Cosmology and Philosophy

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development of scientific cosmology, discusses its unresolved questions about the universe's origin and multiverse theories, and explores its philosophical and theological implications, especially concerning creation from nothing.

Contribution

It provides a broad overview of the standard cosmological model, examines alternative theories, and analyzes the complex relationship between cosmology, philosophy, and theology.

Findings

Standard model of an expanding universe established.

Debates on singularity and multiverse remain unresolved.

Theological perspectives on creation are contrasted with scientific views.

Abstract

Scientific cosmology has now reached its period of maturity with the establishment of a standard model, which is the theory of an expanding universe. The question of whether this expansion resolves itself, in the past, into a singularity identifiable with an absolute beginning, or whether the universe in which we are is only one of the multiple possible universes existing either in space or in time, is still under debate. Moreover, the assimilation of the beginning of the universe to a "creation" has often been contested by theology, which, since Thomas Aquinas, if not since the Fathers of the Church, tends to carefully distinguish the two. In the following article, after briefly summarizing some points in the recent history of scientific cosmology, we will attempt to present in broad outline the standard model that scientists have arrived at. Then, we will undertake to study some of the problems it raises as well as the alternative theories that can be opposed to it. Finally, we will discuss the problematic links that scientific cosmology continues to maintain with philosophy and theology, notably the thorny question of creation from nothing ({\it creatio ex nihilo}).