The Artist
God is an Artist.
We often don’t recognize it. We have a God in His box, confined to the realms of theological speculation. But God isn’t a theologian – He doesn’t need to be. He knows Himself perfectly; yet self-knowledge was not sufficient for Him.
To state the argument more clearly, if God thought that what He created was good… then He must of though that it was good that He created it. And if God thinks that something which He has done is good, what is the creation that we should argue with the Creator that their creation was not necessary? But more simply, God creates because He wants to; and if He does what He wants to do; then it stands to reason that what is done is the thing which should be done; and if it were not so; God, who can do whatever He wills, would have not done it, or would have done something else.
Yet for all that we recognize God as the Creator; we often fail to recognize that He is an Artist. We see the world in color, and artists copy it. Yet what is creation, if not art? Shape, form, substance… these we recognize in the creation. We recognize pieces of the Creation as artwork, as a model from which an image may be copied. Yet our concept of “creativity” is often divorced from the concept of God as “the Creator.” From whence does man derive his sense of creativity, if not from the Creator?
Clearly, this is what the Creator Himself said: man was created in His own image, in the image and likeness of God. The concepts of an “image” and “likeness” are artistic terms, dealing with a similarity or comparison between the thing represented and the representation itself. Yet, the “thing represented” is the Person of the Creator… which reveals that like much of the art with which we are familiar, the Artist engages in art for the purpose of self-expression. Creation is revelatory… human nature tells us what God is like. The scenery placed in our world naturally stirs the soul of man, because it is painted from the soul of God. Our concepts of beauty, design, balance, structure, and greatness come from the person of the Creator. And the imagination of man feeds on the sustenance placed by God in the world.
Ultimately, it is this response to beauty and greatness that drives the impetus of human nature. The majority of scientific discoveries were not found by accident – it was the nagging of an unanswered question, or a spark of creativity, that led a human being’s mind on a quest to find an answer… creativity tells a man where to look. We look at men of ancient times as “primitive,” yet discover that even living at the most basic levels of human society, their cultures were far from utilitarian… how do we explain away the aesthetic in human nature? Even among “primitives,” the presence of art, music, and dance… they still stir the soul; even the soul of the modern, 21st-century Western man. Even in societies far removed from the “hunter-gatherer” societies of earlier times of human history; we still have television channels devoted to wildlife; beasts of the field taking down their prey… and we’re supposed to be evolved, right? We’re not supposed to enjoy that, it’s gruesome, too close to “survival.” Are we to understand that it’s some latent part of a “primal brain” reacting the way it did millions of years ago? Why does the scene stimulate the imagination, arouse a latent restlessness in a “modern, civilized man,” who knows that “money is power,” not an animal instict characterized by brute strength. Yet it does nontheless arouse him; the raw power of the beast moves him, he craves action and respects the power to kill and the wildness that cannot be contained. It is the artist in him, stirring him to greatness and action, creativity.
It is the artist who gives life to the dreams of man, the colors and surreal imaginations of sleep. It is the Creator who keeps the man awake with thoughts of unlived ambitions, worlds of adventure he would never dare to live out on his own. The artist in the man pulls him away from his false sense of security in the world; it drives him, moves him, dares him to come out and stand as his own man. The act of art is a depiction, a capturing of the essence of something; yet it also creates a change in perception. The act of creating art is an act of power, changing the nature of something as it is depicted; seizing upon the nature of nature in a moment, defining it in sharp lines, and texturing its more subtle realities in tints and shades. The artist is engaged in a work of discovering the Creator as well as the creation, and in the process expresses himself as he discovers himself.
The artist taps into the untamed force latent in all humanity – a vestige of the self-expression of the Creator – and this is the force that moves humanity and directs the course of human history. It builds up, and tears down; creates, and destroys – active, dynamic, and always moving. It is the river that lies buried in the hearts of shallow men, the dangerous current that drives the heart into uncharted waters, deep into an undiscovered country fraught with danger… and thus, the force which drives the artist is a cause of fear. It is unpredictable, unknowable… we can dam it, try to direct it, harness its energy and use its power for safe and easily controlled purposes… but all the while we fear that it will break through the walls of our souls, will crash through like a hurricane, destroying every piece of security we have known, and forcing us to ride out the storm for which we knew we could never be prepared.
A contradiction, yes. The force that drives the artist is both creative and destructive… but that is the nature of power: to create change. It is dynamic, active, changing, inspiring, moving. Without it, humanity would stagnate, would be crushed under its own weight. The forces of destruction serve to continue the activity of the forces of creation… and for the creator and artist; these are one in the same, pressing him and pushing him onward; so that from the shards of the disaster he will cast a world in an image more to his own liking.
