Creation of the World
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
—the sovereign act by which the one eternal God brought all things into being and ordered them in wisdom and goodness. God needs nothing from creation; he creates freely so that creatures may receive and participate in his goodness. Christian confession speaks of creation from nothing, a teaching consonant with God’s universal agency and expressed in Hebrews: what is seen was not made from visible things (Heb. 11:3). Creation is therefore neither divine nor self-existent.