Creation

God – Father, Son, and Spirit – preexisted everything.

God spoke all things into existence. Initially, he did so in a formless, vain, or chaotic state.

Then, God began the work of shaping, ordering, perfecting, and beautifying his creation. He did so largely by speaking, and this was accomplished over the space of six days. Perfectly, he constructed a garden-environment for his most precious creation – humankind.

On the sixth day, God specially created men and women. He shared his communicable attributes with them. They were made in his image or likeness with …

  • An immortal, non-material soul with a sense of eternity.
  • An internal mind that is logical and able to engage in philosophy and theology.
  • An internal desire to commune with, worship, and glorify the Creator.
  • An internal sense of holiness – rightness and wrongness.
  • An internal desire to love others created in the image of God. Like God, man was created to be kind, compassionate, merciful, and just.
  • An internal desire to will or choose good or evil. God did not make men as robots. We are not fatalists who believe our actions have no consequences. We do hold to cause and effect. We do believe our decisions and actions are meaningful. Men and women are not free from internal and external influences, but they are created free to choose what they most desire.
  • An internal desire to create through art, music, literature, construction, and the procreation of disciples.
  • An internal desire to work. This coexists with an external responsibility to govern, work, organize, and steward God’s creation.

(Look at the communicable attributes of God from the previous section)

God then followed his plan. He omnipotently began to bring about everything in accordance with his will. This is the doctrine of God’s “providence” whereby God “upholds, directs, disposes, and governs all actions and things.”