A long time ago, long before you or I were either born, before
our families were around, even before any of the countries our families came
from were around, God created a masterpiece. But this wasn’t one of those
masterpieces that was just set out there for generations to appreciate, one of
those creations that people are like, “Oh, wow, that guy was really something,
wasn’t he? Wish he were still around: there are a few questions I’d ask him if
he were.”
No, this is a masterpiece that continues to, well, continue.
It grows, adapting to the times, forming itself around new cultural phenomena,
integrating itself into any environment, responding to any need that should
arise. It’s like a book that writes its own sequels, film adaptations,
soundtracks… And it can do this because it’s not just one story, but many; it’s
not only about one person, or even about several. It’s about everybody: every
individual who has ever lived, every culture those individuals have lived in,
every civilization in which those cultures have been present, every history
those civilizations have helped to form.
You see, in the beginning, God did what no one else can do: He
had original thought. And what He came up with was, indeed, miraculous. Because He invented something that was like Himself, but was still different. Made in His image, yet still its own individual. What kind of genius must He be, to
come up with the creature who has come up with all of the so-called “progress”
we see today? I would like to propose that the greatest asset of mankind, the
thing that truly lends us God’s image—because it can’t be appearance or
personality except in a very general sense, because God has created each and
every person individually, and none of us are exactly the same—is our ability
to create.
God gave us His own aptitude for dreaming, for designing, for
building, for repairing, for improving. That is built into us in the same way
that our hair colour or our height or our intelligence is built into us. I have
it, you have it, our friends, our families, each and every person has that
divine spark of genius, captured inside a physical frame. We can create! And
that is beautiful.
If that is true, though, why can’t I go out one day and design
a skyscraper? Why can’t you sit down for a few hours and type up a novel? Did
the Master Creator build a flaw into our hardware? The answer is both yes and
no. Of course, God didn’t make us wrong, because He’s perfect, and so His
creation was perfect at the time of its completion. But when God set out to
design a creature to rule over the earth He was building, He didn’t just want
robotic caretakers to herd sheep for Him. No, God wanted something, someone who would please Him through its
very life. And so He added just a little bit of spice to the plans: a tiny tweak
in the design, hardly a huge change at all. And yet free will made us who we
are today.
Now, don’t panic—I’m not going to cover such a heavy and
controversial topic today. If theologians have wrestled with the subject of
free will versus predestination for centuries, probably millennia, who am I to
tackle it when I’m not even out of high school? But I do want you to understand
that the course of human history has proceeded the way it has because, in some
capacity, God instilled in us the ability, and desire, to make choices. We were
not created to totally run our own lives, for we still need a Sovereign in our
lives, but we were built to be somewhat independent. Every parent can
understand this: who wants to watch his kid every moment of every day to make
sure they do everything right? No one! And that’s why you train and instruct,
preparing your children for the day when they can have more independence. God
gave us the ability to make our own decisions because He genuinely wants to
have a relationship with us, and that doesn’t mean pulling puppet strings all
the time. When I was younger, I gave each of my stuffed animals different
personalities. I’d talk to them, and they’d reply; but the only problem was
that I was the one replying. True, I could imagine that they were answering,
but the words that came out of their mouths were my words, and not theirs. And
that’s why, as I got older, the toys went into the box and I sought out real
people, who would give me real answers: original ones that they actually
thought up.
And so God made the fateful decision to give us free will,
knowing full well, I believe, the consequences of that decision. Looking
forward and seeing the pain that our choices would cause Him, He still chose to
give us free will, why? Because He already knew who every one of us would be,
and He loved us and wanted to be in a relationship with us.
So here was this masterpiece called man, living in the garden
with this masterpiece called woman. Both of them were perfect, flawless, able
to talk with God and with each other, able to invent names for these funny,
wacky things God had made: things like the platypus, the giraffe, the
bumblebee. And God saw that they were very good. He was proud of His creations!
And I believe He was glad to have that time in the garden with them. He saw
what was going to happen, but I’m sure He enjoyed the time with the man and the
woman while He had it.
I don’t know how long that first chapter of humanity lasted,
when everything in the design was working perfectly: the Bible gives no
indicator of time, it just launches straight into the tragedy. At this point in
the story, a new character is introduced. Universally viewed as the villain of
the story (and rightfully so), the serpent was more crafty than any other. But we
mustn’t say, “Oh no, poor Adam and Eve! They were deceived!” That is not what
happened. The man and the woman were aware of the rule, aware of the
requirements set before them. And what easy requirements! Don’t eat this fruit.
I mean, come on! But God had put that free will in them, and they decided they
wanted that fruit anyway. Notice I said that they decided to want the fruit;
they didn’t just want the fruit, they chose
to want it. Genesis 3:6 says, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree
was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining, she
took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and
he ate it.” The woman looked at the fruit and decided that it was something she
wanted. Certainly, the serpent’s speech was the impetus for that decision, but
the choice was still on her shoulders. She took the fruit and ate it. And what
of the man? For him, the blame is doubled. First, he was with her when she took
the fruit, and decided to say nothing. That’s choice number one. Second, she
gave the fruit to him, and he decided to eat it. That’s choice number two.
Together, they made three wrong decisions in a span of about one minute, maybe
a bit longer.
Well, you know the rest of that chapter of our history: God
comes, there’s lots of finger-pointing (again, poor decisions), and they face
the consequences for their decisions. But there were a few things that happened
in the background, even before the close of Part One. With free will came the
capacity to choose evil. When they chose to eat the fruit, they chose evil for
the first time, and immediately that capacity to choose evil shot up about
seventeen thousand points, which is why we feel the effects of sin today: we
were born with an incredibly high capacity for wrong decisions. That’s the
first thing that happened.
The second thing that happened—and this is the one I want to
focus on—is that the creative capabilities of the human being were broken. This
is a result of the fruit’s effects. Before we possessed the knowledge of good
and evil, there was just life. When the only evil we could commit was to learn
the difference between good and evil, we could not sin, and so we lived in
complete innocence. Everything we created was pure and holy, blameless in God’s
eyes, and thus perfect. But once we learned the difference between good and
evil, those days were over. When you know about evil, it is impossible to
create something that does not reflect that, if only in a miniscule way. And
that, God cannot abide.
But knowledge of evil is not the only way in which our
creative capabilities were broken. The innocence of what we created was lost,
but so was the originality. If you look out there, at the world around us, what
is it we have created? Shades and echoes, moving mirrors, reflections of things
that are not ours. Our entire world is plagiarized! We have vehicles that are
our attempts to create something that can travel, but none of them can move
half as well as any of the creatures God crafted. We have buildings that are
our attempts to create homes, but can even one of them compete with the garden
God made for our original home? We have artificial lights and artificial
plants, artificial turf, artificial animals, even artificial bodies, and not
one of them can compare with the real thing.
Even our entertainment is pitiful. Look at any book, any play, any movie. What are the common themes? Hmm… Sacrifice? God’s plan for our
salvation. Maybe love? The reason, painted all over God’s book, that He created
us in the first place. How about hate? God states flatly that He hates
unrighteousness. All of our visual art is, once again, a reflection of things we
see in real life. Music is, perhaps, the only art form mostly free from sin’s
corrupting influence. I’m not talking about songs with words, those are all
about love, longing, despair, or living life for fun. I mean purely
instrumental music: classical, innovative, score. But even those reek of
sorrow.
I find it so tragic that, through our own stupidity, we
spoiled what is possibly God’s greatest gift to us after Himself. Could you
imagine if we lived in a world where every book was a celebration of beauty? What about a world where Hollywood's output included something other than sex, drugs, and violence? Where every songwriter's work didn't praise the depravity of sin?
Now, please do not think that I am so pessimistic as to be unable to see the good in our artwork. I believe that there is very real beauty and joy to be seen, very real pleasure to be had, from art of every kind. But I wanted to first highlight the negative sides of what passes for creativity so that the positive sides can shine out a bit brighter.
Yes, there are delightful times to be had from reading books; I love watching movies just as much as the next person. Music is extraordinarily moving to listen to. We as a general populace have done an incredible job of overcoming some of our own natural destructiveness in order to instead create, or at least mimic. The purpose of this paper is not to applaud humanity, though; neither is it to bash us in some way. I only wish to point out how unbelievable is the grace our God has given us.
Just think about this: how many people exist who have created beautiful artistic expressions, yet are not Christian? In this, God does not discriminate between His children and those who are His enemies. He allows even those who most spitefully defy Him to be blessed with the gifts of creativity and imagination. That is beyond belief: how many of us would choose to give those who most hate us one of our most precious possessions? No one.
If you think you don't owe God anything, think again. Even if you don't choose to follow Him, offer up a quick prayer of thanks, right now, for the incredible capacity He has given you to bring beauty into this world. And now do not feel anymore pressure to perform. You will never measure up to a standard of perfection, so relax and enjoy the experience of mimicking your Creator's passion: creation.
