We Believe: Through Him All Things Were Made
Glory to Thee, spreading out before me heaven and earth
The Akathist Hymn
Like the pages in a book of eternal wisdom
Meditation on a Pile of Leaves
This school year, my daughter and I worked together through a general science course as part of her homeschooling curriculum. I’m no trained scientist, so it was really fun for me to revisit different scientific fields with fresh eyes alongside her. Just last week, in our botany unit, we stepped outside and took a few minutes to collect a sample of leaves for observation. I marveled at that smattering of leaves as it lay spread out on my kitchen table, waiting to be classified according to venation patterns, leaf shape, texture, and other botanical descriptions. These delicate living structures selected from the perimeter of my home were utterly beautiful, varied, and complex. Remarkable, and yet so often unnoticed in our daily comings and goings.
In every unit of study, we found that same sense of awe, from the powerful and unpredictable formation of discrete supercell storms (my courageous kid wants to be a storm chaser) to the complex molecular structure of DNA, from the elegant sharing of electrons in covalent bonds to the careful balance of organisms within shared ecosystems. Our natural world is steeped in order—intricate, elegant, miraculous order.
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Nicene Nuance
Seventeen hundred years ago, the members of the Nicene Council did not have access to electron microscopes or infrared telescopes, or even middle-school science curricula. They couldn’t see as broad a spectrum of creation that we have access to through modern technology and discovery. But they could still bear witness to the order that governed the world around them. And so they included the line, “Through him all things were made.”
But didn’t the creed already cover “Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, visible and invisible” just a breath ago? Why reiterate it here? After firmly establishing the divine unity of the Father and the Son, notice that this isn’t simply a repetition. There is nuance in this line. There exists both unity and distinction within the Godhead. It is not meant to repeat what was said about the Father, but instead to bring out the Son’s unique role in creation.
The Logos
The words “through him all things were made” should remind us of St. John, who penned this lovely hymn of creation in the first verses of his gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:1-3
The Greek word translated here as Word is Logos, a rich and weighty term that John assigns to Jesus. It describes a spoken word, but also carries a much deeper sense of meaning, reason, order, and wisdom. It is where the word logic comes from. Logos connotes the governing power, order, and wisdom we can find throughout all creation.
Including this in the creed directly responded to Arianism, the controversy over which the Council of Nicaea was primarily called. Arianism tried to make sense of Jesus by calling him the highest, first, and best of all creations. Considering the magnitude and complexity of the created order, whatever might be described as the first and foremost of all creation must, of course, be awe-inspiring.
The Very Word of Creation
Scripture does call Christ the “firstborn of all creation,” but it was a crucial mistake to take this to mean that Christ was merely a creation as opposed to the Creator. This line in the creed established, against Arianism, that the Son was present, active, and instrumental in creating all things, not as a finite creature himself—even as the preeminent creature—but as the very Word by which the Father spoke all things into being.
He is the proper Word of the Father and we cannot therefore suppose any will existing before him; since he is the Father’s living Counsel and Power, fashioning what the Father had decided upon.
Athanasius, Against the Arians
(Note: although both terms are translated as “word,” the logos is not the same as graphe, which is used for the written word, that is, Holy Scripture. Without diminishing the importance of God’s written word in our lives, the Bible is not equivalent to the Co-Eternal Word of God as the Second Person of the Trinity. All that is found therein points us to Christ, but it is not itself the Incarnate Word.)
Word-y Worship
What does it mean to say that through him all things were made? That all creation is made according to the wisdom, design, purpose, and—ultimately—the love of God. But what about when that creation, in its brokenness, seems to turn on us? What about when the DNA is corrupted, or the supercell storm turns deadly? What about when the human heart turns against its maker? There will be things in this world that don’t look orderly. But with each recitation, the creed reminds us: through him all things were made. If there are things we don’t understand, things that seem chaotic or bound to corruption, the Christian hope still rests in the power of the Word of God, even if it is not comprehensible to us.
A World Made Right
Furthermore, all that is broken in this sin-soaked world will be ultimately made right in the New Creation in which all things are finally united in Christ. This is a vision we have throughout Scripture. Anything we perceive to be outside of that beauty and order and rightness of God’s glory and creation will be made right by the power of Christ. They will come into alignment with the Logos. Not in some strict or rigid or limiting way, but in the same beauty and elegance and truth and power with which we witness the whole universe put together.
Remember: we are creatures. We are made in, by, and through the Word. As such, by his grace, he invites and empowers us to live according to the Logos. Romans 12:2 invites us to give to God worship described as logikos, translated here as “spiritual” and in other translations as “reasonable.” It derives from the same word as Logos, and the following verse resonates with what that entails: the good, acceptable, perfect will of God.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [logikos] worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2
Spoiler Alert
With that said, the Logos isn’t equivalent to the Enlightenment’s idea of Reason. The Word is not a philosophy or Platonic ideal to live by, and we see why in what immediately follows in the creed. On the heels of these sweeping Christological statements, which go to such lengths to establish the divinity of God the Son, follows the story of how he enacts his salvation. God the Logos, through whom all things were made, came down from heaven. The Christian hope doesn’t rest on some beautiful but disembodied idea, but a personal and active God.
This also means that the order we do see in creation is something we can welcome as a witness to the character of God. We don’t have to be afraid of scientific discovery because scientific inquiry itself assumes that there is order to uncover in the natural world around us. We find such astounding order there because it is created through Christ. Science—even in the form of a pile of leaves on the table—can turn our hearts to worship him through whom all things were made.
“For the fullness of joy is to behold God in everything”
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter XXXV
Photo by Wavebreakmedia from Getty Images, courtesy of Canva. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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