Read one page of Stephen Hawking about the , about the possibility that we will soon know, not where the universe originated, but where it is tended, and the event horizon to which we may all be headed. There is more to inspire awe in one page of Stephen Hawking, than in any of the fantasies of Tertullian, imagining that he could go to the window of heaven, when he was promoted there, and look down, for his consolation, on the torments of the damned. There is much more to be awe-inspired by, in a page of Hawking, than in any number of burning bushes, or other such myths.

Try how much of the word of God you can understand, and what is more, try how much you can practice. A sincere wish and purpose to do the will of God, will be your best way to know the mind of God.

I use the word “God” in an impersonal sense, like Einstein did, for the laws of nature, so knowing the mind of God is knowing the laws of nature. My prediction is that we will know the mind of God by the end of this century.
The one remaining area that religion can now lay claim to is the origin of the universe, but even here science is making progress and should soon provide a definitive answer to how the universe began. I published a book that asked if God created the universe, and that caused something of a stir. People got upset that a scientist should have anything to say on the matter of religion. I have no desire to tell anyone what to believe, but for me asking if God exists is a valid question for science. After all, it is hard to think of a more important, or fundamental, mystery than what, or who, created and controls the universe.
I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science. The basic assumption of science is scientific determinism. The laws of science determine the evolution of the universe, given its state at one time. These laws may, or may not, have been decreed by God, but he cannot intervene to break the laws, or they would not be laws. That leaves God with the freedom to choose the initial state of the universe, but even here it seems there may be laws. So God would have no freedom at all.

Who knows, perhaps God is simply the search for God.

I want to know God's thoughts - the rest are mere details.

We actually have a candidate for the mind of God. The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.

Hawking was one of the good physicists of his generation, not the universal genius the popular press has depicted. It is a pity, because this confusion fogs the memory of a remarkable man.

I am not a genius, I am just curious. I ask many questions. and when the answer is simple, then God is answering.

What is God? The telescope by which we hold converse with the stars, the microscope which unveils the secrets of nature, the crucible of the chemist, the knife of the anatomist, the reflective faculties of the philosopher, all the common instruments of science, avail not here. On the threshold of that impenetrable mystery, a voice arrests our steps. From out the clouds and darkness that are round about God's throne, the question comes, "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"

We call the mind that wants to make the way of the Universe clear and to put it into practice the mind that seeks truth. However clever a dog or a monkey may be, they cannot realize the universal mind. Only human beings have the privilege and capacity to realize it. If you have a mind that seeks truth, you are happy because this is the proof that you are a real human being.

I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven. It is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.

I long to learn the things that are, and comprehend their nature, and know God. This is, I said, what I desire to hear.

The scientist's urge to investigate, like the faith of the devout or the inspiration of the artist, is an expression of mankind's longing for something fixed, something at rest in the universal whirl: God, Beauty, Truth. Truth is what the scientist aims at. He finds nothing at rest, nothing enduring, in the universe. Not everything is knowable, still less predictable. But the mind of man is capable of grasping and understanding at least a part of Creation; amid the flight of phenomena stands the immutable pole of law.

In the spring of 1974 about two years before the Viking spacecraft landed on Mars, I was at a meeting in England sponsored by the Royal Society of London to explore the question of how to search for extraterrestrial life. During a coffee break, I noticed that a much larger meeting was being held in an adjacent hall, which out of curiosity I entered. I soon realized that I was witnessing one of the most ancient scholarly organizations on the planet. In the front row a young man in a wheelchair was, very slowly, signing his name in a book that bore on its earliest pages the signature of Isaac Newton. When at last he finished, there was a stirring ovation. Steven Hawking was a legend even then