A Theology of Creativity

The single greatest act of creativity is revealed in the first verse of the Old Testament.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

This consummate act becomes the model by which all other creative acts in the span of history will be judged. Staring into the pure black darkness, the Creator envisioned and brought into existence everything that is, purely from His own creative energy and imagination. The extent of His creativity has never been fully discovered, from the secrets that lie in depths of the oceans here on earth to furthest reaches of the universe who light has yet to reach

us. The essence of creative action is located in the divine spirit and it is present in you.

You cannot say “I am not creative.” The imago dei burns within you for expression in any glorifying form. Each moment you can stare into a space where there is nothing and you can create something. Write a letter, write a story, write a poem, or write your name with your left [or right] hand. You’ve created something where there was nothing. Sing a tune, sing someone else’s tune in a different key, or sing the words you’re reading right now to the alphabet song. Now there is music where there was none before. Draw or paint, compose a speech, cut letters from a magazine and rearrange them to create a new message. The only thing you need to do is to allow the spiritual spark to be fanned into a flame.

God has supplied that spark to each of us. It is our responsibility to generate the breeze that stokes the flame to its highest temperature. Sometimes it will be easy to catch the breeze that moves around us and we will have trouble controlling the burning. At other times, we will have to move and generate our own fanning. This might take the form of moving quickly to put ourselves into the place where an idea comes and at other times we can fan the spark with our medium, whether it be paper, canvas, or photographic film. When the spark is fanned, something will come from nothing.