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The principle of causality can be understood as the idea that every event is

necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature1. With

the eruption of the worldview brought on by the quantum theories, the classical principleof strict causality was, to a certain degree, rejected. n order to respond to the parado!es

of atomic physics, old and cherished ideas were to be renounced, including the idea

that natural phenomena obey e!act laws " the principle of casuality#

. t must be said,however, that not all physicists conceded this point$ %a! &lanc' and (lbert )instein

were drawn close together in opposition to the new wave*. What+s more, some

physicists, most notably avid -ohm, have created an alternative interpretation 'nown asthe hidden variable theory, which restores determinism and definiteness to micro

reality/,and li'ewise the validity of perennial principles such as causality.

That said, we must be quic' to clarify the idea of 0causality. ivine causality

and created causality radically differ in 'ind and not only in degree2.3aw'ing himselfonce wrote$ the usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot

answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why

does the universe go to all the bother of e!isting45Whether the principle of causality is

useful for certain models of physics or not is a different matter than whether we candispose or not of such principle on the metaphysical or theological level. Thus, if we are

to accept the rejection of causality on a physical letter 6not a given position7, believe, wemay continue to spea' of causality because we are spea'ing on two different levels.

This distinction allows us to recogni8e two dangers$ that of wanting to derive

creation ex nihilo from the laws of nature9 Ta'e, for e!ample, &ope &ius :+squestionable statement$ ;reation, there, in time, and therefore, a ;reator< and

consequently, =od>. The other is the applying metaphysical or theological categories to

physical ones. ?or e!ample, some have drawn analogies between the creation of virtual

particles from vacuums as a sort of evidence that things can begin to e!ist without acause. Tipler and -arrow responder however saying$ t is, of course, somewhat

inappropriate to call the origin of a bubble @niverse in a fluctuation of the vacuumAcreation e! nihilo,A for the quantum mechanical vacuum state has a rich structure whichresides in a previously e!isting substratum of spacetime, B...C ;learly, a true Acreation e!

1 HOEFER, C., Causal Determinsim, in ZALTA, E.N., ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

2010Spring 2010 Edition, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/determinism-causal.

2 AGAR, J., Science in the 20th Century and Beyond, 17 aprile 2013Kindle, 126.

3 Ibid., 128.

4 HOEFER, C.

5 INTERNATIONALTHEOLOGICALCOMMISSION, Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created

in the Image of God [accesso 1.8.2015],

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html.

6 HAWKING, S.W. SAGAN, C.,A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Toronto etc.

1 marzo 1988, 174.

7 HALVORSON, H. KRAGH, H., Cosmology and Theology, in ZALTA, E.N., ed., Stanford Encyclopedia

of Philosophy, 2013Fall 2013.

8 PONTIFICIAACCADEMIADELLESCIENZE, Papal Addresses to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 1917-

2002 and to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences 1994-2002, Vatican City 2003, 141.

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nihiloA would be the spontaneous generation of everythingspacetime, the quantum

mechanical vacuum, matterat some time in the past.D.

9 BARROW, J.D. TIPLER, F.J., The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Oxford 25 agosto 19881 edition.