10 July 2025
"Through whom all things were made"
Creation and the Love of the Trinity
By Stefan Kaminski
The careful reader might notice the slight discrepancy between the Nicene symbol as quoted in our blog posts, and the Creed as recited at Holy Mass.
The formulation of Nicea describes God the Father as “maker of all things visible and invisible”, and then says of the Son that “through him all things were made both in heaven and on earth”. Since the Council of Constantinople, however, (and as recited at Mass) the reference to the things ‘in heaven and on earth’ sits alongside ‘things visible and invisible’ in describing the action of the Father.
Not a terribly momentous change, perhaps. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see how Nicea distributed this emphasis on the creation of everything between the Father and the Son. Putting aside the respective literary merits of where exactly what is said, there are three basic principles that the Catholic profession of faith is concerned with here: that the act of creation is the work of the Father; that this includes everything that there is (in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible); and that this is accomplished with and through the Son.
When we think about the Son though, especially in the context of reciting the Creed, it’s natural that the focus is on Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection. We also have the preceding – and key – statement about His being consubstantial with the Father. Between these weighty matters, the phrase “through whom all things were made” is easily overlooked.
However, this verse is an opportunity to meditate not simply on the fact of creation, but on something more intimate. The Creed has already spoken clearly about creation; in also linking the Son explicitly to creation, it invites us to consider creation in relation to the internal life of the Trinity.
The principal dynamic of our faith – that which our liturgical seasons revolve around – is the great mystery of God’s Love for us, as revealed in Jesus Christ. The fact that the second Person of the Trinity assumed the nature of one His creatures, lived like us, suffered like us, and moreover died a most painful and entirely unjustified death for our sake, is precisely the fullest expression of love that He can give us. As Our Lord Himself says, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
But what would there be to redeem, that was not first created? The logic of God’s love for us does not start with the fact of our redemption, but neither can it start even with that of our creation. By gently highlighting the Son’s role in creation, and in doing the same for the Holy Spirit (who is described as “the giver of life”), the Church’s Creed subtly points us to the Trinity in and of itself as the Source and Origin of this logic.
That logic is summed up in St John’s first letter in the simple statement, “God is Love”. To use a mathematical notion, we could describe this statement as a ‘self-contained proof’. What this means is that everything that is needed to verify this statement is contained within the same statement: we can equate “God” and “Love” on the strength of our understanding of those two notions in and of themselves.
St Augustine does this by drawing an explicit analogy between them. He says that the notion of love requires a lover, a beloved and the bond or fruit of that love. He thus gives us a – and perhaps the most fundamental – way for us to understand the Trinity: the Father is the initiator of Love, the Son is the Beloved recipient of that Love, and the Holy Spirit is the fruit of that Love.
By returning to this most profound, highest and holiest mystery of the Trinity, we are led to understand that the Trinity is, in an existential sense, all that matters. This is beautifully and prayerfully captured by the aptly-named young Carmelite nun, St Elizabeth of the Trinity (a contemporary of St Thérèse of Lisieux): “O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me to forget myself entirely that I may be established in you as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity.”
This movement of the ‘centre of our consciousness’ towards the Divine life helps to place things – or rather every-thing, namely creation – in perspective. Creation, including ourselves, is strictly contingent: it is neither needed by God nor necessary for the life of the Trinity. The beauty of creation lies precisely in this fact: it is simply the fruit of Love, of the life of the Most Holy Trinity.
Thus, in his private, spiritual diary, we find St Pope John Paul II writing: “The discovery of the Creator is not only the belief in the First Cause… It is also – first and foremost – the discovery of love. To create means not only to reveal power, omnipotence that surpasses all, but also it means: to give being, existence and goodness, therefore – to love!”
One of the most beautiful aspects of the Catholic faith is that, in the end, everything is ‘reducible’ to Love, properly understood. Christ is the fullest manifestation of that Love in human terms. But just as the Creed teaches us, it is not sufficient to consider that expression of Love in isolation: it is part of the continuing ‘economy’ of Love that begins with the Father’s creative initiative, is sealed in with the Son’s redeeming sacrifice, and is brought to fruition through the process of sanctification by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
So it is that whilst the term “ex nihilo” (out of nothing) is of great importance in defining God’s omnipotence and His creative act, it is still more radically important to define creation as “ex amore” (out of love). It is only this that provides the overarching ‘narrative’ or logic to very origin, being and end of everything that is. To respond to Stephen Hawking’s famous question, it is precisely the divine Love that “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe”!