Created Things: Stepping Stones to God
Oh my God … you have created all visible things. You have given me their use so that I may profit by knowing you, the omnipotent Creator of all things, and I may come to possess you … in all your Being and Nature. (OOCC, XIII, p. 53; GIL, VI, p. 20)
According to St. Vincent Pallotti, all created things are stepping stones to God. They point to the nature and being of their creator. God created all visible things in the world. As creatures, they bear within themselves the characteristic elements of God. They in some measure bear the goodness and beauty of God. After creating them, God has given them to the human person for his use so that he may profit by knowing God, his creator, and come to possess him in his being and nature. Though God’s divine and eternal nature is invisible in itself, it is revealed through diverse finite things he created and placed in the world. For this reason, every finite being in the world, by being what it is, manifests the infinite nature of the creator. This truth fascinated St. Vincent Pallotti and he attempted to reach out to God in and through every creature he encountered in the universe.
Do I consider created things as stepping stones to God? Do I have the faith to see the infinite being manifested in the finite and the tangible? Am I able to move from the known and the experienced to the unknown and the inexperienced?
Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he [God] has made. (Rom. 1:20)