Creativity and Obedience

Arise, O God is a compact and manageable volume outlining what the Gospel of Christ is, the transformative and demanding content of its message, and the regal dynamic (Christ's dominion) which it delivers to the world.

This new book penned by Orthodox priest, author, and podcaster (not to mention Tolkien aficionado) Andrew Stephen Damick focuses on the problem of sin, which entered the world through the demonic influence on mankind (beginning in the garden of Eden), and how the coming of Christ and His Kingdom overthrows the degrading effects of the Fall.

One strain of thought that the author carries throughout his book deals with God's wondrous creativity and the creative relationship into which He invites every human person.

Damick examines salvation history – appropriately – as a largescale spiritual war: a fight where the very souls of human beings are on the line. When, out of pride, our first parents responded to the Creator's love with disobedience, humanity chose to defect to the side of the “demonic rebellion.”

This immense rupture in the relationship between God and man had far-reaching implications. For one, it meant that the creative work which God invited man to share in with Him was damaged. Humanity's relationship with the Creator suffered – and thereby man's creativity (and the modes thereof) suffered as well.

How then do we create? How do we as human beings have a share in this work?

Because we were made for love, we create most beautifully out of love. Matrimony is disposed to pro-creation, and toil to various forms of “sub-creation” (as Tolkien would posit). The natural end of spousal love is the fruit of the womb. And the noblest cause to which man's intellectual and aesthetic creativity can be lent is adoration of the Creator. We create out of inclinations of love.

But back in the garden we rejected the most perfect Love, and that came with consequences. As Damick observes, man's creativity is a God-given attribute with an early biblical basis:

Adam participates in God's creativity even before the making of Eve by giving names to all the animals (Gen. 2:19-20), a collaborative act between God and man. This is the beginning of Adam's obedience to God's command to subdue the earth, a royal act on his part. Adam is expressing God's order by bringing order to the animal world (44).

Part of mankind's dominion over God's creation includes an element of creativity. Man, being fashioned in the imago Dei, imitates his Maker in a myriad of ways. Not least among these similarities is the divine invitation to make beautiful things.

Despite the Fall, God continues to allow man to show his dominion over the created world, but fallen man's relationship with creation is warped, injured beyond anything man alone could hope to heal. The natural order, at least the one God established “in the beginning,” was disturbed by the entrance of sin, of man's rejection of God's love. Following the Fall and the banishment from the garden, the human race populated the globe and multiplied its sinfulness.

The rendering of worship as well as human sexual activity, both dimensions of our existence that are called to be beautiful, were defiled – frequently becoming grave occasions of sin. Idolatry (and promiscuity to a somewhat lesser degree) are prominent throughout the Old Testament and are detailed in Damick's treatment of human sin.

If we focus on idolatry in particular, we learn that humanity no longer worshipped the one true God, the Giver of life and Creator of all in existence. Instead, ancient peoples often rendered inauthentic and unjustified worship either by a twisted devotional mentality (which aspired to controlling “divine” power) or by belief in a plethora of deities. Either way, civilizations that held such practices were giving honor to demons, to mere creatures, rather than to the transcendent Creator.

The Bible speaks of the intriguing relationship between the Creator, creatures, and the disorderly worship of false gods. It even does so with specific regard to the creative and beautiful dimensions of God's nature. In chapter 13 of the Wisdom of Solomon, we read:

For all men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the artisan while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air or the circle of the stars or turbulent water or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. If through delight in the beauty of these things people assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them (Wisdom of Solomon 13:1-3 ESV).

This is an elegant title that the human writer of Sacred Scripture offers to God: the author of beauty. To be sure, this is how we human beings are able to make anything even approaching the realm of beauty. By the grace of God, we can participate in seeking that which is beautiful. Regarding the artistic genius of God, Damick himself says:

I think it's important that we highlight God's creativity here, if only because His act of creation is not often described as an act of creativity, an act of artistry. Yet God is presented in Genesis as an artist, an artificer, a maker and shaper of beauty (42).

I concur with Damick's suggestion. It isn't addressed nearly so much as it ought to be. It is crucial to the human artist's understanding of beauty, and to the faith life in general, to realize the significance of God's handiwork, so much of which we get to see and shape and share in.

In order to redeem mankind from its false love and its self-interested longings, God had to break us free from the “demonic rebellion.” Thus, Christ came to conquer the devil, sin, and even death itself.

Damick maintains that we mimic and resemble that which we worship – whether it be the Creator or a fallen creature. Jesus Christ desired (and continues to desire) to bring each of us into a type of worship, a relationship of love, that is true, good, and beautiful – not one that's degrading.

On our part, this means realigning ourselves with obedience to God's Will. Though sinful creatures, we human beings are called to continual conversion, an ongoing repentance. By being faithful to Christ, we are brought into an orderly relationship with Him. With Christ as our foundation, we can go out with the creative gifts God has blessed each of us with and help infuse order back into God's creation.

Ultimately, the process of conversion, of purification, of salvation is one of beautification as well. As Damick writes near the close of the book:

To repent is to become the full work of creativity of the great and most high Creator Himself. Those who repent become as the stars of the heavens, and so enkindled, sing with them the glory of God forever (138-139).

Entering Paradise, we shall be comparable to the very “luminaries of heaven” that were adored of old and out of folly. It is there that we shall become most beautiful, offering our love to the divine Love Who provides all good things in their proper time.

Fr. Damick's new book Arise, O God: The Gospel of Christ's Defeat of Demons, Sin, and Death takes its titular phrase from Psalm 82 and is available from Ancient Faith Publishing.