II. Creation—Work of the Holy Trinity

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”:1 three things are affirmed in these first words of Scripture: the eternal God gave a beginning to all that exists outside of himself; he alone is Creator (the verb “create”—Hebrew bara—always has God for its subject). The totality of what exists (expressed by the formula “the heavens and the earth”) depends on the One who gives it being.

“In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God … all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”2 The New Testament reveals that God created everything by the eternal Word, his beloved Son. In him “all things were created, in heaven and on earth … all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”3 The Church’s faith likewise confesses the creative action of the Holy Spirit, the “giver of life”, “the Creator Spirit” (Veni, Creator Spiritus), the “source of every good”.4

The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit,5 inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative cooperation is clearly affirmed in the Church’s rule of faith: “There exists but one God … he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom”, “by the Son and the Spirit” who, so to speak, are “his hands”.6 Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.