In his doctoral dissertation, Steven Hawkins demonstrates
that the universe could have begun spontaneously. That is to say, the big bang
could have gone off without being triggered by a divine intelligent being, or
God in the sense of the word as used in the Abrahamic religions. To say that
the universe could have begun in a moment of singularity is not necessarily to
vitiate the deity-concept of all content. In fact, Hawkins’ work may one day
trigger a movement to hem in the concept to the terrain that is distinctly
religious.
The full essay is at “God
Versus Physics: Is Creation Behind the Big Bang?”