"to create" . . .  means  ". . to invest with a new function or purpose . ."

When you "create" something . . .  you create it out of something else.

When the Lord "created" the heaven and the earth, it already existed albeit in some other form than what it is as we know it.  For He invested in the heaven and the earth, a new function ! The function that we know it as, and which we are a part of.