INTRODUCTION

It is difficult to see what science can usefully say about creatio ex nihilo. Even to describe it as an ‘event’ begs the question of prior nothing as against historical something. The latter is patently open to scientific investigation, but the former and any conceivable connecting factor are matters (so to speak) for metaphysical discussion. Even the fashionable suppositions of a universe emerging via the agency (again so to speak) of a quantum perturbation would seem to fall into the category of metaphysics, given that any proposed ‘mechanism’ apparently possesses no prior explanation, and would not be open to any sort of experimental verification. Those subscribing to naturalistic, if not materialist, world-pictures seem seldom to perceive a problem; broadly they regard the material universe as a brute fact. Creatio ex nihilo might be an embarrassment, but it is only a potential stumbling-block; as already noted, given it is beyond scientific discourse, the scientists have nothing to contribute.

Even so, no scientist can avoid being embedded in a metaphysical framework (even if it is ostensibly nihilistic or solipsistic), and it is not surprising that the apparent peculiarities of our universe (famously in terms of the apparent ‘fine-tuning’ of the physical constants) sharpen the desire to find an ‘escape clause’ from the ominous sense of a world designed for our habitation and understanding.