a. While Holy Scripture informs us exactly how and when man was created, it gives us no account whatever concerning the creation of the angels. Nevertheless they, too, were made within the hexaemeron, Gen. 2, 1. 2. Since Scripture reveals to us everything that is necessary for salvation, we should not try to supplement the divine record by human speculation.
b. Whether Moses received the facts recorded in his narrative by immediate revelation or through oral tradition is immaterial. Since the Book of Genesis is canonical, it is divinely inspired, 2 Tim. 3, 16; John 10, 35, and therefore contains God's own account concerning the beginning of the world and the human race.
c. The two creation narratives of Genesis (chaps. 1 and 2) are not contradictory records (Jean Astruc, t 1766), but chap. 2 rather supplements the account of chap. 1. In Gen. 1 we have a general description of the work of creation, while Gen. 2 brings the fact of creation in relation to the history of God's Church in the Old Testament. For this reason Gen. 2 is both supplementary and explanatory. (Cp. אֱלֹהִים in Gen.1; and יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים in Gen.2) The history of the Church of God, the Creator (אֱלֹהִים), which is begun in Gen. 2, is therefore narrated as that of the Church of Jehovah (יְהוָה), the eternal Lord of His people.
d. As the soul of Eve was produced by propagation from Adam, so, it is generally held among Lutheran dogmaticians, the souls of children are produced by propagation rather than by direct creation (traducianism, not creationism). "The soul of the first man was immediately created by God; but the soul of Eve was produced by propagation, and the souls of the rest of men are created not daily, ... but by virtue of the divine blessing are propagated, per traducem, by their parents." (Quenstedt.) Traducianism is inferred: a) from the primeval blessing of God, Gen. 1, 28; 9, 1; b) from God's rest and cessation from all work on the seventh day, Gen. 2, 2; c) from the production of the soul of Eve, Gen. 2, 21. 22; d) from the general description of generation, Gen. 5, 3; e) from Ps. 51, 5, etc.
e. The act of creation must be regarded as a free act of God (actio libera), so that God was not compelled to create the world by any inner necessity of His divine essence, Ps. 115, 3. To say that the act of creation was a necessary divine act (actio necessaria) would be tantamount to pantheism and nullify the very concept of a personal, sovereign God.
f. While Holy Scripture assures us that the universe as it came forth from the creative hand of God was "very good" (Gen. 1, 31: מְאֹ֑ד ט֖וֹב), it would be folly to affirm that the world as created by God was the very best that God could have made (the "optimism" of Leibniz). We must judge this world by God's own standards, as these are presented to us in His Word. For this reason we say that the world was very good in the sense that it accorded perfectly with the divine will or that it was just as God desired it to be.