This chapter summarizes the general contemporary scientific consensus about cosmology and cosmogony. The data considered in this case come from physics. We will examine the published conclusions that theoretical scientists have drawn from empirical data about astro- and particle-physics, and the attempt of philosophers of science to apply those findings to their own interests in ontology and epistemology.

The views summarized here are taken from secondary rather than primary works, which (as such) requires a word of explanation. In general my emphasis throughout this book has opposed this kind of approach. When dealing with the Hebrew scriptures, I did not try to present a general view of the scriptures on creation. Rather, I focused on a single text, viz., Genesis 1–2:3. Nor did I base my judgments primarily on what secondary sources had to say about this material. Rather, I went directly to the text itself and formed my own opinions, guided by rules of coherency and consistency, and based on my own reading of primary material. Secondary works were consulted and the Genesis text was considered within a context of the Hebrew scriptures in general. However, these more synthetic considerations were always submissive to my own reading of the chosen primary material. I followed this approach in order to avoid two basic errors all too evident in many works in intellectual history. First, by synthesizing significantly different works one is always in danger of presenting mere fiction, since the synthesis may be foreign to what the synthesized authors ever said or anyone else for that matter ever believed.