Well, Lawrence Krauss’s book, A Universe from Nothing, gets a trashing in a NYT book review. Imagine that. Philosopher David Albert takes Krauss’ arguments apart and finds them woefully inadequate. No surprise there. I have long appreciated Lawrence Krauss’s popularizations of science. But, frankly, his comments about philosophy and theology I find ridiculous. He comes across as an ideologue. I feel like saying Dr. Krauss should go back to writing books on Star Trek.
When St. Thomas Aquinas, way back in the 13th century, discussed creation of the world by God ex nihilo, Aquinas did not understand by “nothing” the stretch of space that Krauss thinks everybody a hundred years ago would have understood to be “nothing”. Space and time are attributes of creation. Apart from God’s action, they would not exist. Nevertheless, Krauss insists it’s those theologians and philosophers who are changing the game. In fact, it’s folks who talk about getting a universe from “nothing” who are changing the game and the game to which they are changing is a shell game. Do they really believe that physics can tell us everything there is to say about why there is something? If not, they should stop acting like they do.
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