Day 42: The Work of Creation

"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." 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." 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". CCC 291

In today's reading, the Catechism makes clear that Creation was "the common work of the Holy Trinity," that is, of all Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's not as if One Person did all the work and the other Two slacked off. No, as the One God, all of the Persons were involved. We see this in the opening lines of the Gospel of John and elsewhere in Scripture. Unlike what we see in many pagan myths, "God need[ed] no pre-existent thing or any help in order to create". God willed Creation ex nihilo and therefore everything that exists or will ever exist comes from Him. In this belief, Scripture is unique in the Ancient World. No male and female divinities having sexual intercourse and using the former's genitalia for Creation, as with Greeks. No using the corpse of a divinity for Creation, as with Babylonians. And the list goes on. Scripture reveals to us that God Himself created everything out of nothing of His own free will and "according to his wisdom." He didn't need to create anything, but chose to. As the Catechism Companion, Vol I puts it:

Why did God create the world? For his glory. Not because he needed anything, nor "to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it" (CCC 293)... God gains nothing from our worship; he gains nothing from revealing his glory to us. He does it for our benefit. (p. 88) 

Ultimately, what we need to understand is that God created us out of love.

The Holy Trinity creating Adam