Creation as Giving

Reading the first chapters of Genesis introduces us into the mystery of creation, that is, of the beginning of the world by the will of God, who is omnipotence and love. Consequently, every creature bears within itself the sign of the original and fundamental gift. 

Yet, at the same time, the concept of “giving” cannot refer to nothing. It indicates the one who gives and the one who receives the gift, as well as the relation established between them. Now, this relation emerges in the creation account at the very moment of the creation of man. This relation is shown above all by the expression, “God created man in his image; in the image of God he created him” (Gen 1:27). In the account of the creation of the visible world, giving has meaning only in relation to man. In the whole work of creation, it is only about him that one can say, a gift has been granted: the visible world has been created “for him.” The biblical creation account offers us sufficient reasons for such an understanding and interpretation: creation is a gift, because man appears in it, who, as an “image of God,” is able to understand the very meaning of the gift in the call from nothing to existence. He is also able to respond to the Creator with the language of this understanding. When one interprets the creation account precisely with this language, one can deduce from it that creation constitutes the fundamental and original gift: man appears in creation as the one who has received the world as a gift, and vice versa, one can also say that the world has received man as a gift.

At this point, we must interrupt our analysis. What we have said so far stands in the strictest relation with the whole anthropological problematic of the “beginning.” Man appears in it as “created,” that is, as the one who, in the midst of the “world,” has received the other human being as a gift. In what follows, it is precisely this dimension of gift that we must subject to a profound analysis, in order to understand also the meaning of the body in its right measure. This will be the object of our next meditations.

Man and Woman He Created Them (13:4). Kindle Edition. (St. Pope John Paul II)

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