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The Pseudo-Problem of Creation in Physical Cosmology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Adolf Grünbaum
Adolf Grünbaum*
Affiliation:
Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
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Abstract

According to some cosmologists, the big bang cosmogony and even the (now largely defunct) steady-state theory pose a scientifically insoluble problem of matter-energy creation. But I argue that the genuine problem of the origin of matter-energy or of the universe has been fallaciously transmuted into the pseudo-problem of creation by an external cause. A fortiori, it emerges that the initial “true” and “false” vacuum states of quantum cosmology do not vindicate biblical divine creation ex nihilo at all.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , September 1989 , pp. 373 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I thank Paul Davies, Richard Gale, Allen Janis, John Leslie, Philip L. Quinn and Roberto Torretti for reading earlier versions of this essay and making helpful suggestions. This paper is based on the author's invited presentation to the international conference on “Truth in Science”, at the Accademia Nazionale Dei Lincei in Rome, Italy on October 13–14, 1989. An earlier version was given in Moscow, U.S.S.R. in June 1988.

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