catapult magazine

Do we know what that means? Can we guess?

After thinking about it for a while I have come to think that being made in God’s image is at least partially due to man’s ability to create and be creatinve. But is that all?

What do you think (or believe for that matter)?

I tried to reply earlier today but I think in my early morning haze I somehow dumped the post into a black hole or something, so here goes again.

I think Grant raises a good point about being careful to distinguish between our creative acts and Gods, yet I guess I’d like to argue the other side a moment — in defense of using the word create for our small creative acts.

First of all, I think most art is, in some sense, created ex nihilo — at least in terms of the concept of it. When I am writing, the really good stuff seems to come out of nowhere. Now, I suppose one could make an argument that it is the holy spirit working in me, so it is not truely “out of nothing” but I think it is close. When we make music, it is influence by other music, but true creativity, say Mozart, really does seem to come from nowhere.

Second, I am concerned that not calling what we do creation is to short change the God who made us. What a supremely creative act to have created a creature that creates. Now, to be sure, our creations are pale imitations of His, and it is important to keep that straight, but i guess I hold on to the notion that our worshipful artisitic acts might at least use the lower case version of the same word God used.

Finally, I think it is important to call it the same thing because i think creation is what we are genuinely trying for. C.S. Lewis identified this impulse in his own childhood creative act of drawing up plans for an imaginary world called Boxen (training for Narnia, perhaps). I think with the wrong attitude, this sort of thing could turn into humanism or blasphemy, but when done with a humble attitude, it seems to me that it is the most important way of worshipping.

Okay. Now if I can only remember to click on the “post reply” key.

Edited addition: Oh , I get it. Page two. Sigh. I’m such a dork.

Why does culturing have to be the result of being made in the image of God? It does seem that being made in the image of God has a stress on action, on our call to cultivate coming from His act of making us lovingly. The idea of the soul as a place for God to dwell does raise some great questions. But I don’t think God’s image is in us as much as it is imprinted on us as creatures called to cultivate.

So, grant, for a point of clarification, how do you think the act of culturing (sorry BBC) differs from all of the other responsibilities given in the garden and later, such as love God, your neighbor, and don’t cook a goat in its mothers milk?

In response to BBC, I think it may be more damaging to the creative acts of God to consider our own attempts at creativity to be on the same level. Well I suppose you would agree that our creation is not on the same level, but we have to have a clear understanding of the distinction between creator and creature. We cannot create plants, but we can agri-culture God created plants in a responsible way.

I think the acts in and out of the garden are all meant to be acts of culture/culturing. By culturing, I mean taking care of creation, i.e. our calling to culture (verb) creation (noun) is a call to take care of what God has made. But I also feel the urge with BBC to say that we image-bearers of God do, in a way, create the world as God creates. Even further, I would go so far as to say that we create with God as his servants on earth. But the word “cultivation” or “culture” seems to fit so much better with the Biblical metaphors of harvesting, sowing, and taking care of the garden.

Now, if your talk of the goats milk instructions is referring to the Old Testament laws given to man after the Fall, I see these as helpers for men whose sinful natures make it impossible to know how to cultivate properly without God. Now that God again dwells with us in the Spirit, we can again create with God despite our sin.

And I would have to disagree with Mozart to a certain degree. I know it might feel like art comes out of nowhere, but that might be because much of it comes from an elusive/illusive/allusive place that is not to be grasped cognitively without doing violence to it. On second thought, it’s probably just as well to say it comes out of nowhere, since who’s going to visit that place, or even know of it except the artist herself? (This last paragraph might not belong here in this thread. It might belong nowhere. OK, I agree with Mozart too)

How ’bout this: can anybody come up with a word that has more creating in it than the word “Culturing”, but less creating in it that the word “Create”. I guess what bothers me about the word “culturing” is it seems so focused on humans, and I believe quite strongly that art also is a form of worship. While we must do art for an audience, that audience can (and should) include our God.

I think. It is kind of late for me. Actually, I don’t know if I think that at all.

But doesn’t culturing that has more to do with taking care of the earth God has created have implications for all creation of which humans are a part? And God is pleased when we cultivate the earth as He intended, which is our act of worship. In this way, when our cultivation is consistent/obedient with God’s creating, we create what God creates.

But surely there is a difference between pulling weeds so that edible plants can grow (tending to God’s creation) and composing a tune (making something new). BOth are praise, to be sure, but i guess I’d argue a Chrisitan ought to do both.

I really don’t think composing a tune is that much different from pulling weeds. Last night, two rock critics on Chicago’s finest rock station, WXRT, were talking with the author of a book on Muddy Waters, and it was great to hear the slow growth from Delta blues to electric blues to rock’n’roll. The “geniuses” of blues were just making the most out of what they had, trying to grow a strong flower up in harsh conditions, both in Mississippi and here in Chicago. The author of the book, “Can’t be Satisfied”, talked about how the Bluesmen concocted their musical pieces from licks and riffs handed down from one person to the next. Then, of course, the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton took from the Bluesmen in the same way and made it their own, according to their own strengths and limitations. Songs are of the earth.

Okay, but just because musicians are part of a grand conversation that gives and takes, doesn’t significantly change the fact that even the blues (a remarkably well-defined form) are rife with dramatic changes, innovations, or that each new tune is still a brand new tune.

Maybe you can argue that some cultivators, like Linneaus, used grafting and selective breeding (or whatever you call it with plants) to develop certain qualities in plants. Even so, though, I would argue that such is a creative act. A person gets a new idea in thier head and uses the resources God has given then to bring about something that is new. And whether it is a new variety of Rose or a new tune by Muddy Waters, it is a creative act, something new, which by its mere action, praises the God who made all that is.

A farmer who sows the same field in the same way and raises the same crop is certainly tending the earth, and certainly taking care of God’s people (and this action is certainly more important on a basic level, than almost anything else), but it is God who is making something out of nothing in that case. The farmer is tending the garden, helping the process. When Muddy Waters takes all the influences of all those who have come before and still, working within that form and tradition, makes something never before heard, that is a creative act.

Sorry if I sound like I am repeating myself. It doesn’t feel like it to me. Grant, you are really helping me think this through.

OK, fine. If we want to call art a creative act in this way, then let’s call farming a creative act in the same way. I still don’t think the new of art is any more a creation of new things than farming. Farming is also not just an unchanging use of God’s never-changing resources. Everything humankind touches is changed or cultivated, but I wonder if it’s something new or just a discovery of the possibilities God has created within the things of this world.