Introduction

In the last three centuries physicists have come up with a surrogate for God. It is the conception of laws of Nature as universal and eternal, comprehensive without exception (omnipotent), independent of knowledge (absolute), and encompassing all possible knowledge (omniscient). In other words the structure of physical laws has all the classic metaphysical attributes of the Deity (Davies, 1992). In this light are discussed many of the perennial problems about the meaning of the Universe that have traditionally been the concern of religion: how and when the Universe began, possibly how it will end, its evidences of design, its deep and comprehensive orderliness, the beauty of the theories devised to explain it, the wonder of human capacities to penetrate its mysteries, the duty that rational beings have to pursue precise explanations of things as far as these will go.

There is no doubt that there is great fascination and excitement among the educated public about these metaphysical- and theological-sounding claims. Why? Probably for two chief reasons: first because in our secular society we have lost the depth, coherence and value that used to be given to life and the world by religion, and second because natural science has appeared to be the only decisive successful way of reaching the truth about things, and has been exploited as such by post-Enlightenment philosophy, particularly that of the Anglo-American world.