insofar as the spacetime singularity marks the point of origin of the universe from nothing physical, cosmological models based on solutions to the field equations of general relativity seem strangely reminiscent of what theologians long described in doctrinal terms as creatio ex nihilo—“creation out of nothing” (nothing physical, that is). Hawking and Ellis themselves addressed the issue of the creation of the universe in the conclusion of their 1973 book. As they reflected: “The creation of the Universe out of nothing has been argued, indecisively, from early times; see for example Kant’s
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