Category: Humanity

The world we inhabit contains an endless array of contrasts. Every human life is born out of crisis, proceeds in conflict, and invariably ends with irreversible loss. Yet, there is astonishing goodness. Between the boundaries of birth and death, breath-taking wonder combines with utter misery, sublime beauty with callous cruelty. Ecstatic joy, deep satisfaction, and heart-capturing tenderness, are bound up with terrible agony. Life is far worse than we ever feared and much better than we dare dream.
God’s life in himself is the fundamental condition of God’s work of creation. We start therefore with consideration of the identity and nature of the Creator, for biblical teaching about the act of creation grows out of what Scripture suggests about the perfect life of God. Clarity about the character of the Creator ensures that the relation between the Creator and his creatures is accurately represented.
The first sentence of the Bible explains that God created both ‘the heavens and the earth’. This indicates that the environment that we inhabit is twofold. God’s world is comprised of two parts. The physical universe – ‘earth’ – has a counterpart in the spiritual universe – ‘the heavens’. There are then two distinct dimensions of created reality, two interlocking spheres, directly connected in some respects and more indirectly linked in others.

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