![]() ![]() I call the 'no-beginning' myths those without a single beginning of time. Within each, there are different possibilities organised as in Figure 1. There can only be two answers to that: yes, time started at some point in the past or, no, the universe is eternal. First we organise the mythic narratives by whether there was a moment of creation, a moment when cosmic time started to tick. We may call them 'archetypes of creation' (Gleiser 1997:9). In my book The Dancing Universe, I argued that there are only five possible answers to the question of creation, and that all religious creationaa myths choose one of them. They transcend the dichotomies that define our existence. The gods, or God, do not respect the laws of nature that constrain material and living things. So, by definition, to be a god is to transcend the confines of space and time, to exist beyond the boundaries that define our existence. To create space and time and the things within them, religions invoke deities capable of existing outside the confines of space and time - and with the power to create things within space and time. ![]() To create the world, with all its material things, there needs to be a stage where things exist - space - and an account of how their histories unfold - time. Religions across the globe and across time have dealt with the question of the origin of all things in similar ways. Such narratives address, in often beautifully poetic imagery, the question of the origin of all things: How did the world come to be? How did people and animals come to be? Taken within a broad cultural context, it's no surprise that modern-day scientists are as fascinated with the question of origins as were the shamans of our distant ancestors. With very few exceptions, such as the Pirahã natives of the Brazilian Amazon forest and, in a very different sense, Buddhism, most cultures have a creation narrative, or creation myth. With this definition in mind, we will embark on a critical examination of metaphysics thinking in cosmology, starting from the very beginning, pre-scientific cosmogonical (creation) myths. We can call it a physical metaphysics, to distinguish it from questions arising from moral philosophy, concerned with the nature of justice and values. ![]() Thus, for the sake of this article, we will consider metaphysics to be the branch of philosophy that deals with the fundamental aspects of physical reality, in particular, time, space, substance and change. It is also no accident that, much later, Hermann Weyl's masterful exposition of Einstein theories of relativity was titled Space, Time, Matter (Weyl 1922). It is no accident that Isaac Newton, in the Scholium of his groundbreaking Principia, needed to define space, time and matter in order to formulate his laws of motion and universal gravitation (Newton 1687:408). (OED: )įollowing this definition, metaphysics deals with the conceptual scaffolding upon which the physical sciences are built. The branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things or reality, including questions about being, substance, time and space, causation, change, and identity (which are presupposed in the special sciences but do not belong to any one of them) theoretical philosophy as the ultimate science of being and knowing. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, metaphysics is: Given that this article will be discussing the role of metaphysics in cosmological and astrophysical thought, we should start by defining what is meant by metaphysics, a word that incites adverse reactions from most scientists and even philosophers, in particular, logical positivists. Further, the logical insolvability of the problem of the First Cause is examined, showing the conceptual inappropriateness of current scientific models that claim to offer a solution. Emphasising the polarised tension between Being and Becoming and its religious and philosophical origins, this article argues that this tension is unavoidable and still very much present. This article offers a critical discussion on the question of the existence of the Universe, starting with creation myths of a variety of different cultures and ending with cutting-edge ideas from modern cosmology. IIResearch Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa, South Africa IDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, United States Cosmic metaphysics: Being versus Becoming in cosmology and astrophysics ![]()
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