Cosmogony: Why we struggle to define the beginning of our universe

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Cosmogony seeks to explain the origin of the universe, yet it remains a field where ancient myth and modern physics collide. While science uses the Big Bang to map our past, it hits a wall at time zero. Are we looking for a beginning, or just a misunderstanding of time itself?

Cosmogony is the study of the origin of the cosmos, a pursuit that spans from ancient philosophical inquiries into the transition from chaos to order to modern scientific models. In mythology, these stories often rely on recurring motifs, such as creation ex nihilo, the earth diver, or the dismemberment of a primordial being. These narratives, categorized by scholars like Mircea Eliade and Charles Long, reflect humanity's enduring attempt to provide etiological explanations for our existence.

Modern science approaches this through the Big Bang model, which describes an expanding, cooling universe. However, this model fails when extrapolated back to time zero, as density exceeds the limits of general relativity. To resolve issues like the horizon and flatness problems, cosmologists propose inflation—a period of intense, rapid expansion. While inflation successfully predicts large-scale structures and the cosmic microwave background, it effectively erases evidence of whatever physical processes occurred before it, leaving the true origin of the universe shrouded in mystery.

The debate extends into the nature of time itself. While some theories posit a Big Bang singularity as the definitive start, the Hartle–Hawking state suggests that time did not exist prior to the universe, implying it may not have had a beginning at all. Because these questions push into regimes where current physical theories break down, the line between scientific inquiry and metaphysical speculation remains thin. Whether through the lens of theology or the Planck epoch, cosmogony remains a challenging frontier where we must decide which questions are empirically answerable and which remain beyond our reach.

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