Can modern physics legitimately address the question of why there is something rather than nothing?
Big Bang Theory
Lematire: the universe began from an exploding atom of energy in a fireworks beginngin
Hubble: data leads to the idea of an expadning universe
opposed Steady STate
Physics
God cannot b e reduced to the role of a scientifc hypothesis
colsmmology does still have meaning for phiosophy
Nothing --> Something
how did the universe spontaneously come into existence?
Krauss
quantum gravity allows the universe to be created from nothing
BUT doesn't the existence of quantum mechanics count as something
particles can appear from no particles but not from nothing; a quantum state with zero energy is not nothing
there are theories that suggest that space and time themselves are not fundamental but emerge grom a state wihtout space and tiome
a phsyical state without space or time still isn't nothing
where did the quantum laws describing these processes come from?
origin of quantum laws
God
the multiverse
even if we did have a theory of nothing we should not speak of this nothing as existing and this nothing, whgatever it is is capacble of genrating a universe
Theology
Traditional phiosophical theology
Creatio Originans
Creatio Continuans
Creatio ex Nihilo
God creates out of nothing
ikmmediate cause of the worlds' existence
fabricates the universe
no already existing stuff
brings finite reality into being
God preserve finite reality in being moment by momment
Tehology proposes a self-explanatory cause - the creator - which is the fundamental source of being and order, and in which all existing things participate
Dsitinct properties of the creator
it preoposes an ultimate explnmation for the existence and basic order of whatever sicnece discovers -penultimate order
unable to describe anything before creation (stoeger)
Hartle-Hawking reslut
HOWEVER, existence of wave function doesn't count as nothing
may have demonstrated that physics and cosmology can explaion how the universe emerges from nothing since there is no intial boundary nor any classical time that can be defined
Earlier phase of the universe before the Big Bang?
doesn't procide sufficient accouynt of phase transitio n
ekpyrotic scanario
universe is a 3D D-brane floating in a higher dimensional space
collison causes big bang
collision would need to be finely tuned to cause big bang and creatio nfo our universe
no phsyics describes nothing
there is not a physi8cs that describes how existence is realised from non-existence
Self-substiting self explanatory cause, the creator
fundamental cauyse of being and order
primary cause unliune any other cause because it gives existence and order and does not act in place or paralelle with any other order
Tehology of creatio nis concerned with the ultimate source of the existence, dyaniism and order of whater phsyics and cosmolofgy receal about primordial processes in the veyr early universe
cause as applied to GOd should be conceived not as a physical force but as a relationship of dependcen which is always present
creation is not abouta tempeoral beginnign
god as primary cause, is a necessary condition for all that happens
the creator is always sustaining all that is in existence (stoeger)
a critical theology supports whaterv ecosmology as a science legitimately concludes
cosmology really strongly constrains theology of creation to that particular rol, discouraging it from entering into competiton with physics to provide alternative agents og change