Christian theology

===World===
{{See also|Creator deity|Creationism}}
Within this broad understanding, however, there are a number of views regarding exactly how this doctrine ought to be interpreted.
* Some Christians, particularly [[Young Earth creationism|Young]] and [[Old Earth creationism|Old Earth creationists]], interpret Genesis as an accurate and literal account of creation.
* Others may understand these to be, instead, spiritual insights more vaguely defined.

It is a tenet of Christian faith (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant) that God is the [[creatio ex nihilo|creator of all things from nothing]], and has made human beings in the [[Image of God]], who by direct inference is also the source of the human [[Soul (spirit)|soul]]. In [[Chalcedonian]] Christology, [[Jesus the Logos|Jesus is the Word of God]], which was in the beginning and, thus, is uncreated, and hence [[God the Son|is God]], and consequently identical with the Creator of the world ''[[ex nihilo]]''.

[[Roman Catholicism]] uses the phrase special creation to refer to the doctrine of immediate or special creation of each human soul. In 2004, the International Theological Commission, then under the presidency of Cardinal [[Joseph Ratzinger]], published a paper in which it accepts the current scientific accounts of the history of the universe commencing in the Big Bang about 15 billion years ago and of the evolution of all life on earth including humans from the micro organisms commencing about 4 billion years ago.<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140621050711/https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html |date=21 June 2014 }},(23 July 2004), International Theological Commission, La Civiltà Cattolica 2004, IV, 254–286</ref> The [[Roman Catholic Church]] allows for both a [[literal interpretation|literal]] and [[Allegorical interpretation of the Bible|allegorical interpretation]] of [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]], so as to allow for the possibility of Creation by means of an [[Evolution|evolutionary process]] over great spans of time, otherwise known as [[theistic evolution]].{{Dubious|date=September 2010}} It believes that the creation of the world is a work of God through the ''[[Logos]]'', the Word (idea, intelligence, reason and logic):
:"In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was God...all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made."

The New Testament claims that God created everything by the eternal Word, Jesus Christ his beloved Son. In him
:"all things were created, in heaven and on earth.. . all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/291.htm |title=CCC Search Result– Paragraph # 291 |publisher=Scborromeo.org |access-date=2010-08-08}}</ref>