Page 20 - The Creation Of The Universe

18 THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

century ago, the Creation of the universe was a concept that as-
tronomers as a rule ignored. The reason was the general accep-
A tance of the idea that the universe existed in infinite time.
Examining the universe, scientists supposed that it was just a conglomera-
tion of matter and imagined that it had no beginning. There was no mo-
ment of "Creation"–a moment when the universe and everything in it came
into being.
This idea of "eternal existence" fit in well with European notions stem-
ming from the philosophy of materialism.
This philosophy, originally advanced in
the world of the ancient Greeks, held that
matter was the only thing that existed in
the universe and the universe existed in
infinite time and will exist endlessly. This
philosophy survived in different forms
during Roman times but in the Late
Roman Empire and after, materialism
went into decline as a result of the influ-
ence of the Catholic church and Christian
faith. It was after Renaissance that mate-
rialism began to gain broad acceptance The German philosopher Immanuel
Kant was the first person to ad-
among European scholars and scientists,
vance the assertion of "the infinite
largely because of their devotion to an- universe" in the New Age. Scientific
cient Greek philosophy. discoveries, however, invalidated
Kant's assertion.
It was Immanuel Kant who, during the
European Enlightenment, reasserted and
defended materialism. Kant declared that the universe exists for all time
and that every probability, however unlikely, should be regarded as possi-
ble. Kant's followers continued to defend his idea of an infinite universe
along with materialism. By the beginning of 19th century, the idea that the
universe had no beginning–that there was never any moment at which it
was created–became widely accepted. It was carried into the 20th century