How Did God Create?

All Christians agree God created the universe and everything in it. So all Christians are “Creationists” in a broad sense. But Christians disagree about how God created. At one extreme, Young Earth Creationists believe God created the universe, life, and every species directly and supernaturally. At the other extreme, Theistic Evolutionists (or better, “Evolutionary Creationists”) believe God created all these things indirectly and naturally. Old Earth Creationists think God created the universe by means of a natural process (the “Big Bang”) but humans by means of a supernatural process (special creation). The Bible won’t settle this debate; only science can.

Production and Reproduction

In Aristotle for Everybody, Adler says we don’t talk about producing or creating when we discuss childbirth. Instead, we speak of reproducing and procreating. So though people who have sex to have children are deliberately doing something for a purpose, they aren’t making or producing something together but instead procreating and reproducing. Hence, sex for conception is not a productive art. Is it a cooperative art (analogous to farming)? It seems not. The contribution of the couple to the outcome is minimal compared to the natural process involved. Successful farming requires more skill and more intervention than successful procreating does.