God the Creator

God the Creator

• God is described as the creator in the bible
• Within Judaeo Christian tradition, there are a number of key things that are meant when God is described as Creator:
• 1. God causes the universe to exist
• 2. God is responsible for the universe coming into existence and existing at every moment
• 3. God is responsible for everything which exists within the universe
• These all derive from the Bible

God as Creator

• Judaeo-Christian tradition believed God is the Creator, which is taken for granted.
• The apostles creed opens with 'I believe in God, the father almighty, creator of heaven and Earth'.
• 'In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth' (Genesis 1 : 1)
• God as a Creator stems from the idea of God creating the earth.
• God's spirit, breath/wind, moves over the earth and shapes it.
• He commands the way the world turns so he brought everything in in the story.
• In genesis 2, the second creation story also refers to God creating people - Adam and Eve.
• He is referred to as walking in the garden in the cool of the day - this is a very human view but God is not as a human being.
• He is responsible for everything in the world and the universe continuing to exist.
• Isaiah 40 describes God watching over creation and the poeple in the creation are compared to grasshoppers in the sight of God. God is in control of his creation and is responsible for the creations existence.
• Aquinas pointed out that whether the world had a beginning is not the major issue. God causes everything that exists to exist.
• The Craftsman
• God is compared to a craftsman; this is seen specifically when God is described as the designer who laid the very foundations of the earth, decided its dimensions and supported the pillars on which the earth stands.
• God is also pictures as being in control of the sun and moon. These follow regular patterns of behaviour that are explainable in scientific terms.
• God as a creator is responsible for the world existing and everything in it that exists.
• God making Adam from dust is likened to a potter shaping the clay which is a human-like image of God. (anthropomorphic)
• God is in control
• God is described as sitting above the earth and having the power to reduce princes to nothing.
• Creation out of nothing
• God created the world out of nothing.
• Genesis records God creating the world and people.
• Job records God laying the foundations of the earth.
• Creatio ex nihilo.
• There are some hints in the earliest writings in the Bible that God was originally pictures as a craftsman shaping pre-existence unofmred matter.
• Many people today adopt the idea of creatio ex nihilo beacuse it ties in with the beginning with the big bang.
• Human beings' place in creation
• Human beings place at the top of the hierarchy of all life pervades the Jewish Scriptures.
• Human beings are described as being…