Stephen Hawking, Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, retired last year after 30 years in the job.

Professor Hawking has been a larger-than-life figure in some ways – an expert in fields too tricky for most of us — like quantum theory, black holes and dark matter.

And his heroic courage, in battling on despite being crippled by muscular dystrophy, has been admirable.

Hawking has become a bit of a celebrity.

So if he decided to write a book with a catchy title, plus a hint of controversy, it couldn’t fail to sell — even if it was no good.

* * *

Professor Hawking’s new book entitled “The Grand Design” goes on sale next week.

Some controversy has been engineered by leaking a few seemingly bold quotes, like:

“Because there is a law such as Gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing . . . It is not necessary to invoke God . . . .”

* * *

Pretty simplistic stuff – but likely to appeal to TV-watchers and Dawkins-readers.

He’s asking us to choose between God and the Laws of Physics, as if they necessarily contradict each other. But do they?

Hawking’s argument rests on a dogma that there is a basic conflict between Science and Religion. But is there?

Science is handy for answering certain kinds of questions — about electricity and matter and energy and those black holes . . . .

Not very basic questions.

More fundamental questions are beyond science to answer.

Like, for example, why isn’t there nothing?

* * *

Believers in God believe that if there had ever been Nothing, there would still be Nothing.

(Real Nothing can never turn into Something)

Believers believe that there was always an original Something — Something whose existence needs no input from outside itself.

(We exist because of our parents. We didn’t make ourselves. They didn’t make themselves . . . .)

The Bible says, “Ask the beasts, they will teach you.  And the birds of the air, they will tell.  Speak to the earth and it will give answer . . . Who can be ignorant that the Lord made these things . . . ?”  (Job, chapter 12)

Today’s gospel reading in traditional Catholic churches is about money and attitudes to money.

Words of Jesus: “No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will be devoted to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.  

“Worry not about your life, what you will eat, or for your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food: and the body more than clothing?

“Look at the birds, they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns: yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of more value than they? Can any of you, by taking thought, add a single moment to his life-span?

“And why worry about clothing? Consider the lilies in the field, how they grow: they do not labour, nor spin. Yet not even Solomon, in all his glorious robes, was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass in the field, which is here today and thrown in the furnace tomorrow: will he not much more care for you – you who have so little faith?

“Worry not then, saying, ‘What are we to eat: what are we to drink: what will we have to wear?’  These are the things the heathens seek. Your Father knows that you need them all.  

“Seek first, therefore, the Kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things will be given you as well.”  (Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 6)

* * *

Arriving at a crossroads (unless you plan to sit there the rest of your life) you must go one way or the other. You cannot go both ways.

That applies also in the spiritual life — a fact that we spend much of our time pretending isn’t true.

We might convince ourselves that we’re basically good, despite doing a bit of money-worship on the side. We may convince others around us.

But God, we will not convince — and it is he who judges us. He judges justly.

If we don’t put ourselves utterly at God’s disposal, we are, in fact, putting ourselves into the hands of the devil — who hates us and will destroy us painfully and eternally.

* * *

So God tells us, “Make up your mind.”

Today we should pray, as always, the prayer that Jesus Christ taught his disciples.

The prayer that starts like this:

“Our Father, who art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come.

Thy will be done . . . .”

* * *

There’s no doubt about it. God’s will WILL be done. We WILL get the government we deserve.

Let us pray, every day, for those who govern us, that they will put God first in everything. That they may be motivated always by love for Our Lord and by love for his children – young and old, rich and poor – who make up our nation.

Above all, pray for those who lead our Catholic Church. That all evil may be weeded out of our Church. That, as a Church, we may faithfully lead our families, and the community of Australia, to a fervent faith and to obedience to God’s commandments.

* * *

“O God, Who has appointed Mary, Help of Christians, St Francis Xavier and St Therese of the Infant Jesus, patrons of Australia . . . .

Grant that, through their intercession, our brethren outside the Church, may receive the light of Faith, so that Australia may become one in Faith,

Under one shepherd, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

Amen.

Mary, Help of Christians pray for us.

St Francis Xavier, pray for us.

St Therese of the Infant Jesus pray for us.

Saint Peter Mary Chanel, pray for us.

Blessed Mary of the Cross (*), pray for us.

Amen.”

* * *

 (*) that means Blessed Mary MacKillop, Patroness of this blog.

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Prime Minister Gillard, aware that her election campaign was floundering, started talking about “the real Julia”.

Little changed, but the polls improved for some reason.

One change seems to be that Julia – rational atheist gravely respecting the views of the irrational earthlings who live in religious superstition . . . .

has morphed into . . . .

into someone desperately craving the so-called religious vote — willing to sell her (whatever atheists have instead of a soul) in the process.

Offering good taxpayers’ money to fund people’s trips to Rome for Blessed Mary MacKillop’s canonisation.

Plus promising money to fund school chaplains . . . .

It’s all too sad.

* * *

Yes, some of what passes for religion can be irrational — but one could argue that pure religion is pure rationality.

Also that atheism is a form of (very impure) religion.

Well-known atheists talk about feelings of “awe” and “the beauty of evolution” and so forth. In this way they cater for what people really want — a reason to be humble.

The same would-be unbelievers, when asked why (if there is no designer God) this world is exactly suited to our needs to survive . . . .

They reply with baroquely bizarre and super-saturatedly gullible theories — how there must be an infinite number of universes and this one we’re in just happens to be the one we’re in.

Good stuff.

While mocking us for postulating the “unnecessary” postulate of one God, they themselves postulate a mere multiple trillions of hypothesised universes.

* * *

Mr Abbott tries to stay in contact with reality by saying:

“Faith has influenced my life, but it does not, and I believe, should not, shape my politics.”

It’s a statement worth thinking about.

The Catholic Church claims to have contact, not only with “Faith”, but with the living God himself.

The Church, claiming to be custodian of the Truth (capital “T”), is obliged to offer the world a willingness to patiently lead by teaching and example.

The Church gets a bad press at present – partly deserved – but must persevere in its mission.

Involvement in politics is an indispensible part of that mission.

In so-called modern so-called democracies, we celebrate or bewail the so-called decline and death of religion.

Meanwhile, what are others saying?

Here are a couple of quotes made recently in a speech by Cardinal George Pell.

* * *

(1) From Zhao Xiao, currently Professor of Economics, Beijing University of Science and Technology:

“These days, Chinese people do not believe in anything. They don’t believe in God. They don’t believe in the devil. They don’t believe in Providence. They don’t believe in the Last Judgement — to say nothing about heaven. A person who believes in nothing can only believe in himself. And self-belief implies that anything is possible — what do lies, cheating, harm and swindling matter?”

Many well-educated Australians would say that’s OK — one can devise and live by a real code of ethics without bringing God into it.

Sometimes it takes somebody from outside — who has experienced the cruel reality of godless society — to remind us how lucky we are still having remnants of Catholic culture in our society.

And how stupidly self-destroying we would be to neglect that Faith

* * *

(2) From Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz:

“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged.”

Christianity bothers modern trend-setters by its insistence that some things are good and others are evil . . . .

That we can’t turn our backs on God, the source of all good, without making our souls unfit to be with God in Eternity . . . .

Something we’ll have the whole of Eternity to grieve over in painful, never-ending remorse.

* * *

The Catholic Faith teaches that we can, in this life, attain real friendship with God:

* step one:  Use your will power. Force yourself to quit all bad and self-indulgent actions.

* step two:  Stop using your will power. Say, “Lord, I’ve gone as far as I can go in my own power.  Over-power and replace my every sinful thought — so that I may persevere in making my every action pleasing to you.”

Remember and aspire to what Saint Paul wrote, “No longer do I live, but Christ lives in me.”  (Galatians, chapter 2)

Cardinal George Pell, head of the Australian Church, came under fire the other day for calling the Greens Party “anti-Christian”.

“It’s not my role,” he said, “to tell people how to vote, but I would make a couple of points.”

His points included advice to examine the Greens policies on their website and judge for ourselves “how thoroughly anti-Christian they are”.

He mentioned in particular that:

 * the Greens are opposed to religious schools.

 * they led attacks on Canberra’s Calvary Hospital because it wouldn’t provide abortions.

 * they belittle the traditional family as being just one alternative lifestyle among many.

 * they favour “marriage” regardless of sexuality or gender identity.

“For those who value our present way of life” he concluded, “the Greens are sweet camouflaged poison.”

* * * 

Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, yelped, saying, “Greens’ policies for a more compassionate society, a more sharing society, a more dignified society, are the most in line with Christian beliefs.”

One Greens Senate candidate, Lin Hatfield Dodds, once director of a Uniting Church agency, said her party’s policies are “very much aligned with Christian values.”

“I’ve seen the Greens stand up for the environment,” she added, “I’ve seen the Greens stand for a voice for everybody — and they are all core things to the Christian faith.”

They are not. She ought to check the Bible. Although respecting the environment and letting people vote now and then are in line with Christ’s teaching — they are NOT its core.

Obeying the Ten Commandments is closer to the core.

* * *

It might have been more impressive if the Greens had said straight out, “Yes we hate Christians — hypocrites and no-goods as they all are etc.”

We all know that’s what the Greens think.

They themselves become hypocrites by making pretty noises in the hope of scratching up a percentage of the so-called “religious vote”.

* * *

Meanwhile Cardinal Pell was doing his job.

He leads the Church. He has come out and said what the Church stands for in the context of the election.

He deserves no criticism — except in so far as he probably doesn’t do it often enough.