If, therefore, God's thinking is primary, and if all of creation is to be understood simply as the outflow of that thinking of God, such that all things have come into existence and continue to exist through the Logos, that is, through divine reason, or more particularly, through the Word, then it must be the case that the divine thinking must be embedded in all created things. Thus there can be nothing in the universe that fails to express, to incarnate, the revelation of the thought of God. It was not the case that there existed an immeasurable mass of matter that God's thinking attempted to process, but rather divine thinking is embedded in all of creation. A thought of God constitutes the core of the essence of things, and it was primarily this thought of God that prescribes for created things their manner of existence, their form, their principle of life, their destiny, and their progress.
The whole creation is nothing but the visible curtain behind which radiates the exalted working of this divine thinking. Even as the child at play observes your pocket watch, and supposes it to be no more than a golden case and a dial with moving hands, so, too, the unreflective person observes in nature and in the entire creation nothing other than the external appearance of things. By contrast, you know better. You know that behind the watch's dial the hidden work of springs and gears occurs, and that the movement of the hands across the dial is caused by that hidden working. So, too, everyone instructed by the Word of God knows, in terms of God's creation, that behind that nature, behind that creation, a hidden, secret working of God's power and wisdom is occurring, and that only thereby do things operate as they do. They know as well that this working is not an unconscious operation of a languidly propelled power, but the working of a power that is being led by thinking.
Now that thinking of God, which brings about the movement of all things in their course, is not working without plan or purpose or principle, but is rather a work directed to a purpose, moving toward that goal according to a fixed rule. This plan at its origin embedded within the creation everything indispensable for reaching that goal.
Consequently, all things have proceeded from the thinking of God, from the consciousness of God, from the Word of God. Thereby all things are sustained; to these all things owe their course of life and all things are guaranteed to meet their goal. So we can and must acknowledge and confess unconditionally that all of creation in its origin, existence, and progress constitutes one rich, integrated revelation of what God in eternity thought and established in his decree.
Now the only question is whether we human beings are gifted with a capacity to reflect that thinking of God.
It is absolutely clear that not every creature possesses that capacity. Even though the lily is clothed with a glory greater than that of Solomon in all his splendor, it knows nothing of its own beauty, and comprehends not the smallest bit of the thought of God that is expressed in its existence. No matter how magnificently the fish may live in the water, the fish knows nothing of the composition of the water, of the capacity that the water has to keep a body afloat, nor of the nourishing properties contained in the water. It is even evident that the animals endowed with developed instincts, such as the ant, the bee, the spider, and the like, understand nothing of what they do, and nor do they comprehend anything of what God is revealing in them.
To be sure, we must always use great caution in expressing ourselves regarding the animals, since we cannot penetrate their inner existence. But we may and must say this much, that with animals we observe nothing of ongoing development, and that nothing is revealed to us about a higher aptitude or a higher consciousness that was supposedly bestowed on the animals.
We know a bit more about angels (taking into account the devils as fallen angels). But regarding angels it is written that they desire to see into things they do not understand. No matter how much knowledge angels may have, in certain respects they continue to stand below us.
By contrast, concerning a human being this great truth is revealed, namely, that every human being is created according to the image of God. On this basis the Reformed churches confess that the original man in his nature, that is, by virtue of his creation, not through supernatural grace but according to the creation order, had received holiness, righteousness, and wisdom. Here, then, attention is drawn to a capacity bestowed upon human beings enabling them to pry loose from its shell, as it were, the thought of God that lies embedded and embodied in the creation, and to grasp it in such a way that from the creation they could reflect the thought which God had embodied in that creation when he created it.
This capacity of human nature was not added as something extra, but belongs to the foundation of human nature itself.
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