This is our introduction to the topic of God as creator and sustainer of everything. Since it is the sixth chapter of the book, obviously much has gone on earlier in the book. So, we are jumping into the middle of the author's discussion of Christian theology.
In particular, the previous chapter has raised the problem of why there is so much evil and suffering in the world if there is a divine being or higher power something like the Christian tradition believes in. It is clear that this problem arises in connection with the claim that this divinity is responsible for why the world and people exist, and for making it possible for people and animals to suffer and for people to be evil. In other words, the problem of evil is connected closely to the claim that God is creator.
We will consider these topics in the order opposite to the order used by the author of the textbook. That is, we will first talk about God as creator, and then talk about the problem of evil and suffering that arises out of the idea that the creator God is good, and powerful, and could have set things up so as to preclude all evil and suffering.
This means that a few of the statements found in Chapter 6 will be out of place for us, since they refer to the problem of evil and suffering, and how the idea of God as creator might be used to help solve those problems. We will ignore those ideas for now and return to them later.
Most of the chapter is good at raising various issues about God as creator and about the related issues of interpreting the creation stories in the Bible. That is why we are using this chapter now. Focus your attention on those ideas as you read.
However, PRIOR to reading Markham, you should read VERY CAREFULLY Genesis 1 and 2 from the "Old Testament" (or Hebrew Bible). Don't assume you know what those stories in Genesis say. Look again. There are some very puzzling aspects to those stories.
There are actually two creation stories--the first one takes up Chapter 1 plus a couple of verses at the beginning of Chapter 2. The second one takes up the rest of Chapter 2. (Don't worry about the fact that the chapter break occurs where it does. The breaks between chapters and verses in the Bible were inserted by unskilled editors centuries ago, and are often relatively meaningless.)
Some Jewish students I've talked to say that Christians don't really "get" the Genesis stories, because these are Jewish stories, employing strategies of traditional Jewish story telling. One Jewish student who took this course some time ago said that the real question one should ask is why the Jewish leadership decided to include two very different creation stories to begin the sacred Torah. (Rivers of ink have been spilled by Biblical literalists trying to make the two stories fit together as actual history.)
Markham's discussion of these stories will no doubt stir up controversy in class because we cannot discuss God as creator without getting mixed up in philosophical issues about textual interpretation.