Welcome to the Tumistic Institute podcast.

Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.

The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tumistic Institute chapters around the world.

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to mystic institute.org. If you look at the handout, the opening paragraph, which I will read

to you, whatever begins has a cause. Big Bang Cosmology tells us that the universe has a beginning,

therefore the universe as a whole has a cause, that is, it is created. The syllogism seems simple enough, and it's attractive to many who think that cosmology offers a powerful argument for the universe is being created.

Yet other cosmological theories that speak of our universe as emerging from a primal vacuum without a cause,

or of an eternal series of Big Bang, or of our universes being one, only one in a vast multiverse,

lead to an opposite conclusion. There is no need for a creator. It seems obvious to many

that if the universe has a beginning, that it must be created.

And correspondingly a universe without a beginning is not a created universe.

Cosmological apologetics sometimes leads to an affirmation of a creator,

and at other times to a denial of a creator.

But can cosmology really tell us anything about whether or not the universe is created?

That's the focus of my comments. The simple answer is no.

So, in this lecture, I will examine the confusion, both in the various arguments

for creation based on cosmological theories, and arguments based on other cosmological

theories that deny that the universe is created. Ultimately, I want to show how the analysis of what

creation means set forth by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century offers a powerful

corrective to these confusing and contradictory claims.

So first, cosmology and the affirmation of creation.

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