Stephen Hawking: There's no God behind universe

The cosmologist and theoretical physicist has challenged traditional religious beliefs in his new book, The Grand Design.

Co-authored by US physicist Leonard Mlodinow, it says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant.

However, faith groups in Scotland said science had failed to address many key questions regarding the creation of life.

In the book, Prof Hawking says: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touchpaper and set the universe going."

Prof Hawking, 68, who won global recognition with his 1988 book A Brief History of Time - an account of the origins of the universe - is renowned for his work on black holes, cosmology and quantum gravity.

His latest comments suggest he has broken away from views he previously expressed on faith. He earlier wrote that the laws of physics meant it was simply not necessary to believe God had intervened in the Big Bang.

He wrote in A Brief History of Time: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we should know the mind of God."

In his latest book, he said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics, Isaac Newton, that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God.

"That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions - the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he writes.

But he was challenged by the Right Rev John Christie, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

He said: "Particle physics is not my scientific discipline, however, it seems strange to me that Professor Hawking makes such a claim at this time.

"Firstly, my understanding is that it's not known whether or not the laws of physics apply before the Big Bang.

"And second, if such laws say there is no God, then why has so much time, effort and money been expended in the search for the Higgs boson - the so-called God particle - in creating the Large Hadron Collider?"

He added: "I am content with the understanding offered in the book of Genesis: 'First this: God created the Heavens and Earth - all you see, all you don't see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. God spoke light and light appeared.'

"Neither God, nor prime cause, have been threatened by Professor Hawking's claims."

The Rev Iver Martin, spokesman for the Free Church of Scotland, insisted that Prof Hawking's views were "not a new discovery".

He went on: "There is no new evidence in what Prof Hawking says, either for or against the existence of God. Rather, it is simply a conclusion to a question which he has left open previously.

"Furthermore, he is quite wrong to go beyond what he knows in suggesting that the 'scientific framework leaves no room for a deity'.

"What he is not giving is any ultimate cause for the universe's existence - which leaves me with the conclusion that if he is right, we exist for nothing.

"As I look around me, I simply can't and don't believe that. To me, the fact that we now know and understand so much about the complexity of the universe, with an insatiable human hunger to know more, is proof itself that God exists.

"Otherwise, what's the point in finding all this out?"

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said it did not comment on books.

Mind you, God doesn't seem too sure about Hawking either

John 3:36 - "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

2 Corinthians 6:14 - "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?"

Titus 1:16 - "They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good."

Deuteronomy 17:12 - "And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the lord their God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die."

Mark 10:6 - "At the beginning of creation God made them male and female."

John 17:24 - "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world."

Psalm 78:32 - "In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe."