cosmology rather than systematic philosophical argument.