Renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says science and religion are fundamentally incompatible -- and the former will always come out on top.

"There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, (and) science, which is based on observation and reason," Hawking told ABC News's Diane Sawyer in an interview Monday.

"Science will win because it works."

The British scientist, who has built his career studying the universe and its origins, flat-out rejected creationism and the possibility of a creator.

"What could define God (is thinking of God) as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking, 68, told Sawyer.

"They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."

Hawking, author of the best-selling "A Brief History of Time," has made similar arguments in the past -- and consequently come under fire from religious groups.

The physicist said in 2006 he was chastised by then-Pope John Paul II for attempting to study the birth of the universe, which the pope deemed "the work of God."

Hawking arrived in Canada on Saturday to kick off a six-week research visit to the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont. The institute has pledged to build a research centre in his honour.

Hawking is best known for his study of black holes. The former Cambridge professor was diagnosed at 21 with a degenerative disease that hampers his speech and movement, but carries on his work with the help of a wheelchair and an electronic speech synthesizer.