The concepts of "beginning" and "creation" in cosmology

Philosophy of Science 59 (3):361-371 (1992)
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Abstract

The paper is inspired by the arguments raised recently by Grunbaum criticizing the current approaches of many cosmologists to the problem of spacetime singularity, matter creation and the origin of the universe. While agreeing with him that the currently favored cosmological ideas do not indicate the biblical notion of divine creation ex nihilo, I present my viewpoint on the same issues, which differs considerably from Grunbaum's. First I show that the symmetry principle which leads to the conservation law of energy is violated when the time axis is terminated at t = 0. Next I discuss why this epoch (t = 0) is more a mathematical artifact whose supposed significance may disappear when one goes beyond the classical relativistic cosmology. This is illustrated by the example of quantum cosmology

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Citations of this work

Why the big Bang singularity does not help the Kal M cosmological argument for theism.J. Brian Pitts - 2008 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (4):675-708.

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References found in this work

Cosmology.H. Bondi - 1954 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 4 (16):350-352.
The Pseudo-Problem of Creation in Physical Cosmology.Adolf Grünbaum - 1989 - Philosophy of Science 56 (3):373 - 394.
The Structure of the Universe.Jayant Narlikar - 1978 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 29 (3):294-295.

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