unsure whether God gambles at dice or at roulette or, indeed, plays some other game
that involves an element of chance. This latter uncertainty is expressed in the phrase
‘‘with dice being rolledorwheels being spun,’’ and also with the word ‘‘like.’’ In fact,
the word ‘‘like’’ suggests that Hawking does not really think that the universe is a
casino; he just compares the universe to a casino to make his belief in a gambling god
more vivid. This interpretation would, of course, be quite mistaken. A reading of the
book in its entirety makes it quite clear thatifHawking believes in God or a god, he
has kept this belief out of his argumentation; moreover, the repeated, explicit state-
ment that he is a positivist suggests that if he believed in God, that belief would be
quite different from anything a traditionally believing Jew, Christian or Muslim
would recognize as related to their theistic faith.
When Hawking speaks of God as a gambler, he is using an image. His language is
characterized by comparison, metaphor, and allegory. In the clause ‘‘one can think of
the universe as being like a giant casino,’’ Hawking is talking about the universe. The
comparison with the casino is made because universe and casino are alike in one
respect, namely in respect of chance or randomness. In the clause ‘‘God is quite a
gambler,’’ one can take the phrase ‘‘being a gambler’’ as a metaphor for ‘‘admitting
chance’’ and ‘‘God’’ as a metaphor for ‘‘the universe with its history and laws of
physics.’’ But it may be better to speak of allegorical usage, as the whole clause tells
one story and invokes one image, and that story and image together stand for
something quite different: the clause ‘‘God is quite a gambler’’ as a whole conveys
the thought ‘‘the universe admits of chance’’ as a whole. In the philosophical use of
allegory, it is often a single metaphor, for example ‘‘gamble’’ for ‘‘chance,’’ that gives
rise to more sustained allegories. The example also teaches another important feature
of metaphor and allegory: they propagate. Einstein said that ‘‘God does not play
dice,’’ and he was of course not the first who used religious metaphor to illuminate
and convey concepts of natural philosophy or physics; but whether Einstein himself
did or did not believe in the god he speaks of, that he, Einstein, speaks of God is the
reason why Hawking speaks of a gambling God. What Einstein actually believed,
however, is irrelevant to the interpretation of what Hawking wants to express.
By using these and other metaphors and allegories, Hawking is situating himself
and his book in the long tradition of Western thought and culture that stretches from
the literature and philosophy of archaic Greece to cultural expressions in a diverse
spectrum of media in the modern world. This example demonstrates that an author
can use an array of well-established metaphors and images some of which serve the
serious purpose of illustrating a specific point, while others are written in a playful
tone that makes it much more difficult to determine their intention. But with neither
type of metaphor is there any risk of losing the reader. Whatever the precise purpose
of Hawking’s allusions, if that purpose can be determined at all, there is no danger
that anyone will misunderstand the text by attempting a literal interpretation of each
and every detail.
Ancient myth and metaphor composed and written at the advanced stage of
cultural development of the late fifth and early fourth centuries should be approached
in the same way. Plato’s project was similar to that of Hawking to the extent that he
wanted to present an objective view of the world in which we live. His purpose was
different, in that his starting point and his end point alike was the problem of how
best to lead one’s life in the light of this view of the world. His aim was to provide a
388 Fritz-Gregor Herrmann