Van Huyssteen J.W. (editor) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion

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COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION

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were conceived by their parents against the odds.

Yet biologically this view is deeply credulous. It is

no accident that those who suppose the emer-

gence of humans to be the product of individual

and contingent history, also believe that humans

are not only free (as indeed they are) but may

mold their morality to a scheme of their choosing.

The realities of biological evolution and the in-

evitability of convergence suggest, however, a new

view of life. Creation presupposes a history and an

end-point, but this does not constrain choice and

acceptance (or the opposite). The universe is so

arranged that sooner or later, somewhere or other,

certain properties, biological and ultimately spiri-

tual, will emerge. The quip by British geneticist

and physiologist J.B.S. Haldane remarking upon

the creator’s inordinate fondness for beetles is

thereby turned on its head. Creation is indeed rich,

but the modalities of convergence suggest that ul-

timately it is otiose to speak of accidents. Seeded in

the act of creation was the inevitability of sentience

endowed with free will.

See also ADAPTATION; CHANCE; DESIGN; EVOLUTION;

VOLUTION, BIOLOGICAL; SELECTION, LEVELS OF

Bibliography

Bieri, Robert. “Humanoids on Other Planets?” American

Scientist 52 (1964): 452–458.

Catania, Kenneth C. “A Nose That Looks Like a Hand and

Acts Like an Eye: The Unusual Mechanosensory Sys-

tem of the Star-Nosed Mole.” Journal of Comparative

Physiology A 185 (1999): 367–372.

Conway Morris, Simon. The Crucible of Creation: The

Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals. Oxford: Ox-

ford University Press, 1998.

Marino, Lori. “What Can Dolphins Tell Us About Primate

Evolution?” Evolutionary Anthropology 5, no. 3

(1996): 81–85.

Moore, Janet, and Willmer, Patricia. “Convergent Evolution

in Invertebrates.” Biological Reviews 72 (1997): 1–60.

Mueller, Ulrich G.; Rehner, Stephen A.; and Schultz, Ted

R. “The Evolution of Agriculture in Ants.” Science 281

(1998): 2034–2038.

Strausfeld, Nicholas J., and Hildebrand, John G. “Olfactory

Systems: Common Design, Uncommon Origins.” Cur-

rent Opinion in Neurobiology 1 9 (1999): 634–639.

Wistow, Graeme. “Lens Crystallins: Gene Recruitment and

Evolutionary Dynamism.” Trends in Biochemical Sci-

ences 18 (1993): 301–306.

SIMON CONWAY MORRIS

COPENHAGEN

INTERPRETATION

The Copenhagen Interpretation, developed prima-

rily by Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885–1962)

and other researchers in Copenhagen in the first

third of the twentieth century, is the standard in-

terpretation of quantum mechanics. It ascribes

physical reality only to observed reality. Quantum

mechanics can predict only the probability that

measurements will have particular outcomes. No

observation has ever been found to conflict with

the experimental predictions of this theory. How-

ever, there is much debate about the correctness of

this interpretation of the measurement process,

and there are several rival interpretations of quan-

tum mechanics, notably the Many Worlds Interpre-

tation proposed in 1957 by physicists Hugh Everett

and John Wheeler. A major problem of the Copen-

hagen Interpretation is the lack of a precise defini-

tion of what constitutes a “measurement” or an

“observation.” It is also problematic if a theory of

quantum cosmology is to be developed because

the Copenhagen Interpretation requires an “ob-

server” for the universe.

See also EPR PARADOX; MANY-WORLDS HYPOTHESIS;

ARADOX; PHYSICS, QUANTUM; SELF-REFERENCE

Bibliography

Deutsch, David. The Fabric of Reality. London: Penguin,

1997.

Herbert, Nick. Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics.

London: Rider, 1985.

Rae, Alistair I. M. Quantum Physics: Illusion or Reality?

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

JOHN D. BARROW

COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

Cosmological arguments aim to establish the causal

or explanatory dependence of the world on a

wholly independent being, usually identified with

God. These arguments typically proceed from the

claim that familiar things are dependent in various

ways upon other things—that is, for their origin,

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movement, and continued existence. The crux of

traditional cosmological arguments is the con-

tention that not every being can be dependent in

the relevant way; that is, any chain of dependence

must ultimately be grounded in a being that admits

of no such dependence.

History of cosmological argument

The history of cosmological arguments goes back

at least to Aristotle, though his understanding of

the Prime Mover bears little resemblance to theism.

After Aristotle, the history divides naturally into two

categories: (1) In the Middle Ages, philosophers in

all three major theistic traditions defended cosmo-

logical arguments. Prominent among them were

Ibn Sina (Avicenna), St. Thomas Aquinas, and

Moses Maimonides, all thinkers within the Aris-

totelian metaphysical framework; and (2) By the

early modern period, the principles of Aristotelian

metaphysics that had supported cosmological ar-

guments were no longer in vogue. But it proved

natural to formulate a cosmological argument in

fresh terms, as Samuel Clarke did in 1705. Clarke

insisted that whatever comes to be is dependent on

other things to provide an account or reason for its

existence, and he argued that an account is incom-

plete if it is not ultimately grounded in some inde-

pendent thing. Clarke’s contemporary, Gottfried

Leibniz, also defended a cosmological argument,

while both David Hume and Immanuel Kant pro-

vided famous criticisms. Variations on deductive

cosmological arguments (like that of Clarke) are

the most important in the literature, and are still

discussed today.

Deductive cosmological argument

It is incontrovertible that some things and events

are explanatorily dependent on other things in the

way described above. But a central question in de-

bates over cosmological arguments of the deduc-

tive sort concerns the possibility of an infinite se-

ries of things or events, each providing an

adequate explanation for the existence (or motion)

of the next. Setting Aristotelian principles aside,

there is no obvious way to rule out such a series

based on contemporary physical theory or meta-

physical accounts of causation. But many cosmo-

logical arguments reject the possibility of such a se-

ries on the grounds that an explanation is

incomplete if that which explains (the explanans)

requires explanation itself. This implies that a com-

plete explanation for any thing or event must ulti-

mately be grounded in something that has no ex-

planatory dependence. Finally, it is often claimed

that only a necessary being (a being that could not

have failed to exist) requires no explanation for its

existence. And God is considered the most natural

example of a necessary being with causal powers.

Two responses to this argument are common.

First, the critic can reject the notion of complete

explanation just sketched. Since every individual

thing in an infinite series of dependent beings is ex-

plained by the thing immediately prior to it, the ex-

istence of that individual remains intelligible de-

spite the lack of an independent being in the series.

Second, the critic can claim that the infinite series

itself provides a complete explanation for the exis-

tence of whatever follows it. But the series itself is

not dependent on anything else for an explanation.

In order to rule out both of these responses,

some theists have propounded a very strong prin-

ciple: not just the familiar facts of experience, but

every contingent state of affairs must have an ex-

planation outside of itself (the Principle of Suffi-

cient Reason). If this principle were true, not only

would every individual in an infinite series of

causes require explanation, but the existence of

the series itself would require explanation. (A con-

tingent state of affairs is one that might not have

been the case.) However, the principle seems

overly strong and quite difficult to motivate. In fact,

even a theist has good grounds for rejecting it.

After all, traditional theism maintains that God cre-

ated freely and could have chosen otherwise; so

God’s deciding to create the world is a contingent

occurrence. And since it is contingent, it cannot be

completely explained (i.e. deduced) from any nec-

essary truths about God. In response, the theist

could weaken the original principle somewhat, al-

lowing that only free acts of persons are suitable

contingent grounds for explanation. But if excep-

tions to the rule are allowed, why not allow the

unexplained existence of an infinite series, or of a

first contingent physical event like the Big Bang?

It is important to clarify that even a successful

deductive cosmological argument would not es-

tablish the truth of theism. First, such an argument

would not entail the conclusion that there is a sin-

gle independent and necessary being, since there

could be a number of them. Second, even if there

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were only one such being, a cosmological argu-

ment would provide no guarantee that the being is

personal, all-powerful, or good. (Perhaps it is an

impersonal force or a great demon.) But these lim-

itations do not mean that cosmological arguments

are useless for justifying theism. For a great many

competing theories would be ruled out by a suc-

cessful deductive cosmological argument.

Evidential cosmological argument

An importantly different kind of argument is pre-

sented by Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of

God (1979). Swinburne rejects cosmological argu-

ments aiming at deductive proof. Rather than in-

sisting that some principle of reason rules out the

possibility that the physical universe could simply

exist unexplained, he compares the creation hy-

pothesis with its rivals by using criteria such as

simplicity and explanatory power. In this respect,

the existence of God is treated as an explanatory

postulate akin to the existence of electrons. Swin-

burne builds a cumulative case based on several

types of facts that he believes are best explained

by theism. Among these facts is the mere existence

of a complex and contingent physical universe.

Nevertheless, because there is no established stan-

dard for comparing the merits of ultimate explana-

tions, the evidential cosmological argument is

widely considered inconclusive at best. Swin-

burne’s conclusions receive a sophisticated critique

in J. L. Mackie’s The Miracle of Theism (1982).

See also ARISTOTLE; AVICENNA; CAUSATION; COSMOLOGY;

AIMONIDES; ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT; TELEOLOGICAL

ARGUMENT; THEISM; THOMAS AQUINAS

Bibliography

Brown, Patterson. “Infinite Causal Regression” (1966). In

Readings in the Philosophy of Religion: An Analytic

Approach, ed. Baruch A. Brody. Englewood Cliffs,

N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1992.

Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

(1779), ed. H. Aiken. New York: Macmillan, 1948.

Mackie, J. L. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and

Against the Existence of God. Oxford: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1982.

Rowe, William L. The Cosmological Argument. Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975.

Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God (1979). Oxford:

Clarendon, 1991.

DAVID MANLEY

COSMOLOGY

Many, perhaps all, early cosmologies or descrip-

tions of the structure of the world were anthro-

pocentric (focused on the role and fate of human

beings) and they envisioned a universe subject to

whims of gods. As such, cosmology and religion

were closely intertwined.

From the ancient Greeks through the Middle

Ages, over some two millennia, the geocentric cos-

mology or worldview of Aristotle (384–322

B.C.E.)

dominated much of the Western intellectual world.

Circular and unalterable heavens rotated around

the Earth, which was motionless in the center of

the one and only world. Created during roughly

the same period and in the same regions of the

world, Aristotelian philosophy and Biblical ac-

counts of cosmology and cosmogony are, not sur-

prisingly, congruent in some respects. Aristotle’s

teleological explanations assumed that the world

was fulfilling a purpose formed by a superhuman

mind; Christian philosophy also is inherently

meaningful and purposive.

During the Middle Ages, Aristotelian cosmol-

ogy was subordinated to religious concerns. In the

sixteenth century Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–

1543) displaced the Earth, though not the solar

system, from the center of the universe, and in-

creasingly from the center of God’s attention as

well. In the seventeenth century Galileo Galilei

(1564–1642) destroyed Aristotelian cosmology.

The subsequent mechanical cosmology of Isaac

Newton (1642–1727), though initially requiring

God’s intervention to keep the planets circling the

sun, eventually replaced God completely with the

universal law of gravity.

Early in the twentieth century, the American as-

tronomer Harlow Shapley (1885–1972) showed that

the solar system is not at the center of our galaxy,

but off to the side, and that our galaxy is many

times larger than previously contemplated. A few

years later, Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) showed that

our galaxy is but one of many island universes, and

that the acentric universe is expanding. Each new

cosmological discovery displaced humankind far-

ther from the center of the universe and seemed to

render humans less significant in an increasingly

immense universe.

A contemporary resurgence of dialogue be-

tween scientific cosmology and religious thought

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late in the twentieth century involved yet another

version of the traditional design argument for God.

The Anthropic Principle noted that values of the

fundamental constants of nature (the speed of

light, Planck’s constant, etc.) and the fundamental

physical laws are “fine-tuned” to precisely what is

needed for the evolution of life. As with earlier

cosmologically based arguments for the existence

of God, the Anthropic Principle has proven highly

vulnerable to theory-change in science. The infla-

tionary Big Bang cosmological model now ex-

plains much fine-tuning without recourse to God.

The history of the relationship between cos-

mology and religion, particularly in Western

thought, has been enlivened by changes in cos-

mological understanding and beliefs. As the Earth

has been increasingly displaced from the center of

the universe and observed phenomena have been

increasingly brought under the rule of natural

physical laws, humankind’s relationship with and

understanding of God has required revisions.

See also ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE; BIBLICAL COSMOLOGY;

IG BANG THEORY; BIG CRUNCH THEORY;

EMINIST COSMOLOGY; GALILEO GALILEI;

EOCENTRISM

Bibliograpy

Danielson, Dennis Richard. The Book of the Cosmos: Imag-

ining the Universe from Heraclitus to Hawking. Cam-

bridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2000.

Gribbin, John. Companion to the Cosmos. London:

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.

Hetherington, Norriss S. Encyclopedia of Cosmology: Histor-

ical, Philosophical, and Scientific Foundations of Mod-

ern Cosmology. New York and London: Garland, 1993

North, John. The Norton History of Astronomy and Cos-

mology. New York and London: Norton, 1995.

NORRISS HETHERINGTON

COSMOLOGY,PHYSICAL

ASPECTS

The scientific understanding of the origin, nature,

and possible future of the universe dramatically

changed during the twentieth century. This burst

of scientific discovery triggered a complex series of

responses among religious thinkers, particularly

after about 1960, which marks the beginning of

the contemporary resurgence of dialogue between

science and religion. The recent interaction be-

tween scientific cosmology and religious thought is

one of the richest and most instructive examples of

contemporary science-religion dialogue.

Theologians have related physical cosmology

most often to the doctrine of creation. In its Christ-

ian form, creation theology typically includes two

components: creatio ex nihilo (creation out of noth-

ing) and creatio continua (continuous creation).

Judaism and Islam explicate similar ideas, but the

formal distinction is an invention of Christian theol-

ogy to express different features of the God-world

relation. Creatio ex nihilo stresses the dependence

or contingency of all that exists on God as its tran-

scendent source while creatio continua stresses

God’s continuing and immanent action in the uni-

verse. Together, these ideas portray God both as

the ultimate source of nature’s causal efficacy, faith-

fully maintaining its regularities, which we describe

in terms of the laws of nature, and as creating in

time by acting in, with, under, and through the laws

of nature, bringing forth the order, beauty, and

complexity of the physical world and the rich di-

versity found in the biological evolution of life.

Creation ex nihilo has been explored exten-

sively in relation to two particular features of Big

Bang cosmology: t = 0, which represents the be-

ginning of time and thus the age of the universe,

and the Anthropic Principle, which points to the

remarkable conditions that the fundamental con-

stants and the laws of nature must meet if the evo-

lution of life in the universe is to be possible.

These will be discussed in turn, each followed by

theological discussions of its significance for cre-

atio ex nihilo. The creatio continua form has been

discussed in terms of the temporal, developmental,

and historical character of the universe; it will not

be treated here. Finally, inflationary and quantum

cosmologies will be discussed in advance of a sur-

vey of theological responses.

Big Bang cosmology

During the decade following the 1905 publication

of his Special Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein

worked on a relativistic theory of gravity. His basic

insight was to reconceptualize gravity as the cur-

vature of space-time instead of as a (Newtonian)

force in Euclidean space. According to Einstein,

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masses move along geodesics, curves describing

the shortest possible path in space-time. Their mo-

tion, in turn, alters the curvature of space-time,

thus giving the field equations of the General The-

ory of Relativity their complicated nonlinear form.

Shortly after the discovery of the General The-

ory of Relativity, solutions to Einstein’s equations

were developed for two distinct classes of prob-

lems: (1) point masses, which when applied to the

solar system led to several key tests of the theory

and their eventual confirmation (including the de-

flection of starlight by the sun and the precession

in the perihelion of the orbit of Mercury); and (2)

dust, which when eventually applied to the distri-

bution of galaxies and galactic clusters described

the universe as expanding in time. Beginning in

the 1920s, telescopic observations by Edwin Hub-

ble showed that galaxies were indeed receding

from us and at a velocity proportional to their dis-

tance. In essence, the expansion of the universe

had been discovered.

There are in fact three standard types of ex-

pansion possible. In the so-called closed model,

the universe has the shape of a three-dimensional

sphere of finite size. It expands up to a maximum

size, approximately one hundred to five hundred

billion years from now, then contracts, eventually

collapsing to vanishing size with infinite tempera-

tures and densities. The so-called open model has

two variations, one in which the universe is flat,

and one in which it is saddle-shaped. In both ver-

sions of the open model, the universe is infinite in

size. In both cases the universe will expand forever

and cool towards absolute zero. The future of

these three models is often used to characterize

them as “freeze” (open) or “fry” (closed).

All three models came to be called Big Bang

models because they describe the universe as hav-

ing a finite past life of twelve to fifteen billion

years and as beginning in a singularity, an event of

infinite temperature, infinite density, and zero vol-

ume in which the laws of physics as we know

them break down. Since the age of the universe t

is calculated as starting here, it is convenient to

label the singularity “t = 0”; technically this event is

referred to as an essential singularity. In the 1960s,

Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and Robert Ge-

roch proved key theorems demonstrating that the

existence of an essential singularity such as t = 0,

given Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, was

unavoidable.

The relevance of t = 0 to creation ex nihilo

To what extent is t = 0 relevant to the doctrine of

creation ex nihilo? Responses have ranged widely

from direct relevance to complete irrelevance.

Direct relevance. For some scholars, the scien-

tific discovery of an absolute beginning of all

things (including time) provides empirical confir-

mation, perhaps even proof, of divine creation.

This was the position taken by Pope Pius XII in

1951 in an address to the Pontifical Academy of

Sciences. In 1978 Robert Jastrow, then head of

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, spoke

metaphorically about scientists who, after climbing

the arduous mountain of cosmology, came to the

summit only to find theologians there already. The

idea that t = 0 provides strong, even convincing,

support for belief in God is frequently advanced by

conservative and evangelical Christians such as

Hugh Ross. Early in the debate, Lutheran theolo-

gian Ted Peters advanced a more nuanced argu-

ment elucidating the theological importance of a

beginning to the universe in terms of “consonance”

between theology and Big Bang cosmology. A so-

phisticated argument for the temporal finitude of

the universe based on t = 0, as well as on an argu-

ment that rejects the possibility that the universe is

also actually infinite in size, has been developed

by philosopher William Craig, partially through an

explicit debate with atheist Quentin Smith. More

recently, philosopher Phil Clayton has suggested

that contemporary cosmology affords a clear case

of divine activity.

t = 0 also has served indirectly to inspire the

construction of an alternative, and quite successful,

cosmology. In the 1940s, Fred Hoyle, an outspo-

ken atheist, together with colleagues Hermann

Bondi and Thomas Gold, constructed a cosmology

that would have no temporal beginning or end.

Their “steady state cosmology” depicted the uni-

verse as eternally old and expanding exponentially

forever. For two decades, the Big Bang and the

steady state models seemed equally viable given

the empirical evidence then available. By the mid-

1960s, however, the Big Bang model was vindi-

cated, at least in most scientists’ minds, by the dis-

covery of the microwave background radiation, the

successful prediction of the cosmological abun-

dances of hydrogen and helium, and other effects.

What is important here, however, is Hoyle’s moti-

vation in developing the steady state cosmology.

One reason, although probably only secondary,

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was his concern that Big Bang cosmology seemed,

at least in the public mind, to support Christianity.

Of course, the scientific community must test

strictly any cosmological proposal—steady state or

Big Bang—regardless of its possible ideological

origins. As philosophers put it, the “context of dis-

covery” should not influence the “context of justi-

fication.” Nevertheless, the story of Hoyle demon-

strates that very fruitful ideas can come from “extra

scientific” disciplines, such as philosophy and the-

ology, and lead even if indirectly to scientific the-

ories with testable consequences.

Complete irrelevance. Several of the most im-

portant scholars in the theology and science inter-

action see creatio ex nihilo as an entirely philo-

sophical argument regarding contingency for

which specific empirical evidence is irrelevant.

This includes scientists such as Arthur Peacocke,

John Polkinghorne, Bill Stoeger, and Ian Barbour

(in his early writings) as well as Thomistic scholars

such as Steven Baldner and William Carroll.

Indirect relevance. There are a variety of posi-

tions that one can take between the two extremes

of direct relevancy and complete irrelevancy.

Those who find various forms of indirect relevance

include scientists such as Ian Barbour (in later

work), George Ellis, Walter Hearne, and Howard

Van Till; and philosophers and religious scholars

such as Ernan McMullin, Nancey Murphy, Ted Pe-

ters (in later work), Mark Worthing, and Robert

John Russell. Russell’s way of articulating indirect

relevance is to point out that t = 0 is relevant to the

aspect of contingency within the idea of creation

to various degrees depending on the sort of con-

tingency considered. For example, three basic

types of contingency can be distinguished: global

contingency, local contingency, and nomological

contingency. The first of these, global contingency,

includes both the existence of the universe as such

(global ontological contingency) and contingent

theoretical or empirical aspects of the universe as a

whole (global existential contingency). The partic-

ular sort of contingency associated with t = 0

would come under the latter—it is a form of past

temporal finitude, which is a form of finitude and

thus a species of global existential contingency—

but not the former. Thus, the universe’s existence

and its beginning relate to different strands of

global contingency. It is important to note, how-

ever, that the infinite size and infinite future of the

two open models of the universe argue against

contingency in the very same respect. In other

words, if t = 0 is “consonant” with creation theol-

ogy in respect of “global existential contingency”

then these infinities are “dissonant” with creation

and other theological doctrines, such as the escha-

tological views of Western religions, in exactly the

same respect.

The Anthropic Principle

The term Anthropic Principle was coined by physi-

cist Brandon Carter in 1974 to bring together vari-

ous apparent coincidences about the universe that

had received scattered attention throughout the

twentieth century. Although formulated in a variety

of ways, in its strongest form the Anthropic Princi-

ple poses the following question: How are we to

explain the fact that the values of the fundamental

constants of nature (e.g., the speed of light,

Planck’s constant, etc.) and the form of the funda-

mental physical laws are “fine-tuned” to precisely

what is needed if the evolution of life is to be pos-

sible? Estimates have been made suggesting that if

the values of the natural constants differed from

their actual values by one part in a million, it

would have been impossible for life to have

evolved in the universe.

To some, then, the universe seems “fine-tuned”

for life, suggesting a cosmological version of the

traditional design argument for God. Opponents

have deployed a variety of “many-worlds” argu-

ments to suggest that there are many universes be-

sides our own, each with different values of the

natural constants, perhaps even different physical

laws. In that scenario, by definition, life would

evolve in the particular universe that satisfies the

conditions for life but not in others, which explains

cosmic fine-tuning without having to invoke a de-

signer to explain the anthropic coincidences. What

are the relative scientific, philosophical, and theo-

logical merits of these opposing positions?

As early as 1979, Peacocke gave the Anthropic

Principle an indirect but important role within his

discussion of the doctrine of creation, using

metaphors of God as elaborating a fugue and as a

bell-ringer sounding the changes. George Ellis has

explored what he calls the “Christian Anthropic

Principle,” combining design perspectives with a

theology of divine omnipotence and transcen-

dence, drawing from William Temple. Nancey

Murphy, however, treats Ellis’s thesis as an argu-

ment for God. She reconstructs Ellis’s paper to

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show that theology can be seen as a science and

that cosmological fine-tuning can serve as an “aux-

iliary hypothesis” in such a theological program.

Richard Swinburne and John Polkinghorne have

also drawn on the Anthropic Principle in construc-

tive ways.

The endorsements are not universal, however.

Theologian Mark Worthing cautions that the “de-

signer” of the universe need not be the creator God

of theism: both a divine demiurge, including the

universe itself, as Richard Dawkins suggests, or an

emerging divinity, as John Barrow and Frank Tipler

propose, take into account the empirical evidence

of fine-tuning. According to Barbour, the theologi-

cal virtues of construing the Anthropic Principle as

a modern design argument are minimal.

Philosopher John Leslie’s overall evaluation is

that the two opposed sides are equally strong as

arguments but also equally incorrect because a

fully adequate conception of God is neutral to cos-

mological details—Leslie articulates God in terms

of a neo-Platonic aesthetic/ethical principle. Most

variations on the Platonic idea of God as the form

of the Good and the neo-Platonic idea of God as

Ground of Being are neutral to cosmological de-

tails, and their defenders are inclined to regard de-

sign arguments based on the Anthropic Principle

and the many-worlds opponents as premature.

Historian of science Ernan McMullin points out that

the Anthropic Principle is highly vulnerable to the-

ory-change in science. A quantum cosmology

needs to gain widespread acceptance before the

force of the Anthropic Principle can be assessed

properly.

The Anthropic Principle can, however, play a

fruitful role if incorporated within ongoing con-

structive theology, illuminating its inner meaning

and suggesting connections between theological

topics we might not otherwise have recognized.

For example, the Anthropic Principle underscores

the key role that Planck’s constant plays in the par-

ticular overall structure of the universe, a role that

a theology of creation ex nihilo would need to take

seriously. The same constant may be a critical fac-

tor in compatibilist discussions of free will and thus

for theological anthropology: For us to act freely,

nature at the physical level must, arguably, be in-

deterministic. It also functions pivotally in some

approaches to noninterventionist divine action,

particularly in the context of theistic evolution.

Inflationary and quantum cosmologies

Since the 1970s, scientists have pursued “inflation-

ary Big Bang” and beyond that “quantum cosmolo-

gies.” The motivation for this has been both to

solve a variety of technical problems in the stan-

dard Big Bang model and to blend cosmology with

quantum physics, which studies atomic and sub-

atomic physical systems. The term quantum cos-

mology sounds oxymoronic, but the Big Bang en-

tails that the very early universe was extremely

small and thus subject as a whole to quantum

physics. Physicists were also seeking to produce a

theoretical unification of gravity and the other phys-

ical forces (the electroweak and strong nuclear

forces), a unity that is thought to be physically evi-

dent only at extraordinarily high energies such as

those present in the early stages of the Big Bang.

With the introduction of the “inflationary Big

Bang” scenario by Alan Guth and colleagues in the

1970s and further developments in this direction in

the 1980s, the technical problems were basically

solved. According to inflation, the extremely early

universe (roughly from t = 0 until the Planck time,

which is 10

−43

seconds) expands extremely rapidly,

then quickly settles down to the expansion rates of

the standard Big Bang model. During inflation,

countless cosmic domains may arise, separating

the overall universe into huge portions of space-

time in which the natural constants and even the

specific laws of physics might vary. The effect of

inflation on the problem of t = 0 is fascinating,

however, because the Hawking-Penrose theorems

mentioned above do not apply during the infla-

tionary epoch. In these cosmologies we may never

know whether or not an essential singularity was

part of the universe’s history.

Many physicists have proposed methods to

unify quantum physics and gravity, subsequently

applying the results to create quantum cosmolo-

gies: Hawking and Jim Hartle, Andrei Linde, Chris

Isham, Guth, Hawking and Alan Turek, and others.

All of these proposals are still highly speculative,

but there are some indications of what different

quantum cosmologies might look like, including

models with or without an initial singularity (eternal

inflation), with open or closed domains embedded

in an open or a closed megauniverse, and so on. In

most quantum cosmologies, our universe is just one

part of an eternally expanding, infinitely complex

megauniverse. Quantum cosmology is a highly

speculative field chiefly because the underlying

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theories of quantum gravity are notoriously hard to

test empirically, and they lift the philosophical is-

sues already associated with quantum mechanics to

a much more complex level since the domain of

application is now the entire universe.

t = 0 revisited in inflationary and quantum

cosmologies. Given the speculative status of

quantum cosmology, some scholars have kept the

theological conversation focused on the standard

Big Bang model. Others, though, have asked what

effects quantum cosmology might have on their

theology of creation.

One argument is to invoke, once again, the ar-

gument for God from the sheer existence of the

universe. Thus, even without an initial singularity,

even the endless number of universes suggested

by inflation and most quantum cosmologies is con-

tingent in some sense and so invites a creator God

as their necessary complement and creative

source. A related point is that the prior universe or

ensemble of universes out of which our universe

arose includes quantum fields governed by the

laws of physics (both of which are needed to give

what passes in quantum cosmologies for a scien-

tific account of the quantum creation of the uni-

verse). But the Christian view of creatio ex nihilo

relies on the meaning of “nothingness” out of

which God created all that is as the absolute lack

of anything. Hawking, for example, seems to argue

in part in this way in A Brief History of Time

(1988). At times in the book Hawking seems to

agree that without a t = 0 there is nothing left for

God to do, but not at the end, for he also writes:

“even if there is only one possible unified theory,

it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that

breathes fire into the equations and makes a uni-

verse for them to describe? The usual approach of

science … cannot answer the question of why

there should be a universe for the model to de-

scribe” (p. 190).

It is also possible to see, in the debates over

approaches to quantum cosmology, the striking

presence of extrascientific factors. A fascinating ex-

ample occurs in comparing proposals by Penrose

and Hawking and Hartle. In Penrose’s view, our

universe arises as an arbitrary quantum fluctuation

in a homogeneous background superspace filled

with quantum fields. But why should any point in

superspace be singled out as creating a universe

like ours? As Isham puts it, the problem was pre-

empted by the response of Augustine of Hippo

(354–430) to the question of what God was doing

before God made the universe. Augustine’s answer

was that God did not create the universe in time,

since the decision as to which point in time to cre-

ate it would be arbitrary and would imply that

God’s will is mutable. Instead Augustine claimed

that God created time along with the creation of

the universe. But as Isham points out, the same

reasoning leads us to reject Penrose’s approach: It

is thoroughly arbitrary to pick a creation point in

superspace. The Hawking-Hartle model, on the

other hand, circumvents the need for such a point,

making it more attractive to many scientists. This is

a striking example of the potentially positive role

philosophy and theology can play in stimulating

new insights and directions of inquiry within the

natural sciences.

In short, then, inflation and quantum cosmolo-

gies can point to the grandeur and mystery of

God’s creativity and undercut our anthropocen-

trism by stressing a creation far beyond anything

we could ever observe, one in which God relishes

and delights in its sheer diversity. Moreover, none

of the scientific cosmologies explains why the

“universe” exists as such, leading us once again to

the possibility of recognizing God as the creative

ground of being.

Anthropic principle revisited in inflationary

and quantum cosmologies. In the inflationary

Big Bang scenario, the “universe” (or megauni-

verse) includes an infinity of domains, each a “uni-

verse” unto itself, with its own values of the fun-

damental constants, perhaps even differing laws of

nature. In Linde’s quantum cosmology, the uni-

verse eternally inflates into an infinity of bubble

universes, themselves inflating into others end-

lessly. These scenarios suggest a far more ontolog-

ically stark “many-worlds” character than those of

standard Big Bang cosmology, though they are far

less defensible empirically. At least in theory they

seem to explain fine-tuning by means of a kind of

“cosmic Darwinism,” rendering the design argu-

ment irrelevant.

Those defending an application of the An-

thropic Principle to a design argument tend to stress

the technical and philosophical problems with infla-

tion and quantum cosmologies. They also tend to

appeal to Ockham’s Razor against many-worlds or

multiverse theories and in support of the Big Bang,

and they invoke God as the simplest explanation of

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fine-tuning. Critics of an application of the An-

thropic Principle to a design argument tend to view

standard Big Bang cosmology as outdated while ap-

pealing to philosophical criticisms to the effect that

judgments of design are unreliable because they are

necessarily limited by human imaginations.

Conclusion

Perhaps the most important result to emerge from

the shifts in cosmology over the late twentieth cen-

tury is the emergence of the hot Big Bang as a

“permanent” description of our universe from the

Planck time some twelve to fifteen billion years

ago until the present. Gone is the time when the

Big Bang theory enjoyed a serious challenger in

the form of Hoyle’s steady state model, with its

picture of a single, ever-expanding universe whose

fundamental features were time-independent. In-

stead the domain of debate has shifted to the pre-

Planck era and what might lie endlessly “before”

the Big Bang in quantum superspace. We have wit-

nessed what Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams call

an “encompassing” revolution as distinguished

from the kind of Kuhnian “replacing revolution”

one usually thinks of when scientific paradigms

change. In such an encompassing revolution, the

new paradigm contains the old one as a limit case;

that is, quantum cosmology encompasses Big Bang

cosmology as a special case when quantum effects

can be ignored. To paraphrase a point made by

Charles Misner, we can have confidence in relying

on the Big Bang scenario because we know just

where it fails: prior to the Planck time. In this sense

the Big Bang is here to stay.

See also ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE; BIG BANG THEORY;

OSMOLOGY; COSMOLOGY, RELIGIOUS AND

PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS; CREATIO CONTINUA;

REATIO EX NIHILO; INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE

THEORY; MANY-WORLDS HYPOTHESIS; QUANTUM

COSMOLOGIES; STEADY STATE THEORY; T = 0

Bibliography

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Polkinghorne, John C. The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections

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ROBERT JOHN RUSSELL

COSMOLOGY,RELIGIOUS

AND

PHILOSOPHICAL

ASPECTS

Presumption of inevitable battle often dominates

discussions of interactions between cosmology and

religion, and dictates the history produced. The

image of war, though modified since Andrew Dick-

son White’s 1897 History of the Warfare of Science

with Theology in Christendom, persists.

As he watched workers chip away at the ice

barrier across the River Neva binding together the

piers and the old fortress of the czars, White, the

American ambassador to Russia, likened the ice to

outworn creeds and noxious dogmas attaching the

modern world to medieval conceptions of Chris-

tianity. He hoped that both barriers might be swept

away by floods, the former by water and the latter

by increased knowledge and new thought. White

had experienced dogmatic opposition in the

course of steering through the New York state leg-

islature the enabling legislation in 1868 for Cornell

University in Ithaca, which he subsequently guided

and served as its first president. Clergymen had

warned against the atheism of the proposed uni-

versity with its emphasis on science, but White re-

fused to stretch or cut science to fit “revealed reli-

gion.” The controversy bore in upon White a sense

of antagonism, subsequently reflected in his book.

“In all of modern history,” White wrote, “interfer-

ence with science in the supposed interest of reli-

gion … has resulted in the direst evils both to reli-

gion and to science” (p. viii).

Early interaction between cosmology and

religion

The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras

(500–428

B.C.E.) was seemingly an early victim of

the conflict between cosmology and religion.

Greek cosmology moved away from astrological

superstition, magical powers, and myth toward a

more rational spirit and a picture of a universe with

unchanging ways ascertainable by human reason

but beyond the control of human action. Anaxago-

ras’ new theory of universal order collided with

popular faith—the belief that gods ruled the celes-

tial phenomena—and he was expelled from

Athens. Impiety, however, may have been an inci-

dental charge; the indictment also included an ac-

cusation of corresponding with agents of Persia.

The rise of a new scientific attitude and mode of

thought may have accelerated the downfall of tra-

ditional religious and political beliefs, and helped

shape their replacements.

An earlier religious belief of the Babylonians—

that the movements of celestial bodies functioned

as a sort of message board with which the gods

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