The Heidelberg Catechism

Question 6. Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse1?

Answer: By no means. God created man good, (a) and in his own image, (b) in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him, and live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him. (c)

1Inclined by nature to hate God and neighbor (Answer to Question 5).

(Click through to see scriptural proofs.)

a. Genesis 1:31

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.   

b. Genesis 1:26-27

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.       

c. Colossians 3:9-10

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

      Ephesians 4:23-24

… and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

     2 Corinthians 3:18

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.