God Creates the Cosmos
Days 2-4 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days
Texts: John 17:24-26; Isaiah 66:1-2; Genesis 1:1-2, 31
Why did God create the world?
I think it is for the same reason God sent the Son into the world. And it is this: to include humanity in the communion of God’s own love. That perhaps offers some perspective on why God created humanity.
But why did God create the material cosmos?
God created the material cosmos as a place where God would dwell with humanity and share life with them. The cosmos is like a temple in which God choses to dwell, and God made a temple for God’s own dwelling. Importantly, God did not built a house for solitude but to live with humanity in the good creation. God invites us to live in the house God built where we enjoy God, commune with God, and fill the cosmos with God’s love. The transcendent and unapproachable God graciously accommodates our finitude by creating a realty in which we, as finite creatures, might dwell with God.
Then what did God create?
God’s act of creation was a dynamic process that began with a chaotic mess and yielded a good, very good, world filled with diverse geography, diverse plants and animals, and a humanity invested with responsibility for the creation.
When God finished the work, it was good but incomplete. The creation had not reached its potential by the seventh day. It was only the beginning. The initial work was finished, that is, God created the space and filled it with the resources for its future growth and development.
Humanity was charged with filling the earth, which—at least—includes having children. The creation was designed to develop, change, and emerge into something more beautiful, more diverse, and more enriching. God has a goal for the creation. It was created to become more than what it was at its beginning. The story of creation is the story of God at work, in partnership with humanity, to bring the