Credo 5 – … Maker of heaven and earth …
It is not a surprise that the article about God’s creation of the universe appears so early in the creed, just after belief in the oneness of God has been expressed. Let us explore briefly the reasons for its actual place in our confession of faith and its meaning.
Firstly, anything that exists is either God or God’s creation, so this is, in a sense, why this article of faith comes second. Why does it have to be an article of faith, one may ask? Can’t we see things around us, can’t we touch and smell and taste? Isn’t creation a matter of science rather than faith? Well, frankly… no. To say that ‘the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them’ (Exodus 20:11) is a confession of faith, not a scientific statement. It must be so, because the idea of creation ‘out of nothing’ is beyond science, and even beyond our understanding. We cannot have a properly shaped idea of what it means to create, because it is impossible for us to think it. We can only confess it.
Secondly, to confess that God is ‘Maker of heaven and earth’ just after our affirmation of the oneness of God, follows systematically the pattern of the Old Testament revelation: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1). It is worth noting that the Hebrew verb ‘he created’ – bara – is only used in the context of God’s action. It represents, in a sense, a divine attribute. This revelation has always been interpreted (in the Christian tradition) through the opening verses of the Gospel of John: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made’ (John 1:1-3).
Thirdly, creation is a work of the one God, that is to say, of the Father through the Son with the Spirit. It is not an exclusive work of either the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit: whenever God is acting, the whole Trinity is involved.
