Cosmos and Creator

Stanley L. Jaki

Can science measure the age of the universe? Can telescopes view the
birth of the cosmos and bring man face to face with its creation? Or are these feats and prospects so many fashionable exaggerations or thinly veiled expressions of uneasiness? Where does science end, where does philosophy begin, and where does theology take over in a responsible discourse about the creation of the universe? Such are the main questions for which an answer is offered in this book.
Modern science has succeeded in showing that even 20 billion years ago the physical universe was an extremely specific entity whose subsequent evolution had to follow a most specific course. Such is a far cry from a 'nebulous' or undifferentiated cosmic origin, a notion particularly dear to materialists, old and new. Even the rise of man, a most specific entity, presupposes a very specific physical universe, a presupposition referred to nowadays as the anthropic principle of cosmology.
If properly interpreted, modern science can also show that the universe
is not at all necessary. But to appreciate the scientific contribution to a portrayal of the contingency of the universe (already intimated by the enormous degree of its specificity), a realist metaphysics and a sound Christian theology are needed. The latter, as the author argues, is not only a crowning of scientific reflections, but has been an indispensable factor in the only viable birth of science. These reflections are capped with a chapter on the question of extra-terrestrial intelligence.