God the Creator
God is the only Creator. As for all the astonishing inventions reached by humanity, they are nothing but a kind of making. The maker produces things from existing materials. But the Creator creates from nothing.
That is, He brings something into existence out of nothing. And God—glory to His power—created everything from nothing.
In eternity, God alone existed, and out of His humility, generosity, and goodness He created other diverse beings in this entire universe: He created material beings that have neither life nor understanding. And He created beings that are entirely spiritual, which are the angels. And He created the human being as a mixture: containing matter, which is the body, and also the spirit, and the mind… And God was not in need of this creation, but it is the one in need of Him. He did not create the human being in order that he may glorify Him, for before humanity He was glorified by His angels, and before the angels He was glorified by His divine nature, capable of all things. And before God created the human being, He created for him everything he needed for the sustenance of his life.
And God’s creations are diverse: among them is the inanimate, which has no life; among them is the animal, which has a soul that ends with its death; among them are the angels, who have everlasting life; and the human being, who has another life after his death. And from the greatness of God is the enormous number of His creations, reaching millions upon millions, repeated in every generation or every year. Some of them are countless, like the sand of the sea, and what the heavens contain of planets and galaxies. Among His creations are the visible things we know, and the hidden things we have not yet known—whether in the depths of the earth, inside mountains, in the depths of the seas, or what volcanoes show us, or what exploration and excavation uncover. There are institutes for marine sciences and others for space sciences, institutes for geology and others for astronomy, and our knowledge constantly increases about that hidden side of God’s creation.
And our wise God in His creation placed a wondrous system connecting the creation to one another. There is a system for the atmosphere that includes heat and cold, the relationship between winds and rains and the rest of the air, and the succession of night and day, darkness and light, humidity and dryness… all with amazing precision such that one can deduce what may occur later. God created light for work, and darkness for rest… It is a coordinated and organized world. And there is a system for the rotation of the earth around itself before the sun for twenty-four hours, which does not falter through long ages, producing night and day. And the rotation of the moon around the earth once each month produces the phases of the moon—from crescent, to quarter, to full, to gibbous, to new moon… all of this within a fixed order that indicates astronomical laws, so much so that some ancient philosophers used to call God the “Great Engineer.”
We add to this the order and harmony God placed in the human body, whether in physiology, or in the brain, its structure and function, and its issuing commands to the rest of the body, and what it contains of centers for movement, sight, hearing, memory, and so on. Likewise the heart and the circulatory system and what relates to them, such as blood pressure, and blood groups which differ from one person to another… and the rest of the nerves and their function… and the other systems in the human body, such as the digestive system, the reproductive system, and the laws of genetics—all of that is wonder upon wonder… Believe me, even teeth: these small bones that are not the size of the spine or the rest of the bones! For each tooth or molar is a wondrous world connected by nerves and blood, with coordinated work that artificial teeth can never equal.
Indeed, God’s wonder in all His creation appears very deeply in human fingerprints: every human being God created has fingerprints unique to him, different from those of any other human being. Here we stand in amazement before millions and hundreds and thousands of millions of fingerprints that do not resemble each other!! No engineer or artist, no matter how skilled, can draw fingerprints like them… And what we say about fingerprints, we add to it also the various voiceprints, such that if someone speaks to you on the telephone, you can distinguish his voice and recognize him. And as we add all of this to what God has created, we also see the power of the great Creator in the world of spirits: whether His power in creating the pure angels—of whom it is said that they are angels of light, who move from heaven to earth in the blink of an eye—
and who have wondrous power in delivering help and performing miracles, and who have great ideals in purity and holiness…
And we can descend in the level of spirits to the greatness of God in creating the human spirit, and the relation of this human spirit to the body, and its relation also to the mind, to the conscience, to life and death—this rational, speaking, immortal spirit—and its destiny after death, and the return of the spirit again to the body at the general resurrection, and all the mysteries surrounding that. How often have scientists of the soul reflected, surrounding all their knowledge with the phrase “I do not know!” It is enough that whenever we approach the world of the spirit we mention the power of God the great Creator.
And why do we speak of the higher levels? Let us descend to the level of simple creatures such as insects—for example, let us speak: how great is God’s power in creating the bee, for example, which produces its nectar from flowers and transforms it with amazing precision into honey, and more than that into royal jelly; so we know how much He has granted it in order to grant us.
Likewise the ant in its astonishing activity, which has become a proverb among humans… All of this shows us the greatness of God in His creation, whether in the high heavens or in simple insects, in the high mountain or the low valley, in the strong, courageous lion or in the weak, fearful rabbit.
And when we contemplate the power of God the Creator, we reach God’s unlimited power and His capability encompassing everything around us, and His wisdom and His tenderness toward all. And in all of this we thank Him for what He has granted us of mind, and we are not overtaken by pride as humans in everything we produce as humans, for it is only because of the mind God created for us—blessed be His Name.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III published in Al-Ahram newspaper on 23-8-2009.
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