Spontaneous creation

Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going. (Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in The Grand Design)

Several problems:

1. How do scientific laws "create" material objects? Such as subatomic and atomic particles. Not to mention spacetime itself. These are what the universe consists of, after all.

   I can see how scientific laws describe and explain patterns in nature. I can see how scientific laws make accurate predictions about the course of certain natural phenomena. But how do scientific laws have the ability or power to create or cause material objects to come into existence? How does a scientific law like "F=ma" have the ability to make a car materialize out of thin air? How does the law of gravity have the ability to make the universe come into existence? To kick off the big bang?

2. Minimally laws describe natural phenomena. As such, what is the law of gravity without the existence of gravity? If the law of gravity exists, then presumably gravity exists too. If gravity exists, then it seems Hawking is arguing gravity is what's created the universe. If so, that would still leave unexplained what created gravity. As well as how gravity could exist before the universe exists.
3. However, if it's possible for the law of gravity to exist without the existence of gravity, then where does the law of gravity exist if the universe doesn't exist? Is the law of gravity a free-floating Platonic ideal? Would the law of gravity need to inhere in some mind?
4. What does Hawking mean by "nothing"? Does he mean what most people mean when they say "nothing" (a)? Or does he mean what physicists like Lawrence Krauss mean when they say "nothing", i.e., some primordial soup consisting of quantum fluctuations (b)?

   a. If the former, then Hawking would be arguing something (the universe) came from literal nothing. How can something come from literally nothing on Hawking's beliefs? (Despite the fact that the law of gravity isn't "nothing". Rather it's "something".)

   b. If the latter, then quantum fluctuations are clearly not "nothing" in the normal sense of "nothing". Rather quantum fluctuations are "something". If something (quantum fluctuations) created something else (the universe), then that only pushes the question back a step: where do these quantum fluctuations come from?

5. Hawking notes the universe created itself. Spontaneous creation. That's illogical. A flat-out self-contradiction. If something doesn't exist yet, then how can it create itself?

   Suppose I have a dog. A friend asks where I got my dog. I reply, my dog created itself, before it ever existed. It just popped itself into existence! How so? By its own sheer willpower? Even though the dog didn't exist to have a will in the first place. All this makes no sense.

   This is true for any created object. Such as the universe which Hawking admits is a created object. Otherwise Hawking might have followed early 20th century physicists who argue the universe is eternal. It has always existed. It simply is.

6. If the universe "spontaneously" created itself from the law of gravity, then doesn't that suggest the law of gravity isn't so much a "law" as it is something less than a law? I mean, wouldn't that be like saying 1 + 1 = 2, but sometimes spontaneous things happen, and 1 + 1 = 3.14 or 6.022 x 10²³?

   How would Hawking square this "spontaneous creation" (which suggests chance or randomness) with his uniformitarianism regarding scientific laws as well as the fact that he believes the universe is a closed system?

   Keep in mind Hawking subscribes to M-theory rather than (say) quantum gravity.

7. Hawking notes it's "not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going". However why assume God is in conflict with a scientific law like gravity?

   Suppose a scientific law did have creative powers - or at least have causal powers. Suppose the same scientific law caused the universe to exist. Suppose God exists too. As such, God could have used the scientific law to cause or create the universe. God and a scientific law with causal or creative powers aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

   Indeed, if God exists, the God of the Bible, then God would been the one in whom the laws of nature originate in the first place.