There exists, I think, a real difference between the idea of "father" and "creator," and yet one feels, from our use of terms, and even from the terminology of holy scripture, that each idea may include the other. But first as to the distinctions between "father" and "creator." The term "father" carries with it the notion of generation, begetting from one's own person, springing from one's own nature, and partaking of one's own physical and mental qualities and perhaps likeness, but the term "creator" does not necessarily convey that notion, since a created thing may be external to the nature of the being who created it; as, for example, when God created the heaven and the earth.[A] In this case the heaven and the earth did not bear the image of God; nor was it made in his likeness, as the result was when God said, "Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness." So in relation to man; he begets a son or a daughter by act of generation; he is a father; and also, in a sense, a creator.[B] [Footnote A: Gen. i.] [Footnote B: Athanasius makes the following distinction between "begotten" and "created," which I believe to be true and of great importance as a truth. "Let it be repeated," he says, "that a created thing is external to the nature of the being who creates it; but a generation, (a begetting, as a father begets a son) is the proper off-spring of the nature." (Quoted in Shedd's Hist, of Christian Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 322.)] He gathers materials and builds a house; or with various colored pigments, brushes, and stretched canvas he paints a landscape, or from some rude block of marble with mallet and chisel he hews out the image of a man; he is a creator. Creator of the house, the painted landscape, the statue; and also, in a certain sense, after our manner of speech, we could say the father of them. So that in the terms "father" and "creator" there is both a distinction and a sameness.