Is the word of God things themselves?
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I'm reminded of what St. Thomas Aquinas says in Summa Theologica I q. 1 a. 10 when discussing whether a word in Holy Scripture can have several meanings (co.):
The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man also can do), but also by things themselves. […] this science [sacred doctrine] has the property, that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification.
Deus, in cuius potestate est ut non solum voces ad significandum accommodet (quod etiam h*m* facere potest), sed etiam res ipsas. […] habet proprium ista scientia [sacra doctrina], quod ipsæ res significatæ per voces, etiam significant aliquid.
The "things themselves" (res ipsas) are "conventional signs [signa ad placitum] instituted by God"—to borrow John N. Deely's phrase, when he discusses, in Four Ages of Understanding p. 221, Holy Scripture and sacramental signs in the context of St. Augustine's De doctrina Christiana lib. 2.
This also seems to show that our ability to signify (do semiosis) is as close as we can get to God's creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo).
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