God the Creator
God the Creator
How wondrous is the act of creation! It is on a level beyond the mind. We approach it through faith and revelation. For the Creator is not the maker. The maker produces things from existing matter. But the Creator creates out of nothing, brings something into being from nothing!!
And the amazing thing is that God brought everything into existence from nothing—
not only material things, but spirits also…
And in His creation of everything we see signs of power, wisdom, artistry, order, and beauty. Even humility, for it is from the humility of God that He did not will that existence be His alone, so He brought into being other creatures, granting them existence to be with Him…
As for the reason for His creation of all beings, it is His generosity, His graciousness, and His love.
He was not in need of this universe. Rather, the universe is the one in need of Him.
God was self-sufficient, glorified by His attributes, glorified by His sublime nature which is without limit. Then countless years passed, indeed there were no measures of years yet. Then at a time unknown to us, God began the act of creation, and created the heavens and the earth.
And with His creation of inanimate nature, He granted some of His creatures the gift of life.
He granted life to plants, animals, and human beings—and before that, to the angels. And out of His love He granted the human being an immortal spirit, and likewise the angels. And He granted the animals a soul that ends with death. Thus He made life in degrees and levels, varying between plant, animal, human being, and angels…
God created every level of creation, even what seems insignificant… He created the rational and the non-rational. He created the living and the inanimate. He created the huge elephant, and also the tiny ant and the worm that moves under a stone. He created the powerful, courageous lion, and also the weak, fearful rabbit. He created the monkey as He created the gazelle. He created the high mountain and the deep valley. He created heat and cold, light and darkness. All are the work of His hands.
And God had wisdom in creating the world with this diversity…
Imagine if the whole world were of one nature and one form—how could you live?!
And among the wonders of God’s power in creation is the immense number of His creatures—
millions upon millions of beings, repeating every generation, some repeating every year or several years. And some beyond counting, like the sand of the sea, like the stars of the heavens, and what is in the heavens of planets and galaxies and meteors…
We know only the visible among God’s creatures, and do not know the hidden ones, nor do we exert effort to know what is concealed. For example, we do not know all the secrets within the earth. But we exert effort through many excavations to know the sources of underground water, and the sources of petroleum in the depths of the earth, and what volcanoes eject from within the earth. Likewise through excavation we can learn what is in the depths of mountains of gold, precious stones, metals, and other things…
Add to that what is in the depths of the seas, and what studies of space sciences may reveal. What do we really know about this vast, wondrous universe?!
And it is also wondrous that God created the world in amazing order…
It is enough to look, for example, at the heavens, and at the bonds that connect the heavenly bodies with laws that keep them fixed in their places, revolving around one another in a stable system—showing that the One who organized these astronomical laws is—as philosophers call Him—a great Engineer. Alongside this is what He established as a system for the atmosphere in regard to heat and cold, winds and rains, humidity and dryness, and darkness and light…
And as there is order and harmony in the heavens and in the atmosphere of the earth, so also in the human body, such that they call the human being the “microcosm.”
One who contemplates the structure of the human organs and the science of physiology sees wonders that show the power of the Creator—whether in the brain and its centers and its functions and what proceeds from it as commands to the rest of the organs… or in the heart or the liver and the functioning of each, and the functioning of the circulatory system, and the functioning of the nerves, and the blood types, etc.
Indeed, the wonder of God’s creation appears profoundly in the fingerprints of the human being—those which indicate each individual and distinguish him from others. Here we stand in amazement before hundreds of millions of fingerprints that never match. What engineer or artist—no matter how skilled—can draw varied forms of fingerprints as God the Creator has made?!
Shall we add to this the voiceprints as well? Such that a person speaks to you by telephone from thousands of miles away, and you recognize his voice and identify him!!
And shall we add to all this the numerous distinctive features God created in millions and tens of millions of human beings…
And what shall we say about God’s creation of the angels, their power, and their wondrous abilities… such that an angel can descend from heaven to earth in the blink of an eye, and accomplish whatever work God entrusts to him—whatever it may be—with wondrous power.
And what shall we say also about the spirit of the human being, the rational, speaking spirit, and its connection with the body, and how it departs from it at death, and how it returns to it at the resurrection… Is there not in all of this wonder upon wonder?!
Then let us descend to some simple creatures like the bee and the ant. Here we see the wonder of the great Creator in granting the bee the wisdom of organization in its system and the wisdom of producing honey and royal jelly—all from the nectar of flowers. And with astonishing precision it can store them in fine cells as well… Likewise the ant in its active life system that never rests, and in the cooperation of its individuals, and the precision of their communication with one another, and the way it stores its food.
The wonders of God in His creation cannot be counted; neither one article nor many are enough for them…
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in Akhbar El-Youm newspaper on 17-6-2006.
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