Infinity, Causality and Determinism : Cosmological Enterprises and Their Preconditions

Cosmological theories have been unpopular within philosophy and theology for a long time. Meanwhile, particulary during the last decades, speculative cosmology has been transformed into a discipline that follows the rigorous and exact methods of physics. If the physicists were successful in their efforts to find common ground for quantum physics and the theory of relativity in the Theory of Everything, would philosophy and theology be able to join the discussion? This discussion has already been opened by physicists. The discoveries of quantum physics have, in fact, shed new light on our understanding of the foundations of reality, and they have challenged the mechanistic notions of Western thinking. The classic debates between realism and idealism, and between realism and nominalism, are in this new situation once again brought to life. The relationship between physics and metaphysics is also not just an antiquarian problem but very actual indeed. This book, based on an international and interdisciplinary colloquium, offers philosophical, theological, and physical approaches to historical and contemporary cosmology.