God and Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking (1942)

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January 8, 2012 was the 70th birthday of Stephen Hawking.

His crippled body sitting on that familiar wheel-chair is an image that tells to all humanity about the power of mind over matter. He is a symbol of the victory of human spirit over serious disease and other devastating limitations of our earthly existence. After all, according to the doctors in those days he was not supposed to live over thirty.

This is the spirit that according to the Scriptures our Creator has breathed into us:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2:7

and the spirit that God desires in us to the point of jealousy!

Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”?
James 4:5

On the occasion of his birthday one Finnish daily had a short news story with the title  "Hawking has unravelled the secrets of the Universe"

Well...

After reading that title I was a bit worried - has he said something that even the Greek gods on Mount Olympos would have considered hybris and Promethean blasphemy from the mouth of a mere human?

Nope!

The article told another story - almost opposite to the proud and misleading newspaper title.

According to the text of the news article Stephen Hawking had mentioned that although he has unravelled many secrets of the Universe there are still great mysteries left that he has not yet figured out.

Greatest among them is woman.

(He has been twice married and divorced in both cases).

When I read that truthful sentence (the quote is not verbatim) my worries went away.

At least in this sense all is well - his sense of humour and proportion exists. He may have retired from his job but there is still some work to the youngsters be done in order to iron out some little details in God's wonderful creation (like the twenty or so enzymes mosquitoes use to prevent our blood from clogging!)

Happy birthday, Stephen Hawking!