Creationism

Interstellar gas, creating the famous "Pillars of Creation" photo

Creationism is the idea that the universe was created and not simply made out of chance. Christianity is a creationist religion, like almost all forms of monotheism, but unlike other monotheistic religions such as Islam or Judaism, Christianity centres on the belief that Jesus Christ, a person both fully God and fully man, was the vessel by which the universe was created (John 1).

The first chapter of the book of Genesis gives an account of the creation of the world, followed by the election of the garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve.

Christians know that God created the universe and everything in it, as described in the Book of Genesis, however they have differing opinions on how this cosmology occurred. The earliest view is that the Book of Genesis is describing a creation process that aligns with the concept of an old earth, where "days" could represent longer periods of time, potentially millions or billions of years, rather than literal 24-hour days. This is known as Old Earth Creationism. This view accepts that the universe and Earth were created by God, but allows for a longer timeline for creation, which can accommodate scientific discoveries such as the geological age of the earth and the development of life over millions of years. Young Earth Creationism, which holds that the Earth is around 6,000 to 10,000 years old and was created in six literal 24-hour days, developed later as a reaction to scientific advancements such as the Theory of Evolution that were seen as challenges to Biblical literalism.