Questions about the creation of the world have generated a lot of discussion from our scientifically theorizing and speculative society. At least on a popular level, our culture doesn’t like to acknowledge the limits of science, which can only explain things as they appear to be within the created order. That doesn’t discredit the whole field of science. Humanity has made tremendous discoveries and advancements because of it. But when it comes to the origin of creation—which is neither observable nor reproducible—we’re better served letting the Creator speak.

Following the biblical language, the Westminster Larger Catechism (15) gives a concise answer to how the decrees were executed in creation. It’s self-evident but useful to remember that both the Bible and Catechism attribute creation to God Himself. Since the Fall, there has been an impulsive sinful tendency in the human heart to exchange the glory of the Creator for that of creation. If we do that, even in our account of the origin of species, we discredit God and make it hard to say with the angelic host of heaven: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11). All thought, all use, and all enjoyment of creation should bring us to praise.

Together with the Bible, the Catechism teaches that God created “in the beginning” (Gen. 1:1). Creation, unlike the Creator, is not independent and self-existent. All of creation—from the stars in their orbit down to the smallest molecule—is dependent upon God. We are too. As Paul testified: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). No person, however unbelieving in their heart, can escape their complete dependence on God.

The reciprocal is also true: God is not dependent on creation, and He wasn’t necessarily required to create. While it is mostly useless to speculate what God did before (as we say according to created measurements of time), we must affirm that God was when creation was not. As the Catechism previously taught, the execution of His decrees in creation is only according to the freeness of His own will, because the Creator is independent while creation is dependent.

Creation also isn’t infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. Rather, it is grounded in history. Moses tells us in his historical account, and the catechetical standard of the Reformed Presbyterian Church instructs, that God created all things in “the space of six days.”

The Catechism and Bible also teach that this word of creation was “by the word of his power.” It’s remarkable to think of the power demonstrated in creation. A power that can bring something into existence out of nothing. The creative work of humanity always begins with raw materials. An artist doesn’t sit down and out of nowhere produce an easel and paints. A home builder doesn’t make construction materials appear from nothing. Even the reproduction of life uses what already exists. But omnipotence is able to bring all things into existence out of nothing.

Remarkably, when Paul writes of what is given through the proclamation of the gospel, he uses creation imagery: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

The catechetical instruction also teaches, in perfect harmony with the Scriptures, that creation is not aimless and without purpose. If all things had come into existence by chaos or accident or happen-stance, we might rightly conclude creation is pointless and haphazard. Far from that, however, is that God has created all things “for himself.” He is not only the origin of existence, the sustainer of all that is, but He is the end of everything. Herman Bavinck succinctly put it this way: “The creation thus proceeds from the Father through the Son in the Spirit in order that, in the Spirit and through the Son, it may return to the Father.”