 Contrary to the earlier ideas of a steady-state universe, the theory that Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold introduced in 1948 accepted that the universe is expanding. Conceptually the theory was founded on the “perfect cosmological principle,” that is, the postulate that the universe in its large-scale features is not only spatially but also temporally homogeneous. Although this classical steady-state theory was abandoned in the 1960s because of its inability to account for new discoveries (such as the cosmic microwave background and the redshifts of quasars), it remains an instructive case in the cosmology-theology discussion. Moreover, the theory is not quite dead yet, as some of its characteristic features survive in the quasi-steady-state cosmology (QSSC) still defended by Jayant Narlikar and a few other cosmologists. This model does not satisfy the perfect cosmological principle, but it assumes an indefinite cosmic time scale during which matter is continually created. In this respect it is an alternative to the big-bang theory and its supposed association with divine creation. In 1994, at a time when he was developing the QSSC model, Hoyle referred to big-bang cosmology as “a form of religious fundamentalism” (Hoyle 1994, 413). According to the classical steady-state theory, the universe has expanded for an infinity of time and will continue to do so for ever; yet the average density of matter remains constant because matter, or rather matter-energy, is continually being created out of nothing. (In later versions of the theory, matter creation was not ex nihilo.) Both features—the infinite time scale and the continuous creation of matter—were controversial and caused concern of a philosophical and also a theological nature.