The Freedom of the Creator and the Goodness of Creation

a. The Freedom of the Creator

103. Holy Scripture begins the account of the creation of the world with these  words:  “In  the  beginning,  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth”  (Gn  1:1).  God  was,  is,  and  remains  always  “in  the  beginning”  of everything created, and all that comes forth in time. The evangelist John  writes  about  God  as  the  beginning  of  everything:  “  ‘I  am  the  Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who  is  to  come,  the  Almighty”  (Rev  1:8).  Saint  Irenaeus  of  Lyons  writes that all things came forth from the hands of God, by the Word and the Holy Spirit.(See Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, IV, 20, 1, 3-4: PG 7, 1031. See also Against Heresies, V, 1, 3: PG 7, 1122-1123)
104. God realizes his plan for the creation of the world through his Word: “Let there be light ... let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters” (Gn 1:3, 6). This creative Word reveals himself in Holy Scripture as the Son of God, begotten of the Father: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation ... he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:15-17).
105. God creates freely; nothing limits his creative freedom. God’s creativity is expressed in creation, in bringing forth being from non-being. God calls forth into being that which did not exist, and did not necessarily have  to  exist.  In  other  words,  what  God  called  into  existence  did  not  come  into  being  out  of  any  necessity.  Holy  Scripture  does  not  tell  us  how the world came to be. Instead, it speaks about the who (the Father), through whom (the Word, the Son), and in whom (the Holy Spirit) God called this world into existence.
106. God   is the Creator. This means that God not only created the world, but that he is always present in his creation, and that he is always cre-ating.  Hence,  creation  is  a  sign  and  expression  of  God’s  creative  love.  Through human beings, creation is called to respond to love with love, and to long for God as God longs for them: “God desires that he might be desired and he loves that he might be loved.”(Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua, 31: PG 91, 1280)

b. The Goodness of Creation

107. In the account of the creation of the world, Holy Scripture discloses the way  in  which  God  assesses  the  world  created  by  him:  “And  God  saw  that it was good” (Gn 1:10 et al.). Like an artist, God creates a master-piece; he examines his creation with attention, and he delights in it. The Father  contemplates  the  world  and  recognizes  within  its  features  the  face of the Son—the first-born of all creation, by whom and for whom all was created (see Col 1:15f ). The face of Christ comes through ever more distinctly throughout history—all the way to the incarnation of the  Son  of  God  and  his  second  coming  in  glory.  Creation  is  the  vis-ible icon of the invisible God. As history unfolds, this creation is being transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into a “new creation,” pre-figured in the glorified body of the Risen Christ.
108. Contemplation—a deeper way of looking at the world, to which God calls us—teaches us to see the surrounding world not only as a material thing, or as something useful and pleasurable for our egos, but as the sphere of action of the personal God, who is distinct from us and from the world. The words of prayer from the Rite of the Great Blessing of Water provide us with a wonderful example of the Christian view of the world: The  sun  sings  your  praises;  the  moon  glorifies  you;  the  stars  entreat  you;  the  light  obeys  you;  the  depths  tremble  before  you;  the  springs  serve  you.  You  have  stretched  out  the  heavens  like  a  tent;  you  have  established  the  earth  upon  the  waters;  you  have  enclosed the sea with sand. You have poured forth air that living things may breathe...(Trebnyk, Rite of the Great Blessing of Water for the Feast of Theophany, Third Prayer.)
109. Contemplation of the world, in light of an experience of the personal God  who  alone  is  good  (see  Lk  18:19),  provides  the  foundation  for  affirming the goodness of the world, of matter, and of all creation. “The world  is  good,  and  all  its  contents  are  seen  to  be  wisely  and  skilfully  ordered.”(Gregory of Nyssa, Great Catechism, I: PG 45, 16)  In  Holy  Scripture,  the  image  of  God’s  plan  for  the  world  is  Paradise  (see  Gn  2).  The  realization  of  this  plan  depends  upon  the  cooperation of humankind with God. Paradise is God’s gift, and at the same time, it is humankind’s vocation.
110. Conceived by God as Paradise, the world is God’s gift to humankind and  the  sphere  of  our  relationship  with  God,  with  others,  and  with  nature. For this reason, human beings cannot take a consumerist atti-tude towards the world, a world that is filled with the love and attention of the Giver. The Christian attitude towards the world is to see it as a gift of God. Growing in faith, Christians ascend in their understanding from the gifts to the Person of the Giver. Regarding the world as God’s gift allows one to avoid two extremes: the reduction of its value (since the  world  is  God’s  creation),  or  turning  it  into  an  absolute  (since  the  world is not God).

c. God’s Plan

111. God the Creator fills creation with the grace of his presence, and yet at the same time, he remains unattainable in his essence. God’s presence in  the  world  is  discovered  through  prayerful  contemplation,  which  is  capable of seeing in the world his divine Prototype, the Christ.
112. In  accordance  with  his  plan,  God  acts  in  the  world;  he  sustains  the  world in existence and leads it to its final fulfilment. This action of God is  referred  to  as  the  Divine  Plan  (Providence)  of  God.  Divine  Providence consists in his gracious “foresight” and the “counsel from before the ages” of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit(See John of Damascus, On the Divine Images, III, 19: PG 94, 1340); this Providence is God’s will for the world and determines the consummation of the world: “By your power you hold together the creation, and by your providence you govern the world.”(Trebnyk, Rite of the Great Blessing of Water for the Feast of Theophany, Third Prayer). This means that in the world and in  our  lives,  there  are  no  coincidences  or  random  occurrences.  Faith  makes it possible to see the action of Divine Providence in the concrete circumstances of life.

From Christ Our Pascha, 

the Catechism of the Ukrainian Catholic Church