God is the Creator & Sustainer of Existence

A very common attribute of gods in religious traditions around the world is that of creation — our universe, our world, and indeed our very selves often owe their existence to creative acts of the gods. In the Western traditions of philosophical theism, the existence of everything is owed to a single creative act by a single perfect God.

The concept of God as Creator is not without its problems and controversies, however. One of the most fundamental involves the exact nature of how the creative act occurred. The most common is idea that God created everything ex nihilo — out of nothing. This expresses the important idea that God did not operate on pre-existing matter and is not an agent among other agents. Instead, God is the absolute origin of all that exists — all matter, all energy, and all organization.