Though all creation shows the beauty of God, it is not made in God’s image. Gregory goes on to say You alone have been made the image of the Reality that transcends all understanding, the likeness of imperishable beauty, the imprint of true divinity, the recipient of beatitude, the seal of the true light.
Try as you might, you will not find God’s image within nature, for nature had not been endowed with it. It can lift up your spirit, inspire you to song or poem, allow you a freedom rarely found anywhere else. But it cannot tell you who God is. Why? Because to find God, you must start with his image.
Again, Gregory says When you turn to him you become that which he is himself…there is nothing so great among beings that it can be compared with your greatness…the earth and the sea are enclosed in the hollow of his hand. And although he is so great and holds all creation in the palm of his hand, you are able to hold him, he dwells in you and moves within you without constraint, for he has said “I will live and move among them’ (2 Corinthians 6:16).
Creation is in God’s hands. And God is in us. It’s no wonder Jesus says in Matthew 6:6 But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father. Olivier Clement commenting on the writings of the early Fathers of the Church on this topic writes The Fathers never ceased to glorify this irreducible greatness of humanity, this ‘fathomless depth’ in the human being which is where God is. Humanity is in the image of God because, like God himself, it escapes all definition.
If you only seek God in the natural world around you, you miss the chance of seeing God face to face, within your own soul.
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