Creator of
Heaven and Earth
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen.
1:1).
It is in the book of Genesis that we find recorded the account of Creation.
St. John writes in the first chapter of his Gospel: “All things came into
being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (1:3).
We are told that the world did not always exist, but was created in time.
The visible universe, all living things, angels and men, sprang into being:
“Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were
created” (Ps. 148 [147]:5).
God made all things, heaven and earth, out of nothing (“Ex nihilo”) by His
Word. A creator is one who makes a thing out of nothing. Only God can
create, all other things are creatures. It is fundamental that we believe in
creation, out of nothing, of heaven and earth by one Almighty personal God
whose power now sustains His creation (Fourth Lateran and First Vatican
Councils). In an era where science purports to advance at the expense of
religion, it remains obligatory for Catholics to reject any notion or theory
that excludes God from being the author of all matter and life.
God had no necessity to create the universe but, being infinitely good, He
wished to impart some of His goodness to created beings. St. Bonaventure
explains that God created all things “not to increase His glory, but to show
it forth.” The First Vatican Council elaborates:
“This one, true God, of His own goodness and ‘almighty power,’ not
for increasing His own beatitude, nor for attaining His perfection, but
in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which He
bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel ‘and from
the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures,
the spiritual and the corporeal...’”
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