 Cosmology provokes questions about the limits of scientific explanation because it lacks many of the features that are present in other areas of physics. Physical laws are usually regarded as capturing the features of a type of system that remain invariant under some changes, and explanations often work by placing a particular event in larger context. Theories of the initial state cannot appeal to either idea: we have access to only one universe, and there is no larger context to appeal to in explaining its properties. This contrast between the types of explanation available in cosmology and other areas of physics has often led to dissatisfaction (see, e.g., Unger &amp; Smolin 2014). At the very least, cosmology forces us to reconsider basic questions about modalities, and what constitutes scientific explanation.