A creator deity or creator god (often called the Creator) is a deity or god responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatristic traditions separate a secondary creator from a primary transcendent being, identified as a primary creator.
Monotheism
Atenism
Initiated by Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti around 1330 BCE, during the New Kingdom period in ancient Egyptian history. They built an entirely new capital city (Akhetaten) for themselves and worshippers of their sole creator god on a wilderness. His father used to worship Aten
alongside other gods of their polytheistic religion. Aten, for a long
time before his father's time, was revered as a god among the many gods
and goddesses in Egypt. Atenism faded away after the death of the
pharaoh. Despite different views, Atenism is considered by some scholars
to be one of the frontiers of monotheism in human history.
Abrahamic religions
The Abrahamic creation narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the two first chapters of the Book of Genesis.
The first account (1:1 through 2:3) employs a repetitious structure of
divine fiat and fulfillment, then the statement "And there was evening
and there was morning, the [xth] day," for each of the
six days of creation. In each of the first three days there is an act
of division: day one divides the darkness from light, day two the
"waters above" from the "waters below", and day three the sea from the
land. In each of the next three days these divisions are populated: day
four populates the darkness and light with sun, moon, and stars; day
five populates seas and skies with fish and fowl; and finally,
land-based creatures and mankind populate the land.
The first (the Priestly story) was concerned with the cosmic plan of creation, while the second (the Yahwist story) focuses on man as cultivator of his environment and as a moral agent.
The second account, in contrast to the regimented seven-day scheme of
Genesis 1, uses a simple flowing narrative style that proceeds from
God's forming the first man through the Garden of Eden to the creation of the first woman and the institution of marriage. In contrast to the omnipotent
God of Genesis 1 creating a god-like humanity, the God of Genesis 2 can
fail as well as succeed. The humanity he creates is not god-like, but
is punished for acts which would lead to their becoming god-like
(Genesis 3:1-24) and the order and method of creation itself differs.
"Together, this combination of parallel character and contrasting
profile point to the different origin of materials in Genesis 1:1 and
Gen 2:4, however elegantly they have now been combined."
An early conflation of Greek philosophy with the narratives in the Hebrew Bible came from Philo of Alexandria (d. AD 50), writing in the context of Hellenistic Judaism. Philo equated the Hebrew creator-deity Yahweh with Aristotle's Unmoved Mover (First Cause) in an attempt to prove that the Jews had held monotheistic views even before the Greeks.
A similar theoretical proposition was demonstrated by Thomas Aquinas,
who linked Aristotelian philosophy with the Christian faith, followed
by the statement that God is the First Being, the First Mover, and is
Pure Act.
The deuterocanonical 2 Maccabees has two relevant passages. At chapter 7, it narrows about the mother of a Jewish proto-martyr
telling to her son: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and
earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of
nothing, and mankind also"; at chapter 1, it refers a solemn prayer hymned by Jonathan, Nehemiah and the Priest of Israel,
while making sacrifices in honour of God: "O Lord, Lord God, Creator of
all things, who art fearefull, and strong, and righteous, and
mercifull, and the onely, and gracious king".
The Prologue to Gospel of John
begins with: "In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. / 2 The same was in the beginning with God. /
3 All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made
that was made."
Christianity affirms the creation by God since its early time in the Apostles' Creed ("I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.", 1st century AD), that is symmetrical to the Nicene Creed (4th century AD).
Nowadays, theologians debate whether the Bible itself teaches if this creation by God is a creation ex nihilo. Traditional interpreters argue on grammatical and syntactical grounds that this is the meaning of Genesis 1:1, which is commonly rendered: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." However, other interpreters understand creation ex nihilo as a 2nd-century theological development. According to this view, church fathers opposed notions appearing in pre-Christian creation myths and in Gnosticism—notions of creation by a demiurge out of a primordial state of matter (known in religious studies as chaos after the Greek term used by Hesiod in his Theogony).
Jewish thinkers took up the idea, which became important to Judaism.
According to Islam, God, known in Arabic as Allah,
is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator, Sustainer, Ordainer, and
Judge of the universe. Creation is seen as an act of divine choice and
mercy, one with a grand purpose: "And We (Royal we) did not create the heaven and earth and that between them in play."
Rather, the purpose of humanity is to be tested: "Who has created death
and life, that He may test you which of you is best in deed. And He is
the All-Mighty, the Oft-Forgiving;"
Those who pass the test are rewarded with Paradise: "Verily for the
Righteous there will be a fulfilment of (the heart's) desires;"
According to the Islamic teachings, God exists above the heavens and the creation itself. The Quran
mentions, "He it is Who created for you all that is on earth. Then He
Istawa (rose over) towards the heaven and made them seven heavens and He
is the All-Knower of everything." At the same time, God is unlike anything in creation: "There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing."
and nobody can perceive God in totality: "Vision perceives Him not, but
He perceives [all] vision; and He is the Subtle, the Acquainted."
God in Islam is not only majestic and sovereign, but also a personal
God: "And indeed We have created man, and We know what his ownself
whispers to him. And We are nearer to him than his jugular vein (by Our
Knowledge)." Allah commands the believers to constantly remember Him ("O you who have believed, remember Allah with much remembrance")
and to invoke Him alone ("And whoever invokes besides Allah another
deity for which he has no proof - then his account is only with his
Lord. Indeed, the disbelievers will not succeed.").
Islam teaches that God as referenced in the Quran is the only god and the same God worshipped by members of other Abrahamic religions such as Christianity and Judaism.
Sikhism
One of the biggest responsibilities in the faith of Sikhism is to worship God as "The Creator", termed Waheguru, who is shapeless, timeless, and sightless, i.e., Nirankar, Akal, and Alakh Niranjan. The religion only takes after the belief in "One God for All" or Ik Onkar.
Bahá'í
In the Bahá'í Faith God is the imperishable, uncreated being who is the source of all existence. He is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty". Although transcendent
and inaccessible directly, his image is reflected in his creation. The
purpose of creation is for the created to have the capacity to know and
love its creator.
Monolatrism
Monolatristic traditions would separate a secondary creator from the primary transcendent being, identified as a primary creator. According to Gaudiya Vaishnavas, Brahma is the secondary creator and not the supreme. Vishnu is the primary creator. According to Vaishnava
belief Vishnu creates the basic universal shell and provides all the
raw materials and also places the living entities within the material
world, fulfilling their own independent will. Brahma works with the
materials provided by Vishnu to actually create what are believed to be
planets in Puranic terminology, and he supervises the population of
them.
Monism
Monism is the philosophy that asserts oneness as its fundamental
premise, and it contradicts the dualism-based theistic premise that
there is a creator God that is eternal and separate from the rest of
existence. There are two types of monism, namely spiritual monism which
holds that all spiritual reality is one, and material monism which holds
that everything including all material reality is one and the same
thing.
Non-creationism
Buddhism
Buddhism denies a creator deity and posits that mundane deities such as Mahabrahma are misperceived to be a creator.
Jainism
Jainism does not support belief in a creator deity. According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its constituents - soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion have always existed (a static universe similar to that of Epicureanism and steady state cosmological model). All the constituents and actions are governed by universal natural laws.
It is not possible to create matter out of nothing and hence the sum
total of matter in the universe remains the same (similar to law of conservation of mass). Similarly, the soul of each living being is unique and uncreated and has existed since beginningless time.
The Jain theory of causation
holds that a cause and its effect are always identical in nature and
therefore a conscious and immaterial entity like God cannot create a
material entity like the universe. Furthermore, according to the Jain
concept of divinity, any soul who destroys its karmas and desires
achieves liberation. A soul who destroys all its passions and desires
has no desire to interfere in the working of the universe. Moral rewards
and sufferings are not the work of a divine being, but a result of an
innate moral order in the cosmos; a self-regulating mechanism whereby the individual reaps the fruits of his own actions through the workings of the karmas.
Through the ages, Jain philosophers
have adamantly rejected and opposed the concept of creator and
omnipotent God and this has resulted in Jainism being labeled as nāstika darsana or atheist philosophy by the rival religious philosophies.
The theme of non-creationism and absence of omnipotent God and divine
grace runs strongly in all the philosophical dimensions of Jainism,
including its cosmology, karma, moksa and its moral code of conduct. Jainism asserts a religious and virtuous life is possible without the idea of a creator god.
Polytheism
In polytheistic creation, the world often comes into being organically, e.g. sprouting from a primal seed, sexually, by miraculous birth (sometimes by parthenogenesis), by hieros gamos, violently, by the slaying of a primeval monster, or artificially, by a divine demiurge or "craftsman". Sometimes, a god is involved, wittingly or unwittingly, in bringing about creation. Examples include:
- Sub Saharan African contexts:
- Mbombo of Bakuba mythology, who vomited out the world upon feeling a stomach
- Unkulunkulu in Zulu mythology
- American contexts:
- Nanabozho (Great Rabbit), Ojibwe deity, a shape-shifter and a cocreator of the world
- Cōātlīcue in Aztec mythology
- Chiminigagua (and/or Bague) in Muisca mythology
- Viracocha in Inca mythology
- A trickster deity in the form of a Raven in Inuit mythology
- Near Eastern contexts:
- Egyptian mythology
- ’Ēl in Canaanite religion
- Marduk killing Tiamat in the Babylonian Enûma Eliš
- Asian contexts:
- Esege Malan in Mongolian mythology, king of the skies
- Kamuy in Ainu mythology, who built the world on the back of a trout
- Izanagi and Izanami-no-Mikoto in Japanese mythology, who churned the ocean with a spear, creating the islands of Japan
- In Hinduism, its Vedic scriptures call the unchanging eternal reality as Brahman. The Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig Veda expresses doubt whether there is or is not any creator deity, and whether even gods know who or what created the universe. In later Puranic period, equate the Brahman to Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva or Devi, and each major sub-tradition of Hinduism calls them respectively as the creator deity.
- European contexts:
- The sons of Borr slaying the primeval giant Ymir in Norse mythology
- Rod in Slavic mythology
- Ipmil or Radien-Áhči (Radien Father) in Sámi mythology
- Oceanic contexts:
- Makemake, creator of humanity, the god of fertility and the chief god of the "Tangata manu" or "bird-man" cult of Rapa Nui mythology.
- Ranginui, the Sky Father, and Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother in Māori mythology
Platonic demiurge
Plato, in his dialogue Timaeus, describes a creation myth involving a being called the demiurge (δημιουργός "craftsman"). Neoplatonism and Gnosticism continued and developed this concept. In Neoplatonism, the demiurge represents the second cause or dyad, after the monad. In Gnostic dualism, the demiurge is an imperfect spirit and possibly an evil being, transcended by divine Fullness (Pleroma). Unlike the Abrahamic God, Plato's demiurge is unable to create ex-nihilo.
Hinduism
Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, and atheism among others;
and its concept of creator deity is complex and depends upon each
individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. Hinduism is
sometimes referred to as henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others), but any such term is an overgeneralization.
The Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) of the Rig Veda is one of the earliest texts
which "demonstrates a sense of metaphysical speculation" about what
created the universe, the concept of god(s) and The One, and whether
even The One knows how the universe came into being. The Rig Veda praises various deities, none superior nor inferior, in a henotheistic manner.
The hymns repeatedly refer to One Truth and Reality. The "One Truth" of
Vedic literature, in modern era scholarship, has been interpreted as
monotheism, monism, as well as a deified Hidden Principles behind the
great happenings and processes of nature.
The post-Vedic texts of Hinduism offer multiple theories of cosmogony, many involving Brahma. These include Sarga (primary creation of universe) and Visarga
(secondary creation), ideas related to the Indian thought that there
are two levels of reality, one primary that is unchanging (metaphysical) and other secondary that is always changing (empirical),
and that all observed reality of the latter is in an endless repeating
cycle of existence, that cosmos and life we experience is continually
created, evolved, dissolved and then re-created. The primary creator is extensively discussed in Vedic cosmogonies with Brahman or Purusha or Devi among the terms used for the primary creator,
while the Vedic and post-Vedic texts name different gods and goddesses
as secondary creators (often Brahma in post-Vedic texts), and in some
cases a different god or goddess is the secondary creator at the start
of each cosmic cycle (kalpa, aeon).
Brahma is a "secondary creator" as described in the Mahabharata and Puranas, and among the most studied and described. Born from a lotus emerging from the navel of Vishnu, Brahma creates all the forms in the universe, but not the primordial universe itself. In contrast, the Shiva-focussed Puranas describe Brahma and Vishnu to have been created by Ardhanarishvara, that is half Shiva and half Parvati; or alternatively, Brahma was born from Rudra, or Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma creating each other cyclically in different aeons (kalpa). Thus in most Puranic texts, Brahma's creative activity depends on the presence and power of a higher god.
In other versions of creation, the creator deity is the one who is equivalent to the Brahman, the metaphysical reality in Hinduism. In Vaishnavism, Vishnu creates Brahma and orders him to order the rest of universe. In Shaivism, Shiva may be treated as the creator. In Shaktism, the Great Goddess creates the Trimurti.
Other
Chinese traditional cosmology
Pangu can be interpreted as another creator deity. In the beginning there was nothing in the universe except a formless chaos. However this chaos began to coalesce into a cosmic egg for eighteen thousand years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of yin and yang became balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head (like the Greek Pan)
and clad in furs. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he
separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the Earth (murky Yin) and the Sky (clear Yang).
To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the Sky.
This task took eighteen thousand years, with each day the sky grew ten
feet higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. In
some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the four most
prominent beasts, namely the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon.
After eighteen thousand years had elapsed, Pangu was laid to rest. His breath became the wind; his voice the thunder; left eye the sun and right eye the moon; his body became the mountains
and extremes of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles the
fertile lands; his facial hair the stars and milky way; his fur the
bushes and forests; his bones the valuable minerals; his bone marrows
sacred diamonds; his sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur
carried by the wind became human beings all over the world.
The first writer to record the myth of Pangu was Xu Zheng during the Three Kingdoms period.
Shangdi is another creator deity, possibly prior to Pangu; sharing concepts similar to Abrahamic faiths.
Kazakh
According to Kazakh folk tales, Jasagnan is the creator of the world.
