Theories About the Origin of Universe

Cosmology and Theology

As long as humans have been trying to make sense of the universe, they have been proposing cosmological theories.
Furthermore, the notion of a deity often plays a central role in these cosmological theories. According to most monotheistic
religions, God is the sole creator and sustainer of the universe.

Biblical/ Theological Hypothesis Be that as it may, Einstein's static universe was empirically
inadequate: it cannot account for the redshift data
Our subsequent discussion will be restricted almost gathered by Edwin Hubble and others in the 1920s. The
completely to the case of western monotheism—Judaism, redshift data indicates that distant stars are moving
Christianity, and Islam—and even more specifically to away from us, and moving faster in direct proportion to
variants of Christianity. Even so, we note a wide range of their distance. Thus, the data indicate an expanding
diversity among Christian beliefs and Christian attitudes universe.
towards science in general, and towards scientific
cosmology in particular.

Furthermore, even though most theological interactions Advocates of big bang theology are most interested in the
with cosmology have taken place within the Christian claim that the universe is finitely old. Thus, the chain of
tradition, it has rarely—if ever—been the case that the inferential support should run as follows:
defining feature of Christianity (viz. the unique role of
Christ) has played any explicit role in these interactions. Big Bang Model → supports → Universe Finitely Old →
supports → Theism
1. Overview: Cosmology, theology and religion
Before discussing the first supposed inferential relation, we
Christianity and other monotheistic religions (Islam and note that not all theists are committed to the claim that
Judaism) assume a transcendent and sovereign God who the universe is finitely old. Even on this understanding of
created the universe and continually maintains its theism, there are still reasons to exercise caution in seeing
existence. The world only exists because of an ultimate the big bang as confirming the prediction that God created
and supernatural cause which is, as Newton said, “not the universe.
blind and fortuitous, but very well skilled in Mechanicks
and Geometry” (Cohen 1978, 282). Whether in a general
philosophical sense or in a scientific sense, cosmology has
3. Steady-state theories
always been part of theism, but it is only relatively recently
that cosmology based on physics and astronomy has
Aristotle's cosmology belonged to the class of steady-state
entered the discussion concerning the existence and role
theories in so far that his universe was changeless and
of God.
eternal. When Einstein in 1917 proposed the first
relativistic model of the universe, he unwittingly pictured a
2. Creation and the big bang
universe which had qualitative features in common with
Einstein's general theory of relativity shows that the Aristotle's: it was finite in space, but infinite in time. The
structure of spacetime is itself a dynamical variable, discovery of the expansion of the universe excluded the
subject to causal influence by the material constituents of steady state from relativistic cosmology, but not from
the universe. Indeed, Einstein immediately saw the other forms of cosmology.
potential to apply general relativity to large-scale
cosmological questions. The first cosmological model of
Einstein (1917) described a static universe, i.e. one whose
4. Quantum and string cosmologies
spatial geometry is constant over time. Such a model was
not consistent with the original field equations; thus As we mentioned previously, there are reasons to suspect
Einstein modified the equations by the addition of a the invalidity of classical general relativity in regions near a
cosmological constant Λ. Although Einstein later regretted singularity—most importantly, for times very close to the
the introduction of the cosmological constant, in recent big bang. In particular, when lengths are very small, and
years there have emerged independent reasons for curvature and temperatures are very high, then—if the
introducing it into the equations. gravitational force behaves like all other known forces of
nature—quantum effects will take over, and we should an infinite number of galaxies, stars, atoms and everything
accordingly expect different outcomes. This observation is else. Such actual infinities not only cause philosophical and
itself sufficient to utterly destroy the aspirations of big- logical problems, they may also cause problems of a
bang theology—unless there are good reasons to think theological nature. In his thought experiment known as
that the finite-age prediction of relativistic cosmology will “Hilbert's hotel” the famous mathematician David Hilbert
be preserved in a quantum gravity or in string theory. demonstrated that (countable) actual infinities are so
bizarre that they cannot have anything to do with the real
5. Other non-standard cosmologies world we live in. In this thought experiment, Hilbert
imagines that he arrives at a hotel with an infinite number
Apart from the quantum-based cosmologies mentioned
of rooms, all of which are occupied. The desk clerk claims
above, there are several other theories of the universe that
nonetheless that there is a vacancy. He then proceeds to
differ from the generally accepted big bang theory and are,
ask each guest to move to the room with the next highest
in this sense, “non-standard.” A few of these models have
number in the sequence (see Oppy 2006, 8; Kragh 2014,
been discussed within a religious context. We shall limit
Other Internet Resources).
ourselves to two groups of theories, cyclic cosmologies and
multiverse theories. 7. Physical eschatology

5.1 Cyclic cosmologies The cosmological field equations are time-symmetric and
the fundamental laws of physics are assumedly valid at any
Origen, a third-century Christian philosopher, speculated
time. Thus, modern cosmology is not only about the past
that God, before he created our universe, had busied
of the universe, it also offers scenarios about its far future,
himself with the creation of an endless series of earlier
including speculations about the fate of intelligent life.
worlds. His idea of an eternal cyclic universe was however
Given that the apocalyptic passages in the Bible speak of
condemned by the church and has since then generally
an end of the world and a possible new creation (e.g., 2
been regarded as associated with atheism and
Peter 3:10–13), the cosmic future may seem to offer
materialism.
another point of contact between cosmology and theistic
religion. But can there be a secular or scientific
5.2 The multiverse
eschatology?
The modern idea of the multiverse is theologically more
controversial. Moreover, the multiverse is closely
associated with anthropic reasoning: we find ourselves in
our universe, with its particular physical laws and content
of particles, not because other universes are impossible or
improbable, but because our kind of life cannot exist in
other universes. The theory of the multiverse has
seductively great explanatory power (while it has almost
no predictive power), which is a major reason why many
physicists and cosmologists find it attractive. On the other
hand, other physicists dismiss it as pseudoscience because
it is practically untestable.

6. Infinity and the universe

Cosmological theory has gone through many phases and

proposals over the past 100 years. Some have included
universes with infinite pasts and these were mentioned
previously. However, for the past forty years there has
been a strong consensus on the modern big bang theory
which has a finite past. But even if the universe is
temporally finite in the past, it may well be spatially and
materially infinite. If space is infinite and the cosmological
principle is assumed to be valid, the universe will contain