Claim. The universe is God’s substantial object partner, composed of “individual embodiments of truth” — but in two unequal grades: human beings embody God’s dual characteristics at the level of image, while the rest of creation embodies them at the level of symbol.
Elaboration. Per 1.2. The Relationship between God and the Universe: “every creation is God’s substantial object partner, formed in His likeness as a discrete projection of His dual characteristics. God exists as the incorporeal subject partner to all beings. Human beings are object partners embodied at the level of image, and the rest of creation are object partners embodied at the level of symbol.”
The image/symbol distinction is hierarchical: image-level embodiment carries God’s qualities directly and sensibly (humans have mind/body, emotion/intellect/will, dominion-capacity); symbol-level embodiment carries them only by reflection (a flower instantiates beauty without consciously knowing it).
DP also classifies all embodiments into yang-class (resembling God’s original internal nature and masculinity) and yin-class (resembling God’s original external form and femininity), but every embodiment — at either level — itself contains both internal nature and external form, and both yang and yin within itself.
This is the structural basis for two later DP doctrines: (1) human beings as the purpose-of-creation and rulers of the universe (only image-level embodiments can receive God’s love directly and “return beauty”), and (2) the fall as cosmic catastrophe — when image-level embodiments fail, the symbol-level universe loses its center.