Creator deity
Christianity
Further information: God in Christianity
See also: Ex nihilo and Logos (Christianity)
God Blessing the Seventh Day, 1805 watercolor painting by William Blake
The Abrahamic creation narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the two first chapters of the Book of Genesis.[9] The first account (1:1 through 2:3) employs a repetitious structure of divine fiat and fulfillment, then the statement "And there was evening and there was morning, the [xth] day," for each of the six days of creation. In each of the first three days there is an act of division: day one divides the darkness from light, day two the "waters above" from the "waters below", and day three the sea from the land. In each of the next three days these divisions are populated: day four populates the darkness and light with sun, moon, and stars; day five populates seas and skies with fish and fowl; and finally, land-based creatures and mankind populate the land.[10]
The first (the Priestly story) was concerned with the cosmic plan of creation, while the second (the Yahwist story) focuses on man as cultivator of his environment and as a moral agent.[9] The second account, in contrast to the regimented seven-day scheme of Genesis 1, uses a simple flowing narrative style that proceeds from God's forming the first man through the Garden of Eden to the creation of the first woman and the institution of marriage. In contrast to the omnipotent God of Genesis 1 creating a god-like humanity, the God of Genesis 2 can fail as well as succeed. The humanity he creates is not god-like, but is punished for acts which would lead to their becoming god-like (Genesis 3:1-24) and the order and method of creation itself differs.[11] "Together, this combination of parallel character and contrasting profile point to the different origin of materials in Genesis 1:1 and Gen 2:4, however elegantly they have now been combined."[12]
An early conflation of Greek philosophy with the narratives in the Hebrew Bible came from Philo of Alexandria (d. 50 CE), writing in the context of Hellenistic Judaism. Philo equated the Hebrew creator-deity Yahweh with Aristotle's unmoved mover (First Cause)[13][14] in an attempt to prove that the Jews had held monotheistic views even before the Greeks.[citation ^needed]
A similar theoretical proposition was demonstrated by Thomas Aquinas, who linked Aristotelian philosophy with the Christian faith, followed by the statement that God is the First Being, the First Mover, and is Pure Act.[15]
The deuterocanonical 2 Maccabees has two relevant passages. At chapter 7, it narrows about the mother of a Jewish proto-martyr telling to her son: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also";[16][17] at chapter 1, it refers a solemn prayer hymned by Jonathan, Nehemiah and the Priest of Israel, while making sacrifices in honour of God: "O Lord, Lord God, Creator of all things, who art fearefull, and strong, and righteous, and mercifull, and the onely, and gracious king".[18]
The Prologue to the Gospel of John begins with: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ^2 The same was in the beginning with God. ^3 All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made."[19]
Christianity affirms the creation by God since its early time in the Apostles' Creed ("I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.", 1st century CE), that is symmetrical to the Nicene Creed (4th century CE).
Nowadays, theologians debate whether the Bible itself teaches if this creation by God is a creation ex nihilo. Traditional interpreters[20] argue on grammatical and syntactical grounds that this is the meaning of Genesis 1:1, which is commonly rendered: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." However, other interpreters[21] understand creation ex nihilo as a 2nd-century theological development. According to this view, church fathers opposed notions appearing in pre-Christian creation myths and in Gnosticism—notions of creation by a demiurge out of a primordial state of matter (known in religious studies as chaos after the Greek term used by Hesiod in his Theogony).[22] Jewish thinkers took up the idea,[23] which became important to Judaism.