John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, has written an excellent article explaining why Stephen Hawking has it wrong: you can’t explain the universe without God. The comments by atheists at the end of the article are also interesting in that they reveal the extraordinary shallowness of the average atheist’s thought process.
Here is the article in full:
As a scientist I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God.
There’s no denying that Stephen Hawking is intellectually bold as well as physically heroic. And in his latest book, the renowned physicist mounts an audacious challenge to the traditional religious belief in the divine creation of the universe.
According to Hawking, the laws of physics, not the will of God, provide the real explanation as to how life on Earth came into being. The Big Bang, he argues, was the inevitable consequence of these laws ‘because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.’
Unfortunately, while Hawking’s argument is being hailed as controversial and ground-breaking, it is hardly new.
For years, other scientists have made similar claims, maintaining that the awesome, sophisticated creativity of the world around us can be interpreted solely by reference to physical laws such as gravity.
It is a simplistic approach, yet in our secular age it is one that seems to have resonance with a sceptical public.
But, as both a scientist and a Christian, I would say that Hawking’s claim is misguided. He asks us to choose between God and the laws of physics, as if they were necessarily in mutual conflict.
But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions.
What Hawking appears to have done is to confuse law with agency. His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine.
That is a confusion of category. The laws of physics can explain how the jet engine works, but someone had to build the thing, put in the fuel and start it up. The jet could not have been created without the laws of physics on their own – but the task of development and creation needed the genius of Whittle as its agent.
Similarly, the laws of physics could never have actually built the universe. Some agency must have been involved.
To use a simple analogy, Isaac Newton’s laws of motion in themselves never sent a snooker ball racing across the green baize. That can only be done by people using a snooker cue and the actions of their own arms.
Hawking’s argument appears to me even more illogical when he says the existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was inevitable. But how did gravity exist in the first place? Who put it there? And what was the creative force behind its birth?
Similarly, when Hawking argues, in support of his theory of spontaneous creation, that it was only necessary for ‘the blue touch paper’ to be lit to ‘set the universe going’, the question must be: where did this blue touch paper come from? And who lit it, if not God?
Much of the rationale behind Hawking’s argument lies in the idea that there is a deep-seated conflict between science and religion. But this is not a discord I recognise.
For me, as a Christian believer, the beauty of the scientific laws only reinforces my faith in an intelligent, divine creative force at work. The more I understand science, the more I believe in God because of my wonder at the breadth, sophistication and integrity of his creation.
The very reason science flourished so vigorously in the 16th and 17th centuries was precisely because of the belief that the laws of nature which were then being discovered and defined reflected the influence of a divine law-giver.
One of the fundamental themes of Christianity is that the universe was built according to a rational , intelligent design. Far from being at odds with science, the Christian faith actually makes perfect scientific sense.
Some years ago, the scientist Joseph Needham made an epic study of technological development in China. He wanted to find out why China, for all its early gifts of innovation, had fallen so far behind Europe in the advancement of science.
He reluctantly came to the conclusion that European science had been spurred on by the widespread belief in a rational creative force, known as God, which made all scientific laws comprehensible.
Despite this, Hawking, like so many other critics of religion, wants us to believe we are nothing but a random collection of molecules, the end product of a mindless process.
This, if true, would undermine the very rationality we need to study science. If the brain were really the result of an unguided process, then there is no reason to believe in its capacity to tell us the truth.
We live in an information age. When we see a few letters of the alphabet spelling our name in the sand, our immediate response is to recognise the work of an intelligent agent. How much more likely, then, is an intelligent creator behind the human DNA, the colossal biological database that contains no fewer than 3.5 billion ‘letters’?
It is fascinating that Hawking, in attacking religion, feels compelled to put so much emphasis on the Big Bang theory. Because, even if the non-believers don’t like it, the Big Bang fits in exactly with the Christian narrative of creation.
That is why, before the Big Bang gained currency, so many scientists were keen to dismiss it, since it seemed to support the Bible story. Some clung to Aristotle’s view of the ‘eternal universe’ without beginning or end; but this theory, and later variants of it, are now deeply discredited.
But support for the existence of God moves far beyond the realm of science. Within the Christian faith, there is also the powerful evidence that God revealed himself to mankind through Jesus Christ two millennia ago. This is well-documented not just in the scriptures and other testimony but also in a wealth of archaeological findings.
Moreover, the religious experiences of millions of believers cannot lightly be dismissed. I myself and my own family can testify to the uplifting influence faith has had on our lives, something which defies the idea we are nothing more than a random collection of molecules.
Just as strong is the obvious reality that we are moral beings, capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. There is no scientific route to such ethics.
Physics cannot inspire our concern for others, or the spirit of altruism that has existed in human societies since the dawn of time.
The existence of a common pool of moral values points to the existence of transcendent force beyond mere scientific laws. Indeed, the message of atheism has always been a curiously depressing one, portraying us as selfish creatures bent on nothing more than survival and self-gratification.
Hawking also thinks that the potential existence of other lifeforms in the universe undermines the traditional religious conviction that we are living on a unique, God-created planet. But there is no proof that other lifeforms are out there, and Hawking certainly does not present any.
It always amuses me that atheists often argue for the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence beyond earth. Yet they are only too eager to denounce the possibility that we already have a vast, intelligent being out there: God.
Hawking’s new fusillade cannot shake the foundations of a faith that is based on evidence.
8^)
As another aithiest scientist (Carl Sagan) once said, “A watch implies a watch maker”.
Belief of anything provides blinkers to the understanding other possibilities.
Unfortunately your argumentation does not help anyone remove those blinkers, it enhances them.
It is impossible to undermine Hawking’s arguments by trashing things he has never said.
For example he does not want “us to believe we are nothing but a random collection of molecules”. This utterly misrepresents his views. Although randomness plays a role, the vast majority or the process that has created us is anything but random.
It is interesting that you feel he is “attacking religion” when it appears to me that he is careful not to do so. His point is that the big bang, as a scientific theory, does not imply the existence of anyone’s God.
You assert that “You can’t explain the universe without God.” But that does not contradict Hawking’s argument.
The argument to support your assertion appears to be that you find an alternative to be impossible to comprehend. Unfortunately that is hardly a positive reason to believe anything and when we are talking of creation we know that the truth will be extraordinarily difficult for us to comprehend because the entire event and environment is so completely outside our experience. Being difficult to comprehend is inevitably a feature of the true answer.
You provide no argument to support your idea that there must be both laws and agency. I don’t see why this must be true. It is just part of a huge tautology:-
There must be laws and agency, therefore there is agency that is not part of the laws, and therefore there is a God.
Far more likely explanation of God is that he existed in science.
As mankind became curious, which caused learning and huge advancement, people needed to fill the unexplained with theories. These theories have continually been improved as understanding has developed. God was one of those many theories some of us have difficulty leaving behind.
I presume you believe that?
Much as I wish I could take the credit for them, they are John Lennox’s arguments, not mine.
John Lennox explained this quite clearly – try re-reading the article.
What on earth does that mean?
As mankind became curious, which caused learning and huge advancement, people needed to fill the unexplained with theories. These theories have continually been improved as understanding has developed. God was one of those many theories some of us have difficulty leaving behind.
I have now re-read it carefully and cannot see significant argument that there must be both laws and agency.
The only area that may come close is “The existence of a common pool of moral values points to the existence of transcendent force beyond mere scientific laws.”
However this is tangential to the issue, for maybe there is a law that states that life forms that gain strength through mutual support and care will develop these moral behaviours.
But the entire article is based on a misconception. For it says “It is fascinating that Hawking, in attacking religion, feels compelled to put so much emphasis on the Big Bang theory.”
This it is completely misrepresenting Hawing, for he has absolutely no interest in attacking religion, in fact it is an area he does his best to avoid. He is motivated to describe physics and that is what he has done. He has chosen his words carefully so as not to opine on the existence of God.
It is the author who chooses to see it as an attack on religion and thus is the source of that particular fascination.
As Lennox says:
“To use a simple analogy, Isaac Newton’s laws of motion in themselves never sent a snooker ball racing across the green baize. That can only be done by people using a snooker cue and the actions of their own arms.”
The agent is the person with the cue; the laws of motion describe motion but they cannot start the ball moving. Same with the big bang.
But Hawking does exactly that when he writes:
“According to M-theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead, M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing. Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god. Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law.”
I disagree. The snooker ball statement is not an argument at all. It is just a false analogy (and so the conclusion is therefore equally false) everything in the universe is in motion, it does not require a person to initiate it, the big bang did that. The universe consists of matter and energy; anything that is above absolute zero temperature has to be in motion.
I also disagree on your second point. Hawking’s words do not challenge the existence of God. They refer to a scientific theory and explain that there is no need to invoke God for it to happen; just as with all other scientific theories. That does not mean God does not exist and Hawking understands that. It is a shame that many of us don’t. You should tread carefully because you appear to be on the brink of an hypothesis that allows a proof that God does not exist, for that is the inevitable risk of a thought which says that any scientific theory challenges the existence of God.
We do ourselves absolutely no favours by peddling these blatantly illogical and poorly thought through arguments. They only make us appear desperate and wrong
There are many aithiests who try to use science to prove that God does not exist. The problem with this approach is that Science and Religion do address the same question.
Science asks “how did things happen?”
Religion answers “why did things happen?”
Appearently similar questions, so it is easy to see how so many people are confused into thinking that they are talking about the same thing. Fact is these are two very different questions. Consequently one discapline (science) connot disprove the conclusions of the other (religion).
What is interesting is that as science discovers more and more, it ends up supporting things that are in the Holy Bible. A perfect example of this is the Big Bang theory in that it supports the Bibles historical accounting of how things came to be. Another example is that the Bible tells us that God formed us out of the earth. The theory of evolution, if followed back far enough, also says that we originate out of the earth. In both of these examples, sciences addresses “how”, and religion addresses “why”. For me, “why” is far more important.
Bill Miller,
Why false? The person is the agent and the ball obeys Newton’s laws – a perfectly apposite analogy.
But before the big bang, there was no universe, no motion and no laws of motion to initiate the big bang; it needed an agent – God.
You’re joking, right? Hawkins clearly states that he believes M-theory makes God unnecessary as a cause for the existence of the universe. Every article in every media outlet I’ve seen has said that.
As I’ve said, it’s John Lennox’s argument, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science. You may not like what he has to say, but he doesn’t make ” blatantly illogical and poorly thought through arguments”.
You must explain the snooker analogy to me. Collisions between moving objects (from atoms to worlds) happen continuously. How does the involvement of humans in a very small fraction of these collisions demonstrate that for everything there must be an agent as well as a science? Why don’t the collisions that happen without human involvement demonstrate there is no need for an agent? Please help me understand your point of view.
We need greater discipline in the use of words otherwise we cannot begin to accurately describe ideas. Does unnecessary for a specific event mean non-existent?
Hawking does not question the existence of God, that is what you are doing.
It is Lennox’s analogy, but one that I think makes sense; he used it to try and illustrate the difference between a physical law and an agent that initiates events where the law applies. He is making a distinction between the category of “laws” and of “agents”.
Read the 2 paragraphs before the snooker ball analogy again.
In addition, to repeat myself – this will be the last time since we are obviously not getting anywhere – before the big bang, there were no laws, they needed something – an agent – to create them.
Hawking is using the word “necessary” in a technical sense; see
here.
I hate to shock you – I trust you are sitting down – but I believe in God’s existence, a revelation to which you would have probably twigged independently were you occupying space in the same multiverse as me.
Religious faith can only be challenged by science if it is misused as a substitute for Science. There cannot be two sets of truth.
Unfortunately I can find little merit in the snooker analogy. For every collision that has been initiated by human involvement there are an infinite number that were not.
The statements that an agent is necessary to create the Big Bang are merely assertions, which, without explanation and argumentation, have no more merit than statements to the contrary.
The idea that things happen without any specific cause is difficult for us to relate to based on human experience because everything we experience has some precursor. We can always go one step further back in time. But things that are outside our routine experience become harder to conceptualise and explain.
Billiards may be strange but it is no nearly strange enough to explain creation.
We are repeatedly using the phrase “before the Big Bang” but “before” invokes time and time is far more complex than we perceive it. We experience and therefore “know” that time moves forwards in a continuous flow and is the same for everyone.
But we also know that this is not true. Time speeds up and slows down depending upon gravity and speed. People who have flown high and fast have experienced more time than those who have stayed on the ground. These are not theories they completely understood and are in daily use, the common example being these time differences having to be allowed for in the calculations in every GPS receiver.
To contemplate “before” the Big Bang is not to contemplate a period of time “before”; it is to contemplate an environment without time. This is very hard to do. Clearly in such circumstance the idea of everything having a precursor in time cannot exist.
Science has no difficulty contemplating events with no “agent”. Science recognises that everything that can happen will happen if sufficient opportunity is given for it to happen. This is a principle we recognise in our daily life through phrases such as “it was only a matter of time”.
The only agent necessary is opportunity.
However none of this should have anything to do with faith. Those who use faith to help them conceptualise these challenging environments are being lazy. This is an abuse and misrepresentation of faith and one which places faith in direct challenge with science. Hawking does not question God; those of us who says his theories contradict God’s existence are the ones doing that.
But in reality it is not Gods existence that is being challenged, it is our laziness in misusing our faith as a substitute for science.
My faith and science has no conflict.
The point isn’t that every collision has human involvement. The point is that every collision is initiated by something. (Unless you’ve discovered a pereptual motion machine…)
There are plenty of perpetual motion machines, just none from which energy can be extracted.
Everything that is in motion will remain in motion unless acted on by something else, in which case the motion is transferred.
But I guess this is irrelevant as the concept we struggle with is that we think, “surely anything, whatever it is, must have some precursor?” This is because everything we experience in our daily lives is like that. But there is no reason for it to be so; some things just happen for no reason other that that they can happen. This fact does not challenge the existance of God.
Perpetual motion machines would violate the second law of thermodynamics. They don’t exist.
You seem to think we live in a universe where cause and effect don’t operate. Without cause and effect, there would be no science: science is the study of causality. It is nonsense to say “some things just happen for no reason other that that they can happen”.
I live in the same world as you David. Your remark appears to have a derogatory tone to it, and merely because I have a different thoughts from your own.
Of course there is cause and effect within our world. That does not mean everything that happens has cause, many things just happen because they can – random occurrences, original thought and so on.
We are attempting to describe something that is extraordinary compared to day-to-day life by using terms that we experience in day-to-day life. It is leading us completely astray and makes it appear that we reject theory without even attempting to understand it.
Time did not start until the creation of the universe. It is therefore inappropriate to attempt to describe it in terms of a series of events in time; if there is no time there can be no precursor. Imagining an environment with no time is extraordinarily difficult because we have never experienced it. But arguments dependent upon time existing will always be fatally flawed.
However these matters are somewhat trivial. The reason I have interjected here is that I see no conflict between my faith and science. Arguments that say Hawking is wrong because they challenge God’s existence are actually saying that if Hawking is right God does not exist. I object to that fundamentally. Hawking knows both can be true, and so do I.
“That does not mean everything that happens has cause, many things just happen because they can – random occurrences, original thought and so on.”
Dear Bill,
Give me one random occurrence which happens without cause.Everything has a cause…don’t confuse limitation of observability with absence.
Please show me an original thought in a …say beaker.It too has a source which we call mind.
Sure.
We have to remember what we mean by cause here. Remember that this line started with the hypothesis along the lines that there are two distinct elements – the physics of the pool balls colliding and the cause, which was the person with cue.
I see no such duality, for the overwhelmingly vast number of events that happen have only physics and no cause is identifiable.
An example, I have looked up from my computer and a flower petal has stuck to one pain of the window. There was no cause. Nothing “caused” it to stick on that pane rather than another, there was only physics.
So it is with the universe. It happened, one universe of many in the multiverse. There is no need to imagine that it was “caused” it just happened and could have happened differently but didn’t.
Physics is analysis of an occurrence.All the way you are explain the “whats” and here hawkings n lennox are talking about “whys”.To believe “physics caused physics” requires more faith than in believing a supreme power.
And if you simply state “it was just there” then i cant continue this discussion further.
The process of flower petal sticking on window pane involves the detachment of flower petal with the help of an external source.It has a cause.
Physics is far more than analysis, we tend to be talking about the laws of physics, which define why things behave the way they do forecast how things will behave in the future.
I don’t believe that Hawking is talking about “why”. But I am. There is no need for a “why” to every event.
I’m interested to understand how you see the detachment of the petal is the cause, in the same sense as a person causes two billiard balls to collide.
It appears to me that a huge number of things needed to happen for the leaf to successfully stick onto a raindrop on my right windowpane and not onto the left pane.
Sure it had to detach, but it also required the wind to blow in a very precise way; for the leaf to have a particular size, shape and weight; to be presented to the wind at exactly the right angle for that complex wind movement to cause it to move to the window. Further, a raindrop needed to hit the window in exactly the right place and time so that its trail down the window was still wet when the leaf touched it and stuck. All these things, and no doubt many more, had to happen in order for the petal to do what it did. For anything to caused that to happen it must have caused all these things to happen but there is nothing linking them. It just happened, it could have been different but happened not to be.
Randomness exists and is exceptionally common.
I understand that some feel everything must have a reason and why you may not be able to constructively pursue the discussion further but, if we are to communicate faith effectively to people, we must find ways of not repeatedly insisting that it is somehow contradictory of simple proven physical laws. To do otherwise is to provide an apparent means of disproving faith.
Randomness implies lack of predictability of a particular event.No matter how many different elements you bring in which helped in the occurrence of an event there has to have an agent to bring all of them together.Moreover where did these agents come from?The complexity and precision of reality around us cannot be accounted to chance.
“There is no need for a “why” to every event”…why?
“we must find ways of not repeatedly insisting that it is somehow contradictory of simple proven physical laws.”
Please state these simple proven physical laws with reference.
What arguments do you have that suggest that, if a multiplicity of random events happen to randomly impinge on each other, those random impingements must have an single agent causing them all to happen? (Cause in the same sense as a snooker player causing one ball to hit another.)
Through history and across cultures mankind has always misused faith by claiming it to be an explanation of physical phenomena that were not, at the time, understood. As a result of this learning has caused faith to appear to continually retreat and reinterpret, seriously undermining its credibility as it goes. But it is not faith that should have been undermined it is those who misuse faith in this way.
The examples are legion and you do not really need me to list them or to provide references.
I am disappointed that you denied to answer both of my questions.I don’t know what people across the centuries has told about flying sphaggetti monster but I believe in the God of Bible and rationally,personally His words have never gone against what i perceive around me.
The classic retort of somebody who can’t prove his point.
Not at all Kat. But I have no wish to follow a diversion into a debate on any of the myriad of differences there have been between science and faith over time. Nor do I see any point in pursuing the discussion with anyone who believes that it has never happened and this statement of Hawking is the first.
How about just answering Benny’s quesitons, then?
This one? -““There is no need for a “why” to every event”…why?”
Because it is illogically constructed and unnecessary of an answer as it answers itself.
If there was no reason why then there need be no answer to the question why? The answer is – no reason.
But we have moved from a sensible discussion to a ludicrous one. If you don’t accept that faith and science ever has conflicts there is little point in continuing a discussion about those conflicts.
You wrote that sentence and you are complaining that we aren’t being logical? Perhaps you are right, that there is little point in continueing the conversation.
“Because it is illogically constructed and unnecessary of an answer as it answers itself.”
Its illogical only if you believe “There is no need for a “why” to every event” to be true.I am just asking a reason for your belief.If there is no reason then why do you believe that?
“myriad of differences there have been between science and faith over time”
True if you define faith as 4 elephants carrying earth and putting it on top of a snake’s head.
A belief that it is true is not required as the condition is stated in the question.
Q, “There is no need for a “why” to every event”…why?
A, There is no “why” because there is no need for a “why”.
It is a pointless and illogical question.
A few points: Although I am a clergyman, I also have an undergraduate degree in Physics so; I am somewhat familiar with the scientific method. I continue to read physics and I own three telescopes which has have given me hours of pleasure looking up at the Canadian prairie night skies.
Science by means of quantum mechanics has proven that matter can appear spontaneously out of nothing. That is a proven scientific fact.
If you remember your high school chemistry, we were taught that an atom consists of a nucleus (protons) being orbited by electrons forming sort of a mini-solar system. Well, that model is not entirely accurate. Electrons do not orbit a nucleus as we were taught. They simply appear randomly, and then disappear proving that matter does indeed come into existence out of nothing. Science has been able to predict the pattern of the appearance and disappearance of electrons, leading to the invention of transistors.
Based on current quantum mechanics theory, there is a continual creation and subsequent almost immediate annihilation of particle and anti-particle pairs everywhere in the universe (anti-matter is no longer just sci-fi). This process results in what is called vacuum energy and is very real, it has been measured and scientists call this the Casimir effect.
In the 1990s, an experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre in California confirmed a longstanding prediction by physicists that light beams colliding with each other can goad an empty vacuum into creating something out of nothing. From this single electron, several hundred particles can be produced. This occurs naturally in the universe near pulsars and neutron stars.
In Stephen Hawkins’ book, he says that the Theory of Everything that Einstein spent 30 years of his life chasing is string theory (or its latest incarnation, M-theory).
In string theory, we have a multitude of universes. Think of our universe as the surface of a soap bubble, which is expanding. We live on the skin of this bubble. However, string theory predicts that there should be other bubbles out there, which can collide with other bubbles or even, sprout or bud baby bubbles, as in a bubble bath.
Nevertheless, how can an entire universe come out of nothing? This apparently violates the conservation of matter and energy. However, there is a simple answer.
Matter, of course, has positive energy. However, gravity has negative energy. (For example, you have to add energy to the earth in order to tear it away from the sun. Once separated far from the solar system, the earth then has zero gravitational energy. But this means that the original solar system had negative energy.)
When they do the math, scientists find out that the sum total of matter in the universe can cancel against the sum total of negative gravitational energy, yielding a universe with zero net matter and energy. Therefore, in some sense, universes are for free. It does not take net matter and energy to create entire universes. In this way, in the bubble bath, bubbles can collide; create baby bubbles, or simple pop into existence from nothing.
This gives us a startling picture of the big bang, that our universe was born perhaps from the collision of two universes (the big splat theory), or sprouted from a parent universe, or simply popped into existence out of nothing. Therefore, universes are being created all the time. Hawking goes one step farther and says that therefore there is no need of God, since God is not necessary to create the universe. Many scientists would not go that far.
RevDon,
That approach still cannot answer the most interesting – and I would contend, pertinent – question: why is there something, rather than nothing. This is a philosophical question that is outside science’s reach since science takes “something” as an a priori – even quarks apparently springing from nothing are obeying some observable law that is itself a “something”.
And, of course, the question, “why” is meaningless to science.
Hi David: I share your questions.
My faith is not based on anything rational and logical. If it were, it would no longer be faith. It would be the product of a human exercise and not a divine gift.
I have been blest (and you) with two distinct yet at times, complementary characteristics, that continually collide with each other, one divine and the other natural: faith and reason.
If something can be proven, then it is not faith. For example near death experiences are real and are proven real by science. Once proven, they are not longer a sign of the divine, but rather a natural human experience of oxygen deprivation to brain. Does this explanation take away from my belief in an after-life? No, but it has challenged it, and that is good.
Nevertheless, it is a minor challenge when compared to a Roman emperor and his coliseum lions, which my spiritual ancestors had to contend with.
Today, we just have a wee-little man in a wheelchair.
That doesn’t follow. Maybe the oxygen deprevation is what God uses to give us that experience.
Hi Kate:
I suppose most anything is possible since God’s ways are not our ways and all of that. I just think near death experiences are hallucinations that come about from lack of oxygen (as in none) to the brain.
If it were from God then it should only be reserved for those who have faith, so why then do pagans, heathens, non-believers, new-age whackos and fighter pilots and astronauts who experience oxygen deprivation while under going high g-force training all have the same experiences?
If it were not for the fact that pilots and astronauts experience the same thing as those who have near death experiences, I would be inclined to consider it divine. Seeing how they experience the same things as those who have had near death experiences, then it is just oxygen depravation and nothing supernatural to it at all.
However, if near death experiences are for you proof of the divine and evidence of the supernatural at work, then that of course is good for you.