Look at creation. This is fully as incomprehensible to our minds as the mystery of the Trinity itself. But without a revelation of the Trinity, it would be more difficult of belief, further away from our grasp, baffling more utterly all our attempts to form a reasonable conception of it. What is it? It is that God, who is all that is or can be, yet can create and has created something which is not God. It looks like a contradiction. Those who have rejected the Trinity and yet believe in God so regard it, and are led to imagine that the created universe and all that is in it and of it is Divine.
We read that, when God created man, He said, "Let us make man to our image and likeness." [Footnote 40]
[Footnote 40: Genesis i. 26]
The creature is, then, an image of the Creator. Creation is not God, but is an image of God; that is, the being and life of creatures, analogous to the being and life of God, is not of themselves, but is a reflected image of God, which we may compare to the reflected image of ourselves in a mirror. The image we behold is not our own being, but an imperfect likeness of it. So the creation which God beholds imaged in His own Divine mind is not His own Divine being, but an imperfect likeness of it. And now it is not the image of an abstract being—of an ideal being—but of a living being. The living God is the Trinity, as I have shown. The mystery of creation is illuminated by this truth, as you will see.
We say in the Creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." He is the Personal Cause, the Progenitor of all creation. Yet we also say, with St. John: "The Word was God. All things were made by Him: and without Him was nothing made that was made." [Footnote 41] And with holy Job: "The Spirit of the Lord made me, and the breath of the Almighty gave me life." [Footnote 42] And again, with the Psalmist: "Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth." [Footnote 43]
[Footnote 41: St. John i. 1-3.]
[Footnote 42: Job xxxiii. 4.]
[Footnote 43: Ps. ciii. 30.]
[USCCB: Ps. civ. 30.]
We speak of creation, then, either as of the Father, of the Son, or of the Holy Ghost, because it is of the Trinity—one act of the Godhead. But we attribute creation properly to the Father, because He is the Infinite Personal Cause. We attribute it to the Son, because He is the Infinite Personal Life. "In him was the life," says St. John, in the next sentence after that in which he says all things were created by the Word, "and," he adds, "the life was the light of men." So chant we in the Credo: Lumen de lumine—Light of light. It is the first word spoken by God at the creation—"Fiat lux!" Admirable conception! Light is, as it were, the Creator of the image reflected in a mirror, and the Divine Word is the light—the Creator of the creature who is the image and likeness of God. St. Paul calls our Lord, who is Man united to the Word, "the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature. In Him were all things created in heaven, and on earth, visible, and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and in Him: and He is before all, and by Him all things consist." [Footnote 44] Because our Lord was the Word of God, the same thing is declared of Him, as the Eternal Wisdom, by the inspired prophet: "I came out of the mouth of the Most High, the first-born before all creatures." [Footnote 45] The creative act is, then, an image of the Son of God being divinely begotten by the Father; and creation in existence is an image of Him who truly said, "I am the Life."
[Footnote 44: Coloss. i. 15-17.]
[Footnote 45: Ecclus. xxiv. 5.]
[USCCB: Sirach xxiv. 3.]
We attribute the creation to the Holy Ghost when we say in the Creed, "And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Life-giver."