This article focuses on the multifaceted and thematic nature expressed by the concept of creation in 20th-century cosmology, namely in the construction of the big bang cosmology and its rival, the steadystate cosmology. Regarding the approaches of three of the main founders of big bang cosmology, we can find, in an explicit or implicit way, two different forms of creation – creation from nothing or creation from shapeless matter. On the opposite side, suggested by the proponents of steady-state cosmology, we (...) can find another form of creation – the continuous creation of matter. It is proposed that the multifaceted concept of creation, due to the wide interest it aroused and the intensity of cosmological debates it provoked, as well as its historical longevity and its disciplinary and cultural transversality, may be recognized as a thema. (shrink)