Is God the Creator?

Published on February 16, 2015

Does BioLogos believe that God is the creator? Yes, all Christians believe this; the question is, how did God create? Colossians 1:16 says that all things were created by God through Christ. But notice that if we really take God to be the creator of all things, we must admit that there are many ways that God creates.

Did God create the building you’re sitting in? We don’t believe that God said, “Let there be a building” and it popped into existence out of nothing. Instead, people built it out of materials that ultimately trace their origin to God and his creation ex nihilo.

How about the Hawaiian Islands? Did God create these? Yes, but again, they didn’t appear all at once. Even today you can go to the Big Island and see lava pouring out into the sea and adding to the land. The Hawaiian Islands are still being created, and it is not too difficult to reason out how this same process worked in the past.

What about you and me? Did God create us? Yes! But our parents also had something to do with it, right? And we now understand the biology of how that works, and it doesn’t at all take away the miracle that God knits us together in our mother’s womb.

We who hold to the perspective of evolutionary creation think these same kinds of considerations apply to life on the planet today. We affirm that God is the creator of all of it. Like the creation of the building, God is the ultimate source of all materials. And like the creation of the Hawaiian Islands, we can observe how life developed over time through natural processes. And like the creation of people, understanding the scientific explanation does not detract from the wonder of God’s involvement.

We believe God is the creator. And we also believe the evidence shows that the process of evolution is the best explanation for how God created.