Who made the world

[NoelFitz]

St Thomas’s Prayer before Work begins with ‘Ineffable Creator, who out of the treasures of your wisdom have appointed three hierarchies of angels’.

The prayer ends with ‘you, who are True God and True Man, and live and reign forever and ever AMEN.’

Who is this Creator? is it God the Trinity, God the Father or God the Son?

I thought the Church considered that the world was created by The Father, but through the Son, while admitting there is only one God, but certain things are assigned to different persons.

This is one of my many confusions, which I would like clarified.

In school the Catechism started off with:

‘Who made the World?’ ‘God made the world’.

‘Who is God?’ ‘God is our Father in heaven and the Creator and Lord of all things.’

Please help and remember me in your prayers.

PS: I asked my friend Prof Google for help and he made the problem worse having St Thomas’ prayer as ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Divine Creator, true source of light and fountain of wisdom! Pour forth your brilliance upon my dense intellect, dissipate the darkness which covers me, that of sin and of ignorance.

Below I put the Latin version in case the issue is in translation. It is not. Other versions of the prayer have other modifications, differing from the Latin I give e.g. ‘This I ask through Jesus Christ, true God and true man, living and reigning with You and the Father, forever and ever. Amen.’

CREATOR ineffabilis, qui de thesauris sapientiae tuae tres Angelorum hierarchias designasti…. Tu, qui es verus Deus et homo, qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

God is and always has been the Trinity.

 

[NoelFitz]

God is and always has been the Trinity.

Are you claiming that when Jesus died on the cross God died, Father Son and Holy Spirit? Can you explain in simple language what you mean?

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Are you claiming that when Jesus died on the cross God died, Father Son and Holy Spirit?

When Jesus died on the Cross His human nature died, so, yes, but also no. It didn’t impact His divine nature in the sense that divinity died, but God the Son did truly die on the cross for us.

 

[LovelyLadybug]

There is only one God. God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit are three persons in one God. He created the world.

 

[stpurl]

God is the Trinity-Three Divine Persons, One God.
In the book of Genesis God says not, “Let Me make man in My image” but “Let Us make man in OUR image”. Genesis 1:26.

 

[Wesrock]

The Trinity act as one in the creation of the world.

 

[CRV]

Who is this Creator?

God.

God is three Divine Persons, but one God. Not 3 Divine Persons and 3 Gods.

God always is.

is it God the Trinity,

Yes. The Holy Trinity is one God.

God the Father

Yes. Because God the Father is the Creator and always is. God is. Nothing or no-one else created God, God has always existed - I AM WHO AM.

God the Son

Yes.

CCC #279 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.“116 Holy Scripture begins with these solemn words. The profession of faith takes them up when it confesses that God the Father almighty is “Creator of heaven and earth” ( Apostles’ Creed ), “of all that is, seen and unseen” ( Nicene Creed ).”

CCC II. CREATION - WORK OF THE HOLY TRINITY

290 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”:128 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.

291 "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."129 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."130 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”. 131

292 The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit,132 inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative co-operation 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”.133 Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.

 

[CRV]

continuing on -

315 In the creation of the world and of man, God gave the first and universal witness to his almighty love and his wisdom, the first proclamation of the “plan of his loving goodness”, which finds its goal in the new creation in Christ.

316 Though the work of creation is attributed to the Father in particular, it is equally a truth of faith that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together are the one, indivisible principle of creation.

128 Gen 1:1.
129 Jn 1:1-3.
130 Col 1:16-17.
131 Cf. Nicene Creed: DS 150; Hymn “Veni, Creator Spiritus” ; Byzantine Troparion of Pentecost Vespers, “O heavenly King, Consoler” .
132 Cf. Ps 33:6; 104:30; Gen 1:2-3.
133 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 2,30,9; 4,20,I: PG 7/1,822,1032.

 

[chercheur]

My understanding is that the Son is God, and the Father is God, but the Son is not the Father. So Jesus (who is God) died, not the Father or the Holy Spirit.

I think in Christianity death means something like the separation of the soul from the body, so this could not really apply to the other persons of the trinity.

 

[NoelFitz]

The general consensus is Thomas Aquinas was wrong.

Here is part of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Prayer before Work:

Ineffable Creator, who out of the treasures of your wisdom have appointed three hierarchies of angels, and set them in admirable order above the heavens…

Order the beginning, direct the progress and perfect the achievement of my work, you, who are True God and True Man, and live and reign forever and ever

AMEN.

 

[Wesrock]

The general consensus is Thomas Aquinas was wrong.

Here is part of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Prayer before Work:

Ineffable Creator, who out of the treasures of your wisdom have appointed three hierarchies of angels, and set them in admirable order above the heavens…

Order the beginning, direct the progress and perfect the achievement of my work, you, who are True God and True Man, and live and reign forever and ever

AMEN.

How does the consensus say St. Thomas is wrong and is that prayer supposed to be connected to that point at all?

The consensus I’ve read is that the ad extra acts of the Trinity (which would include the creation of the world) are common to all persons of the Trinity as one principle.

 

[NoelFitz]

The prayer says the Creator who is true God and true man, i.e. the Son, made the world.
The Son is not the father. In the trinity the persons are really distinct.

How does the consensus say St. Thomas is wrong and is that prayer supposed to be connected to that point at all?

 

[Wesrock]

The prayer says the Creator who is true God and true man, i.e. the Son, made the world.
The Son is not the father. In the trinity the persons are really distinct.

Wesrock:

How does the consensus say St. Thomas is wrong and is that prayer supposed to be connected to that point at all?

The persons are really distinct. However, the Trinity made the world together, and the consensus is that God’s “ad extra” actions are by the Trinity as one principle.

 

[NoelFitz]

I was a bit disappointed with the replies to this thread. Some of the replies seem simplistic.

Perhaps I was lazy and I asked CAF instead of asking my friend Dr Google, where I saw the words of St JP II, http://inters.org/John-Paul-II-Catechesis-Creation-Trinity:

Some significant references are already present in the Old Testament, such as this eloquent verse of the Psalm: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” (Ps 33:6). This statement becomes fully explicit in the New Testament, as in the Prologue of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God… all things were made through him , and without him nothing was made…and the world was made through him " (Jn 1:1-2, 10). Paul’s letters proclaim that everything was made “in Jesus Christ.” St. Paul speaks of “one Lord, Jesus Christ , through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:6). In the Letter to the Colossians we read: “He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created , in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:15-17).

It was only in post 9 that clarifications appear where the CCC is quoted extensively:

291 “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.” 129 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

Please reread all CRV’s post.

Many thanks CRV for your clear, sound and Catholic reply.

I am grateful to you and CAF for giving me a solid insight.