Alpha and Omega crux of the problem Hawkins has no answer for.
Everything that begins to exist must have a cause, if the universe began to exist, then the universe must have a cause. You can see the discomfort to some physicists like Hawkins.
Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist,states their are philosophical implications with a finite time of creation which all modern sceintist seem to be agreement. I quote Ross
"Time is that dimension in which cause and effect phenomena take place. . . . If time's beginning is concurrent with the beginning of the universe, as the space-time theorem says, then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a time dimension completely independent of and pre-existent to the time dimension of the cosmos. This conclusion is powerfully important to our understanding of who God is and who or what God isn't. It tells us that the creator is transcendent, operating beyond the dimensional limits of the universe. It tells us that God is not the universe itself, nor is God contained within the universe.
