  There are two disjointed problems in cosmology within General Relativity
(GR), which can be addressed simultaneously by studying the nature of geodesics
around $t\rightarrow 0$, where $t$ is the physical time. One is related to the
past geodesic completeness of the inflationary trajectory due to the presence
of a cosmological singularity, and the other one is related to the homogeneity
condition required to inflate a local space-time patch of the universe. We will
show that both the problems have a common origin, arising from how the causal
structure of null and timelike geodesics are structured within GR. In
particular, we will show how a non-local extension of GR can address both
problems, while satisfying the null energy condition for the matter sources.
