Why are we Here?

Michelangelo's Pieta

I was born on December 14, 1941; 25 days later, on January 8, 1942, a baby was born to the Hawking family in Oxford England. His parents named him Stephen. In 1962, I launched my career as a green, 20 year old teacher in a rural school in Saskatchewan; before my first year was up, Stephen Hawking—then in PhD studies at Oxford—would begin to fall down for no apparent reason. He was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. ALS. The dreaded Lou Gehrig's Disease that robs muscles of potency and renders its victims totally helpless. 

There is no known prevention or cure for ALS.

Even as his physical condition worsened, Hawking continued his studies, probably taking refuge in the burgeoning of his mind as his body continued the inevitable decay called ALS. His amazing thesis on black holes launched him as a scientific leader who, despite the odds, would advance the study of cosmology forward by leaps.

It’s astounding to think that theoretical physics can be done through imagination, even when one hasn’t the strength any longer to pick up a pair of calipers. Speech must be delivered digitally, electronically and some of us have become used to the mechanical, computer-generated voice of Hawking holding forth on subjects we only partially understand.

PBS recently broadcast episodes from the Genius series; the one I watched the other day was a brilliantly done educational presentation called “Why are we Here?” In it, Hawking explores the tension between determinism and free will, the idea of parallel universes and, in fact, is positing the question, “how did we get here?” as opposed to the burning Christian question, “for what purpose were we created?” 

The title of the episode is a bit of a misnomer, seems to me.

I’ll be going to church this Sunday morning. There a purposeful creation will again be assumed in what is said and done. The question any Christian must have after watching Why are we Here? is the same as thinking believers must have had ever since the church harassed Galileo into making a false recantation: why can’t the discoveries of today be added to the wisdom handed down from yesterday? Galileo and Copernicus asserted from their observations that the sun—not the earth—was the centre of the known universe. They were right. What they said was true. How much better would it have been for both believers and for science if the church hadn’t set theology and science at odds?

But it’s not news, I guess, that prophets seemingly have to be stoned to protect us from the truth. The right question for us might be—rather than why are we here—“Why are we so unadaptable to new knowledge?” That was certainly Jesus’ question when he looked down on Jerusalem and wondered how the population could choose not to gather under the loving wings of God to be protected like a hen protects her chicks.

However we understand God, it seems axiomatic to me that he/she is a friend to truth, not a bulwark against it. It may be true that it was particularly for human perfidy that the word stubborn was coined.

It’s an insignificant accident, of course, that Bernie Sanders, Stephen Hawking and I are roughly the same age, give or take a few days. The significant observation on that front, though, is that their voices may well prove to have been prophetic. Granted, you and we and everyone who ever was are mere humans, with all the foibles that go along with that. That alone may be reason enough to assert that we are the only species that is plagued by the "Why are we Here?" question.