Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-207) and index.

MODELS -- Ultimate Explanations -- Problems with the Eternity of the Universe -- A Cyclical Universe -- A Looped Cosmos -- Continuous Creation Versus a Beginning -- Something Almost Out of Nothing -- The Quantum Creation of the Universe -- Ultimate Explanations -- ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLES AND OTHER UNIVERSES -- The Anthropic Principles -- Natural Selection in the Population of Universes -- The Anthropic Principles and Theories of Everything -- The Metaphysics of the Anthropic Principles -- Tegmark#x2019;s Embarrassment -- CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE -- The Drive to Understand -- The Metaphysics and Theology of Creation -- Creation and the Perpetuity of the Universe -- Controversies Over the Omnipotence of God -- Newton#x2019;s World -- Leibniz#x2019;s World -- The Initial Singularity and the Creation of the World -- Creation and Evolution -- Leibniz#x2019;S Question.

We humans are collectively driven by a powerful - yet not fully explained - instinct to understand. We would like to see everything established, proven, laid bare. The more important an issue, the more we desire to see it clarified, stripped of all secrets, all shades of gray. What could be more important than to understand the Universe and ourselves as a part of it? To find a window onto our origin and our destiny? This book examines how far our modern cosmological theories - with their sometimes audacious models, such as inflation, cyclic histories, quantum creation, parallel universes - can take us towards answering these questions. Can such theories lead us to ultimate truths, leaving nothing unexplained? Last, but not least, Heller addresses the thorny problem of why and whether we should expect to find theories with all-encompassing explicative power.