The Creation the Earth

Since the beginning of recorded history, mankind has postulated on how the earth was created. I do not claim to know the answer to the question of how the earth was created, but I do know why the earth was created, who created it, and by what powers this creation was accomplished. The earth is central to our Heavenly Father’s plan for us to become like Him, and an understanding of the creation of it and the creation of our own mortal bodies is therefore essential to fully understanding the great plan of salvation that we are a part of.

The earth we live on was created under the direction of our Heavenly Father by His son, Jesus Christ. Through the infinite and eternal power of God, He took the elements that already existed and He organized them into what we know as our planet and home, but also created the heavens in which our planet resides. He created our sun and our solar system and the entire universe. Although omnipotent, God is still subject to the natural laws that govern the universe, like gravity or conservation of mass. We are not aware of what all these laws are and most likely have a very infantile understanding of most of them, but we can be sure that God obeyed these laws throughout the creation. He is the master chemist, biologist, and physicist. The elements obey His every command. He took matter and formed the spherical beginnings of our home. He caused darkness to come upon the earth first and then caused light to follow that. He separated light from darkness and made day and night. This was the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. Next, He divided the waters out and created the firmament, or separated out the sky and the atmosphere from the earth itself. In the next period of the creation the dry land was separated from the water. Now that dry land existed, all manner of flora was created from phytoplankton to giant the sequoia. After plants had filled the globe, animals were added. All manner of animals were created and all the plants and animals gave variety to the earth. Once again, subject to natural laws like natural selection, I believe God used some degree of evolution to create the diversity of life on earth. I do not believe that this process happened unchecked or uncontrolled, but I do believe that evolution was used at least partially by God to accomplish His great work.

After the creation of all plants and animals came God’s crowning glory, His children. First came man in the form of Adam, and then came woman in the form of Eve. I do not believe that man evolved from primordial ooze, or even apes for that matter. I know that only after all the plants and animals had been placed on the earth was the earth fit for the physical creation of man. We all existed spiritually before any of this physical creation took place, and we all had individual forms and identities. We were created in the image of our Heavenly parents and not in the image of a chimpanzee. I believe as mortal humans, we are physiologically similar to animals, but fundamentally different in our purposes from all other life forms on earth. All plants and animals were created to benefit us and be used by mankind to accomplish the end purpose of our mortal lives which is, of course, to obtain the same perfect eternal glory that our Father possesses.

The earth is a beautiful and diverse place that God created for His children to use as a testing ground where we can exercise our agency to make choices and learn through our choices how to be perfect like God is perfect. The earth was created for us; we do not exist because the earth was created.