The Mystery of Creation

We will understand creation better if we carefully attend to the text of Genesis.  Each time God creates, He calls His work “good” except when He makes the sky and when He creates humans.  The text does say that God calls everything that He has made “very good” at the end of creation, but why does God not declare specifically that humans are good? 

The answer cannot be that humans are made inferior to other forms of creation.  The text makes the opposite clear.  It says that humans have dominion over all other living beings and, most wonderfully, that they are created in God’s own image.  This means that like God in the Trinity humans have the ability to enter relationships of love. That is, humans can reach out of themselves to will the good of others. 

Why God is wary of calling humans “good” at creation may be seen as the bottom side of our ability to love.  We may choose not to.  We may become so self-centered that we see others as there to serve our desires.  We may even consider God not as our Lord but as our rival taking our attention away from pursuing our heart’s desires.  This is indeed what happens when Adam and Eve accept the half-truths of the tempter rather than give full allegiance to their Creator.  

Session five of our “Why Catholic?” faith-sharing book, The Profession of Faith, prompts us to look at the splendid gift of creation that surrounds us.  We should remember that creation includes other humans as well as the glory of nature.  And we must not forget that by our sins we have betrayed our relationships with either or both as well as the singular allegiance we owe to God alone.