Professing that God created Heaven and Earth, Catholics believe that everything that exists was willed into existence by the love of God. This was the beginning of everything and the foundation of God’s plans to save mankind.
The universe did not always exist and was not created by chance. Out of absolutely nothing, or ex nihilo, God created and ordered the entire universe, including every physical and spiritual creature, even time and space.
Focusing on “why” and not “how”, the Bible includes two creation stories which show that creation manifests the glory of God, and that God declared that his beauty and goodness were reflected in all that He created.
Man is the pinnacle of God’s creation, lovingly created in God’s image and likeness, and in a state of grace allowing him to fully participate in the life of God. He is made to love and serve the Trinity in perfect communion.
When man disobeyed God and chose to sin, he fell from grace and the effects of this Original Sin were passed to his descendants. All of mankind would now be affected by sin and death, and be in need of salvation.
From the beginning, God’s plan includes a way to for man to be redeemed. Jesus, the Son of God, became man, and died for man’s sins before defeating death by his Resurrection.
Working through the sacraments of the Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit restores man’s relationship with God and provides the necessary grace so that man can live with God in Heaven forever.
As creator and the Supreme Being, God is not part of creation but exists outside of it. He is the primary cause of everything’s existence and He continues to participate in creation by constantly holding all things into being.
The foundation of all God’s saving plans:
Creation reflects the greatness of the Creator:
God willed creation to be good:
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters – Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light.
Genesis 1: 1-3
Only God creates:
God created immediately and out of nothing:
The universe has been loved into existence:
On Christ’s lips, the word “created” contains the same truth that we find in Genesis. The first account of creation repeats this word several times, from Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” to Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image.” God reveals himself above all as Creator. Christ referred to that fundamental revelation contained in Genesis. In it, the concept of creation has all its depth – not only metaphysical, but also fully theological. The Creator is He who “calls to existence from nothingness,” and who establishes the world in existence and man in the world, because He “is love”. Actually, we do not find this word in the narrative of creation. However, this narrative often repeats: “God saw what He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Through these words we are led to glimpse in love the divine motive of creation, the source from which it springs. Only love gives a beginning to good and delights in good. As the action of God, the creation signifies not only calling from nothingness to existence and establishing the existence of the world and of man in the world. It also signifies, according to the first narrative, beresit bara, giving. It is a fundamental and “radical” giving, that is, a giving in which the gift comes into being precisely from nothingness.
Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 2 January 1980
Everything owes its existence to God:
Creation is an ongoing activity of God:
We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; He wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness: “For You created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom You have made them all”; and “The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that He has made.” God creates “out of nothing”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 295
The Bible provides a theological account of creation:
Scripture’s two accounts reveal the truth of creation:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
One family, one body in Christ:
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