ABSTRACT
In the words of G. K. Chesterton, 'The Cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in'. And indeed, when engaged in cosmological speculation, one's mind seems to expand to encompass the universe. In particular the 'Big Bang' scenario, by postulating a 'beginning' to the existence of the universe, seemed to offer new and alarming support for the venerable cosmological argument for God's existence. Theoretical physics and observational astronomy together contrive to put the 'bottomless speculations' concerning the origin of the universe firmly back on the agenda. Desirous of avoiding the conclusion that the universe was designed by a Creator, certain cosmologists have challenged the assumption of our own universe's uniqueness, suggesting that, instead, the universe we inhabit is just one among many. Anxious to avoid entanglement in such scholastic disputes, many physicists welcomed the formulation of the 'steady-state' theory of the universe in 1948 by Bondi, Gold and Fred Hoyle.
