Creation - A Philosophy You Can Live With
The last thing said of God the Father is He is "Maker of heaven and earth..." - a fact plainly taught in scripture when we read in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..."
This was a significant statement in the early years of the Church given the teachings of Gnosticism prevalent at the time.
Besides being unbiblical, the Gnostic view of the world just wasn't livable. For one thing, Gnostic spirituality was destructive to the human body. It led some to an extreme asceticism as they denied the body its normal physical care in preference for the life of the spirit. Others reasoned that because the physical body did not contribute to spirituality it did not matter what you did while in the body, resulting in a dissolute hedonism. Either way the Gnostic practitioner was on the fast track for sickness, disease and death.
Excluded in this extreme approach to life in this world was the vast middle ground of the common sense goodness of physical things. Consistent Gnostic living could not appreciate the simple comfort of a warm blanket and hot soup on a cold winter night. It could not affirm the rightness of faithful sexual relations between a man and woman in marriage. The beauty of the natural world could not lead to artistic inspiration, thanksgiving or praise to God. If Gnostics did find themselves appreciating these things - in and of themselves - they must by necessity endure the guilty tension of hypocrisy.
In response the Church confessed that God (who is good) made the world - and called it good - therefore affirming the goodness of creation. Only by this recognition could one avoid the physical and emotional duress of consistent Gnosticism and enjoy a peaceful life as a physical being in a physical world.
