In my previous blog posting regarding the logical consequences of material monism, I showed that it is self-contradictory because it asserts that all of human experience is merely the compelled effects of the physical properties of matter. I also mentioned my latest discovery in the blogosphere of Sam Harris' assertion that he is a robot -- a mindless automaton of the universe. But there are more.
A second example of an atheist robot is found in the writings of Stephen Hawking. A material monist, such as Hawking, believes there are no "minds," just physical brains. So then, it is no surprise, when in the following link, (Hawking: There is No Heaven), Hawking declares that we are merely "meat computers," i.e., we are just like our familiar desktop computers, except that our brains are composed of meat rather than silicon.
To my knowledge, Hawking has not disavowed man's free agency, though he openly sacrifices his rationality on the altar of the goddess Tyche ("chance"). Hawking states in the above article, "Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in."
Science predicts no such thing.
We have already pointed out previously (here) that the "nothing" of Hawking is most definitely something. It is a configuration of quantum fields (which is something) that have a total energy balance of zero -- but to say that a configuration of matter with zero energy (and even the reference point for zero energy is conventional) is "nothing" would be akin to saying the assets of a person with net worth zero is "nothing" in spite of the fact that it is merely that the value of his many assets is equal to the amount of his debts. It is remarkable what nonsense such brilliant men will utter!
Then we also have Hawking's appeal to "chance." "Chance," of course, is the correlate of lawlessness, the unexplained, or stuff from the surd. As it turns out, no physical experiment has shown the existence of "chance." Atheists worship it nonetheless. Be that as it may, if it were "chance" that decided in which universe Hawking found himself, it is also "chance" that dictates his every action -- Hawking can have no waivers. It would follow that Hawking's "reasoning" itself would be the result of random events dictated by quantum dynamics. He would not be a "free thinker"-- as many atheists tout -- but a mindless robot uttering random propositions dictated by lawless "chance." So much then for Hawking's rationality and denial of God.
The same analysis applies to all self-contradictory freedom-denying atheist "robots." On the atheist worldview, there is no transcendent reality -- the material universe is all there is. In this case, man is nothing more than a part of the material universe and thus totally governed by material laws. Mindless matter grants no waivers.
In Christianity, on the other hand, there is an ultimate reality that transcends the world -- the Transcendent Triune God. Only on the presupposition of theism is man free from physical determinism, since he is the creation of a transcendent living Triune God who has created the physical world and has created man with a nature that is not totally physical -- but physical and spiritual. Man's created spirit is not ruled by material laws and his will is independent of those laws. It is the seat of rationality, of self, and of the will. Christian theism is the only worldview that accounts for all of human experience, that breaks the shackles of material monism, and accounts for the rationality of man.
