Big Bang cosmology tells us that the universe has a beginning. Therefore, the universe as a whole has a cause; that is, it is created. The syllogism seems simple enough, and it is attractive to many who think that cosmology offers a powerful argument for the universe’s being created. Yet, other cosmological theories speak of our universe as emerging from a primal vacuum without a cause.
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In The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow tell us: “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 set the Universe going.”
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For Christians, the traditional reading of the Book of Genesis — reiterated in the Catholic tradition by the solemn pronouncement of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) — is that the opening words of the Bible, “In the beginning…,” mean that the universe is temporally finite. In other words, the world and time began to be as the result of God’s creative word.
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One should avoid drawing conclusions about creation from cosmological theories one way or another. Those who do fail to understand that the causal dependence of all things that exist on God is not a scientific hypothesis, but a metaphysical claim.
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