The Catechism of Creation was initially prepared by the Subcommittee on Creation of the Committee on Science, Technology and Faith. An electronic version is available at www.episcopalchurch.org/science/.

The Catechism of Creation is written in a traditional question-and-answer format, like the “Outline of the Faith, or Catechism” in the Book of Common Prayer. Part I outlines the doctrine of creation, drawing upon the Bible and the theology of the early Church. Part II presents basic information about modern scientific discoveries and theories about the history of the universe and of life. It also gives examples showing how science has informed and inspired a new theological understanding of God’s relationship to the creation. Finally, Part III presents the biblical basis for the church’s commitment to an ethic of caring for creation, and suggests ways in which individuals and congregations might live out this ministry.

WHAT THEOLOGICAL TRUTHS ABOUT CREATION DOES GENESIS 1 CONVEY?

2) While paleontologists study fossils and their relationships over time, biogeographers study the relationships and changes in species from one place to another. The distribution of species provides clues to how they evolved. For centuries naturalists have noted that similar creatures living in separate locations show differences in appearance and behavior, particularly when they do not interbreed. The unique plants and animals of islands have provided some of the most dramatic examples of evolution. The finches of the Galapagos Islands that inspired Darwin are one famous example. Studies in genetics provide the third major field of evidence. Genes carry instructions for making proteins, basic to all life. An analogy to language is helpful in explaining how genetics helps us understand evolution. Genes speak a universal language using only four chemical letters. The structure of the DNA molecule, which carries the genes, is identical in all life; that is, it uses the same grammar. But the arrangement and number of genes varies widely among species. Thus each species has its own evolutionary story. Individuals have different versions of that story. Similarities and differences in genetic make-up, then, help scientists identify how closely or distantly related individuals and species are.

Knowing the creation as evolving also helps us to think of God’s relationship to the cosmos in another way. In Phil. 2:5-11, Christ is said to “empty himself” of divinity and take in human form the role of a servant. The Greek word for emptying is kenosis. A kenotic theology of creation expresses the notion that the Triune God freely and 13 graciously withdraws absolute power in order to “let the world be” (Genesis 1). A loving parent is faithful to her child, guides and protects him, but allows him to become his own self. In a comparable but more profound way, God the Divine Lover loves God’s own creation, faithfully holding it in existence, calling it to greater levels of complexity and beauty, but allowing the physical laws that govern the galaxies, and those of chance, environment, and selection that govern life, to take cosmic and biotic evolution in whatever directions the gifts given to creation permit. God’s kenosis gives the universe its freedom and opens up its future; God’s covenantal faithfulness and natural laws ensure its cohesion and regularity.

The teleological argument has had many able supporters who argue from the presence of order and design in the world to the source of that order in a purposeful God. Kant pointed out that at most the argument from design points to a designer who is not necessarily an omnipotent creator of the world. Other critics have thought that the Darwinian doctrine of natural selection has weakened the force of the teleological argument. Another more severe criticism is that the argument assumes an order and design. The position can be offered that there is disorder, chance, or even chaos; human perceptions of reality are generally unaware of fundamental disorder in the universe.

from Living Issues in Philosophy (9th ed., Oxford)

“Teleological argument”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
GENESIS 1:1 – 2:3 The First Creation Story [read tonight in the Service]

¹In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. ³Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶ And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ ⁷So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹ And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so. ¹²The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.’ ²¹So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. ²⁵God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
²⁷So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ ²⁹God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so.³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ²And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. ^4aThese are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
[It may be that verse ^4a belongs with the Second Creation story as its introduction; scholars uncertain.]
Genesis 2: ^4a-25 The Second Creation Story (the older of the two)
^4bIn the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; ⁶but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— ⁷then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,* and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. ⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. ¹¹The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; ¹²and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

¹⁸Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ ¹⁹So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man* there was not found a helper as his partner. ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²²And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³Then the man said,
‘ This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,*
for out of Man* this one was taken.’
²⁴Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.