by Michael Winters
In a wonderful 2015 talk, “Three Visions Necessary for the Christian Artist,” pastor and musician Vito Aiuto argues a Christian artist needs vision regarding three crucial questions:
Who is the world?
Who is God?
Who am I?
In this post, we want to consider that second question, “Who is God?”
Obviously this is a gigantic question. Here we just want to scratch the surface, hoping to open up some new ways of considering what a vision of God might mean for artists. Christians believe in the triune God, the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For this post, we’ll focus on God the Father as Creator and in future posts we’ll consider what it means to be an artist in light of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
There are two basic ways we can know something about God - The Bible (special revelation), and God’s creation (general revelation). Here, we’ll briefly look at both of these approaches to consider how a deepening relationship to God the Creator may change us and our art.
God revealed through the Bible
Below are a selection of direct quotes taken from the Old and New Testaments, direct statements describing who God is…
God is God; He is the faithful God.
God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire.
God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.
God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
God is with us; He is our leader.
God is greater than any mortal.
God is exalted in His power. Who is a teacher like Him?
God is a righteous judge, a God who displays His wrath every day.
God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.
God is a God who saves.
God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
God is a sun and shield.
God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.
God is full of compassion.
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
God is the builder of everything.
God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.
God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
All of these statements describing who God is come after the Bible’s first revelation of who God is in Genesis 1 and 2. These first chapters of the Bible reveal God as Creator. The Bible begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God speaks the cosmos into existence. He says, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He spoke all of it into being and called it good. God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.” God proceeds to do just that, to make mankind in God’s “image,” in some important sense, like God.
If humans are created like God, what does this mean? Among other things that could be said, it must mean that we, like God, also have creative capacity.
According to this foundational biblical story, every human being is God’s creation. All the earth and all the universe is God’s creation. This understanding gives us humans an honored place in the created order. We are not merely a happenstance of biological function. We are God’s creatures. God made each of us and knows us intimately. As Psalm 139:13-14 says,
“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.”
“The Temptation and Fall of Eve” by William Blake, 1808.
The creation account puts humans in an honored position, but also a humble position. Genesis makes it clear who is in charge. According to this view, we are not God. God is God. God has created humankind and given us responsibility (Genesis 1:26-28). This responsibility we can call “creative power.”
God revealed through God’s creation
Our creative power, used for good or evil, happens in the context of God’s creation and always in relationship to the Creator. Our day-to-day life on planet Earth is where we relate to God. God is not a “character” in the Bible. He’s the God of creation, God of planet Earth. The earth is creation, not merely “nature.” All of us—whether Christian or atheist or otherwise—growing up in the 20th or 21st century have inherited a worldview that doesn’t really line up easily with this truth. Modern thought has tended to reduce creation to its composite parts. It has often failed to see the interconnectedness within creation itself and even more crucially creation’s connection to the Creator. We’ve inherited a way of thinking that doesn’t actually expect to experience God in the world. Yet “the earth is the Lord’s and all the fullness thereof” (from Psalm 24). This is the only world we now have in which to relate to and experience God. If we’re going to consciously relate to God within our lifetimes, it must happen here.
Once this reality sinks in, we enter a re-enchanted world where soil and seeds, water, bread and wine are themselves and yet transcend themselves. In short, we develop a sacramental vision. A sacramental vision is a way of seeing that integrates the visible and invisible, the divine and the human. A sacramental vision sees God’s grace active within physical reality.
Similar to how we can know something of an artist by getting to know what the artist has made, we can know something of God by considering what God has made. In Romans 1, Paul makes it sound obvious: “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” If this is true, what can we infer about God based on the vastness of the universe? And can we infer anything about God based on the existence of octopuses?
What does this mean for us as artists?
When we grow in our knowledge of God, either through the scriptures or through our life experience in God’s creation, we grow an overflow from which we ourselves can create. For artists, this inevitably makes its way into our work, directly or indirectly. Our understanding of God will always be terribly incomplete, but with attention, it will continue to change and grow. Our understanding of our own place in creation will also change and grow. Our art is a space to work out these understandings. We seek to know God and God’s creation as wholly and clearly as we can and attempt to give witness to that vision.
As our knowledge and trust of God the Creator grows, and as our ability to see the creation as God’s world grows, these benefits for artists may develop as well…
We experience more wonder and awe. These are key ingredients for a creative life and lead us to valuable artistic vision.
We find our life is a great gift as God has given it to us, including even the hardships. This gratitude makes us more generous in sharing our art with the world.
We realize our identity is found in who God has made us to be. Our identity becomes less dependent on success and the approval of others. We are more free to make the art that we feel should be made.
We are humbled, knowing our smallness before God. But we are honored, knowing we are known and loved.
In summary, a growing knowledge and trust of God the Creator gives us an incredible spiritual foundation for living whole-hearted lives, as men and women, but also as artists.
Creative Response
1. List 10 things God has created. List 10 more. Follow up question: What characterizes His creation? If we think of God as the ultimate artist, what is His style?
2. Read Tamisha Tyler’s poem “Who is God?” Read it at least two times slowly. Then, using the format of her poem as a template, create your own poem based on your own experience of relating to God.