What is the creative Fiat?

The Fiat lux of Genesis

The first chapter of Genesis is punctuated by a refrain: “God said… and it was so.” Eight times — the eight properly creative words —, the sacred author presents the creative act as an effective word that immediately accomplishes what it declares: six times introduced by a “Dixit… Deus,” twice by a simple “ait” (Gn 1:11, 26). The Latin Vulgate renders this command three times with the subjunctive fiat (“let it be”) or its plural fiant:

“God said, Let there be light (Fiat lux). And there was light.” — Genesis 1:3^[1]

The same form recurs for the firmament — “Fiat firmamentum” (Gn 1:6) — and for the lights in the sky — “Fiant luminaria” (Gn 1:14); the other creative words say congregentur, germinet, producant, producat, faciamus.^[2] It is therefore not an isolated word: three times, the Latin Bible has God say fiat. It is the Book of Heaven that makes it the signature of all Creation, reading in it the first of the three great divine Fiats (vol. 12, February 22, 1921). Hence the use, in the spirituality of the Divine Will, of naming this creative word the Creative Fiat — as opposed to Mary’s human fiat at the Annunciation (“Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum,” Lk 1:38), which opens Redemption.

“He spoke, and what he said came to be”: creating by the word alone

This way of creating — without preexisting matter, without effort, by the pure efficacy of the Word — is at the heart of biblical faith. The Psalm sings it:

“He spoke, and what he said came to be; he commanded, and what he said came to pass.” — Psalm 33:9 (AELF translation)^[3]

The New Testament deepens the mystery: this creative Word is not a mere sound, it is a Person. The Gospel of John opens with a deliberate rereading of Genesis:

“In the beginning was the Word… It is through him that all things came into existence, and nothing that was made was made without him.” — John 1:1,3 (AELF translation)^[4]

The Fiat of Genesis and the Word of John thus designate the same reality from two angles: God creates in His Word, who is His eternal Son. The Epistle to the Hebrews confirms it: “Thanks to faith, we understand that the worlds were formed by a word of God, and therefore what is visible does not have its origin in what appears before our eyes” (He 11:3, AELF translation).^[5] The Catechism gathers these truths: God created all things through the eternal Word, and the totality of what exists depends on the One who gives it being.^[6]

Why speak of a “Creative Fiat”

It is objected that the universe could explain itself — eternal matter, the chance outcome of blind forces — and that the first chapter of Genesis is merely a symbolic poem, with no bearing on the real origin of the world. But this reading leaves the first question unanswered — why is there something rather than nothing — and it mutilates the text: read in the light of Christ, these chapters “express, in their solemn language, the truths of creation, of its origin and of its end in God” (CCC § 289).^[7]

Naming this first act the “Creative Fiat” is not a mere turn of phrase. The expression emphasizes three things that Catholic faith firmly holds against any materialistic reduction.

First, Creation is free and gratuitous: God had no need for the world; He draws it from nothing by pure superabundance of love, “not to increase Glory, but to manifest and communicate that glory” (Saint Bonaventure, quoted in CCC § 293).^[8] Second, it is ordered and good: at every stage — except that of the firmament (Gn 1:8) —, “God saw that it was good” (Gn 1). Finally, it is Trinitarian: “Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity” (CCC § 292) — “although the work of creation is particularly attributed to the Father,” the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are “the one and indivisible principle” of it (CCC § 316).^[9][10] The Creative Fiat is therefore the act of a personal, free, good, and triune God — not the chance product of eternal matter.

This is exactly what the Book of Heaven holds when Jesus says to Luisa:

“From a single Fiat of my Will came forth millions of stars.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 12, February 2, 1921^[11]

Three Works, One Eternal Act

The great insight of the Book of Heaven is to connect Creation to the entire history of salvation through the category of the three Fiats. Jesus expresses this to Luisa with catechetical clarity:

“These three Fiats are those of Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 12, February 22, 1921^[12]

These three Fiats are not three deities nor three isolated epochs, but three works of one and the same divine act, reflecting the unity of the Trinity:

“The three Fiats are inseparable, each completing the other two. They are a reflection of the Most Holy Trinity, being one and distinct from each other.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 12, January 24, 1921^[13]

Jesus even clarifies that, from God’s perspective, there is only one simple act, without succession or division:

“My Will is a simple act and not a succession of acts… Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification are one single act for my Will.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 18, October 24, 1925^[14]

This doctrine remains rigorously Catholic: it expresses, in mystical language, what classical theology calls the simplicity and eternity of divine action. God does not “change His mind” between Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification; He unfolds in time a single plan conceived from all eternity.

The Creator Fiat, Pronounced “Without the Intervention of Any Creature”

What distinguishes the first Fiat from the other two lies in one feature: it was pronounced alone, when nothing and no one yet existed to cooperate. Jesus contrasts the three moments:

“My daughter, the first Fiat, which pertains to Creation, was pronounced without the intervention of any creature. For the second, which pertains to Redemption, I desired the intervention of a creature, and it was my Mother who was chosen. A third Fiat is foreseen for the completion of the first two, and once again, a creature must participate. And it is you whom I have chosen.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 12, January 24, 1921^[15]

The same teaching returns in the form of the three times God acted ad extra — that is, outside Himself, in history:

“Three times the Divinity has acted ‘ad extra’: the first time, at Creation, which was accomplished without the cooperation of any creature, since none existed then. The second, at Redemption, which required the cooperation of a woman, my heavenly Mother… The third pertains to the fulfillment of our Will on earth as in Heaven.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 15, July 11, 1923^[16]

The Book of Heaven presents Luisa as this called creature: “And it is you whom I have chosen” (vol. 12, January 24, 1921); the continuation of the July 11, 1923 entry specifies that, to accomplish this decree, God wishes to make use of her, and that of January 23, 1924, that this third Fiat is necessary to complete the first two — a call destined then to spread to all souls.^[17]

This solitude of the first Fiat expresses the absolute sovereignty of the Creator: Creation owes nothing to anyone; it is pure gift. Redemption, on the other hand, awaits Mary’s fiat; Sanctification awaits Luisa’s, then, by spreading, that of the souls who live in the Divine Will. The first Fiat is thus both the foundation and the model of the two that follow.

The Trinitarian Appropriation: Creation to the Father

Catholic theology teaches that God’s works “ad extra” are common to the three Persons, but some are appropriated to one Person to better manifest personal property (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Iª, q. 39, aa. 7–8; CCC § 258).^[18] Tradition thus appropriates Creation to the Father, Redemption to the Son, and Sanctification to the Spirit. The Book of Heaven follows this exact grammar:

“Creation is attributed to the Father, Redemption to the Son, and the fulfillment of ‘Thy will be done’ to the Holy Spirit.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 17, May 17, 1925^[19]

The following table summarizes the correspondence, keeping in mind that the three Persons act together in each work:

This structure is valuable for what follows: it shows that the Creator Fiat is not a closed episode “in the beginning”, but the first term of a movement that will only conclude when God’s Will is done “on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Man, Masterpiece of Creation

The creative Fiat did not distribute its power equally among all creatures: it concentrated it on man. The Catechism clearly states: man is “the summit of the work of creation”, “the only creature on earth that God willed for itself” (CCC § 343, § 356).^[20] Everything else is ordered toward him: “He destined all material creatures to the good of the human race” (CCC § 353).^[21] The Book of Heaven expresses this hierarchy with striking tenderness:

“You have not yet said anything about the creation of man, he, the masterpiece of Creation in whom the Eternal poured all His Love, His beauty, and His craftsmanship, not drop by drop, but in rivers… One could say that his soul is a little God and a little universe.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 12, February 24, 1919^[22]

This expression — “a little God” — is not prideful: it mystically expresses the doctrine of the image of God (Gn 1:26: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”) and of divinization (theosis), which the Greek Fathers placed at the heart of the human vocation. Man is a “little god” not by nature, but by participation in the life of his Creator.

The very order of Creation manifests this: man, created last, is nevertheless the reason for all the rest.

“The reason for Creation was man; yet I did not create man first… Without the sun that was to illuminate him, without the canopy of the heavens that was to serve as his chamber, without the plants that would nourish him, all was disorder, and my Fiat reordered and created all things; and after having formed the most marvelous dwelling, He created man.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 27, November 20, 1929^[23]

This image exactly matches that of Saint John Chrysostom: man is like a king for whom “the palace is held ready for the king to enter” — in the same way the Creator, as if to establish a king upon the earth, first arranged the whole setting before bringing man into it.^[24]

Adam Already Possessed the Kingdom of the Fiat

Here is the decisive point, proper to the spirituality of the Divine Will: the design of the creative Fiat was not only to bring man into existence, but to make him live in the Will of God as in his natural atmosphere. Before the Fall, Adam did not merely obey God externally: he acted “in the Divine Fiat,” possessing what Jesus calls the Kingdom of the Divine Will.

“Adam, before sinning, performed his acts in the Divine Fiat. This means that the Trinity had given him possession of this Kingdom… Adam therefore possessed this Kingdom and the divine Fiat from the moment of Creation. And since he was the head of the entire human generation, all creatures received this right of possession.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 21, March 10, 1927^[25]

This interpretation does not contradict Catholic doctrine: it explicates an aspect of it. The Catechism teaches that our first parents “were constituted in a state ‘of original holiness and justice’” (CCC § 375), from which flowed “the interior harmony of the human person,” “harmony between man and woman,” and “harmony between the first couple and all of creation” (CCC § 376).^[26] Father Joseph Iannuzzi, in his doctoral thesis defended at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome, 2012), connects what Jesus said to Luisa about Adam’s state to the patristic theology of divinization (chapter II, p. 38ff.), and examines the whole in light of Tradition — councils, Fathers, Maximus the Confessor, scholasticism — in chapter V (pp. 432–433).^[27] The “Kingdom of the Fiat” of the Book of Heaven may be brought alongside this, without confusing the registers: what Jesus reveals to Luisa is a divine holiness — the Will of God itself acting in man.

“The Fiat of Creation Foreseen That Man Would Accomplish Our Will in Everything”

Here we touch the very design of the first Fiat. Why did God create? So that His Will would be the life of the creature. This is the design of Creation:

“The Fiat of Creation foresaw that man would accomplish our Will in all things. Our Will was to be the life, the nourishment, and the crown of the creature.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 14, September 11, 1922^[28]

The creative Fiat was therefore not an end in itself: it was ordered toward a response. God said “Fiat” in creating, so that man would in turn say “Fiat” in living — not by servile obedience, but in a single acting will: the divine Will itself operating in the human act, become a divine act, as in Adam before the fault (cf. vol. 18, October 24, 1925). Creation was the opening of a dialogue; it awaited the creature’s echo. It is precisely this dialogue that sin broke.

“The Work of Creation Is Not Finished”

The fall of Adam did not merely wound man: it, in a certain way, left God’s own work unfinished. For if the purpose of the creative Fiat was that man would live in the Divine Will, and this did not come to pass, then Creation has not reached its goal:

“And since this has not been realized, the work of Creation is not finished… We can never say that the work of Creation and that of Redemption are finished if we do not see all the acts of creatures as the extension of our Will.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 14, September 11, 1922^[29]

This is a strong statement and must be read correctly. It does not mean that God failed in Creation, nor that anything is lacking in Him. It means that the purpose carried by the creative Fiat—the man fully living in the Divine Will—has not yet been fulfilled in history. Creation is “complete” in its existence, but “unfinished” in its end. It is a perfect work awaiting its crowning.

The Missing Point: The Human Family

Jesus uses the image of a painter to describe what is missing: a magnificent painting lacking “a point, a nuance, a color.”

“Nothing is missing from our work of Creation […] . But it lacks a point: it is the brightest color missing in Creation: everything lives in my Fiat, except for one single point of Creation, that is, the human family, which is outside, beyond my Kingdom, where it is unhappy.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 26, May 16, 1929^[30]

The paradox is striking: the sun, the stars, the seas, the plants—all creation “lives in the Fiat,” spontaneously obeying the Will that made them. Only man, the masterpiece, lives “outside,” because he alone possesses a free will that can withdraw from God. The drama of original sin can then be precisely named: “But man left my Will to live in his own” (vol. 25, December 21, 1928),^[31] as developed in the article on the Garden of Eden and Original Sin.

God’s Waiting and Deferred Rest

From this comes a surprising theme in the Book of Heaven: God waits. Not out of impotence, but out of love—as a father who watches for the return of his children. The work of Creation remains suspended as long as man does not respond:

“And we long for its fulfillment and for our rest. That is why I desire so much that the way of living in our Will be known… Seeing creatures return to our Will, what wonderful rest we will not fail to offer them, thus completing Creation!” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 14, September 11, 1922^[32]

This “rest” of God evokes the seventh day of Genesis, when “God rested from all the work he had done” (Gn 2:2). The Book of Heaven suggests that this Sabbath rest is fully attained only when the creature freely returns to the Fiat from which she had departed. Creation thus awaits its “eighth day”: after the six days of the work and the seventh of rest, the eighth — the day of Christ’s Resurrection — opens the new creation and eternity.^[33]

Redemption Bears the “Imprint” of the Creative Fiat

The first Fiat is not erased by the others: it measures them. Redemption itself refers to it as its standard. Jesus tells Luisa that Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation, pronounced in the Divine Will, “bearing the same Power as my creative Fiat”:

“Redemption results from the fiat of my dear Mama, pronounced in my Will, and bearing the same Power as my creative Fiat. Therefore, everything in Redemption contains the imprint of my Mother’s fiat.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 12, January 17, 1921^[34]

Luisa herself thus meditates on the bond between the two Fiats, “each being like the echo of the other”:

“By His Creative Fiat, the Divinity formed the entire universe… By His second Fiat, the Fiat of Redemption, God visited us by giving life to each act of the Eternal Word. The Fiat of Creation and that of Redemption are linked, each being like the echo of the other.” — Luisa Piccarreta, meditation recorded in The Book of Heaven, volume 16, January 23, 1924^[35]

Here we see the error to avoid: opposing Creation and Redemption as if the latter corrected a failure of the former. The Book of Heaven says the opposite: Redemption serves Creation, putting it back on track so that it finally reaches its goal. The development of this point belongs to the article on the redemptive Fiat.

The Third Fiat Returns to the First

If Redemption restores, it is Sanctification—the third Fiat—that completes. And its goal is not to invent something new: it is to bring man back to the starting point, to the state the creative Fiat intended.

On June 3, 1925, Jesus specifies that it is Redemption which “added nothing to the work of Creation”: it repaired evil without adding to the work. Sanctification, for its part, is the grace already given, which will bear its “complete effects” when man adopts the Divine Will as life (The Book of Heaven, volume 17, June 3, 1925).^[36]

The third Fiat “will give man so many graces that he will return almost to his original state,” and “only then, when I see man as he came forth from Me, will my work be completed” — for “it is through Life in my Will that man will be restored to his original state.”^[37] We understand why the spirituality of the Divine Will is so oriented toward the origin: the promised Kingdom is not a beyond foreign to Creation, it is the restored Eden, the creative Fiat finally honored. This fulfillment, lived no longer by a single soul but offered to the whole Church, is the subject of the article on the sanctifying Fiat and the reign of the Divine Will on earth.

Here a doctrinal safeguard is necessary: this “return” is not a millenarianism — the expectation of a visible return of Christ to reign politically upon the earth before the Judgment, which the Church rejected “even in its mitigated form… under the name of millenarianism” (CCC § 676; decree of the Holy Office, July 1944: DS 3839).^[38] The reign of the Fiat is a spiritual and interior fulfillment of the Our Father: Christ does not return to reign visibly; it is His Will that comes to reign in souls — an intra-historical era of peace, of a spiritual order, as the third Fiat, revealed as early as February 22, 1921, is to complete in time the work of Creation and Redemption.

"Our Creative Act, always in act": entering the Fiat today

There remains a practical consequence that prevents the creative Fiat from remaining a cosmological abstraction. For the Book of Heaven, God’s creative act is not a past and closed event: it is always present. Whoever enters into the Divine Will enters into this very act:

“Whoever enters into our Will truly experiences our Creative Act, which is always in act.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 30, January 24, 1932 (quoted by J. Iannuzzi, The Splendor of Creation, p. 156)^[39]

This is where the great story of the three Fiats meets the most concrete spiritual life: each time a soul “lets flow” her action into the Divine Will, she prolongs the creative Fiat — for, says Jesus, “it is the brightest color that is missing” in Creation. The way to do this is the subject of the article How to make an actual act in the Divine Will?; the difference between doing God’s will and living in the Divine Will is treated in the corresponding article.

The creative Fiat is the first of the three great Fiats that Jesus reveals in the Book of Heaven. It is first the creative word of Genesis — “Fiat lux”, “He said, and it was” — by which God brings the entire universe out of nothing, by His eternal Word, freely, in order and goodness. It is then, and above all, a design: that man, masterpiece of Creation and “little God” by participation, live in the Divine Will as in his natural atmosphere, just as Adam possessed it before the Fall.

This design was interrupted by sin. Thus the Book of Heaven dares to say that “the work of Creation is not finished”: not that God failed, but that its goal — man fully living in the Fiat — has not yet been reached. Creation is perfect in its existence, awaiting its crowning; it lacks “a single point”, the human family returned to the Kingdom. That is why the other two Fiats refer to the first: the redemptive Fiat restores it, the sanctifying Fiat brings it “back to its starting point”. To understand the creative Fiat is therefore to understand that the whole history of salvation is the long return of a word — “Fiat” — which has awaited, since the beginning, the free echo of the creature.

• The Divine Will — the overall doctrine of the divine Fiat.
• Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947) — life, writings, and ecclesial status.
• The Book of Heaven — the corpus where Jesus reveals the three Fiats.
• God’s project for the world — Creation, Fall, Redemption, Reign: the complete fresco.
• The Garden of Eden and Original Sin — how man left the Fiat.
• What is the redemptive Fiat? — the second Fiat, accomplished by Mary’s fiat.
• What is the sanctifying Fiat? — the third Fiat, which brings man back to the first.
• Why speak of a reign of the Divine Will on earth? — without millenarianism.