Dr Paul Allen

Image via Wikipedia Tim Challies writes: On February 14, 1990, the space craft Voyager 1 was on the very fringe of our solar system. Before it drifted away to wander the galaxy, engineers turned the cameras around and pointed them toward earth, 6.4 billion kilometers away. This historic photograph captured earth as just the tiniest point of light in a vast sky. Carl Sagan looked at that photograph and declared, “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.” We are, after all, the inhabitants of just a speck, the tiniest pinprick of light in a universe of unimaginable proportions. How big is the universe? It’s an impossible question for us to answer, of course, but that has not stopped many from making an attempt. I enjoy hearing about those attempts. Here is one that I came across the other day. It’s worth three-and-a-half minutes of your time: Accordi...

Image via Wikipedia I think that it is impossible for something to create itself. (I also think that it is impossible for something to explain itself.) So I disagree with the claim -- attributed to Hawking -- that the universe can create itself from nothing.  This is not to say that I disagree with Hawking's model of the universe (though, given the track record of global cosmology , I'd say the odds are that it is false); what I disagree with is the suggestion that that model involves something that is properly called 'self-creation'.  (In my opinion, Hawking's model either involves absence of cause, or else it involves necessary cause. Most plausibly, absence of cause.)  There are many good things that have been written about cosmological arguments. As on almost any topic in philosophy , a good place to start is with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:   http://plato.stanford.edu/   . Most discussions of cosmological arguments make some comments a...