London , England ( CNN ) -- Religious leaders in Britain on Friday hit back at claims by leading physicist Stephen Hawking that God had no role in the creation of the universe . In his new book `` The Grand Design , '' Britain 's most famous scientist says that given the existence of gravity , `` the universe can and will create itself from nothing , '' according to an excerpt published in The Times of London . `` Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing , why the universe exists , why we exist , '' he wrote . `` It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [ fuse ] and set the universe going . '' But the head of the Church of England , the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams , told the Times that `` physics on its own will not settle the question of why there is something rather than nothing . '' He added : `` Belief in God is not about plugging a gap in explaining how one thing relates to another within the Universe . It is the belief that there is an intelligent , living agent on whose activity everything ultimately depends for its existence . '' Williams ' comments were supported by leaders from across the religious spectrum in Britain . Writing in the Times , Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said : `` Science is about explanation . Religion is about interpretation ... The Bible simply is n't interested in how the Universe came into being . '' The Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols , leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales , added : `` I would totally endorse what the Chief Rabbi said so eloquently about the relationship between religion and science . '' Ibrahim Mogra , an imam and committee chairman at the Muslim Council of Britain , was also quoted by the Times as saying : `` If we look at the Universe and all that has been created , it indicates that somebody has been here to bring it into existence . That somebody is the almighty conqueror . '' Hawking was also accused of `` missing the point '' by colleagues at the University of Cambridge in England . `` The 'god ' that Stephen Hawking is trying to debunk is not the creator God of the Abrahamic faiths who really is the ultimate explanation for why there is something rather than nothing , '' said Denis Alexander , director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion . `` Hawking 's god is a god-of-the-gaps used to plug present gaps in our scientific knowledge . `` Science provides us with a wonderful narrative as to how [ existence ] may happen , but theology addresses the meaning of the narrative , '' he added . Read why Hawking says God did n't create the universe . Fraser Watts , an Anglican priest and Cambridge expert in the history of science , said that it 's not the existence of the universe that proves the existence of God . `` A creator God provides a reasonable and credible explanation of why there is a universe , and ... it is somewhat more likely that there is a God than that there is not . That view is not undermined by what Hawking has said . '' Hawking 's book -- as the title suggests -- is an attempt to answer `` the Ultimate Question of Life , the Universe , and Everything , '' he wrote , quoting Douglas Adams ' cult science fiction romp , `` The Hitch-hiker 's Guide to the Galaxy . '' Read CNN 's Belief Blog . His answer is `` M-theory , '' which , he says , posits 11 space-time dimensions , `` vibrating strings , ... point particles , two-dimensional membranes , three-dimensional blobs and other objects that are more difficult to picture and occupy even more dimensions of space . '' He does n't explain much of that in the excerpt , which is the introduction to the book . But he says he understands the feeling of the great English scientist Isaac Newton that God did `` create '' and `` conserve '' order in the universe . It was the discovery of other solar systems outside our own in 1992 that undercut a key idea of Newton 's -- that our world was so uniquely designed to be comfortable for human life that some divine creator must have been responsible . But , Hawking argues , if there are untold numbers of planets in the galaxy , it 's less remarkable that there 's one with conditions for human life . And , indeed , he argues , any form of intelligent life that evolves anywhere will automatically find that it lives somewhere suitable for it . CNN 's Richard Allen Greene contributed to this report .
Hawking : `` Given existence of gravity the universe can and will create itself from nothing '' His new book is an attempt to answer `` the Ultimate Question of Life '' Archbishop of Canterbury rejected Hawking 's claim that God has no role . The Catholic Church in Australia has been rocked by a sex abuse scandal involving its priests.