Why do we create?
The “pursuit of the original” vs. the “pursuit of good”: why newness is impossible and that’s a good thing.
It’s not uncommon to find ourselves asking what we can bring.
When there are people with so much talent and skill and resources and audience it makes perfect sense that we ask, what can I bring? Can I add anything to this world?
In a content and media saturated culture, we can easily question why we should create anything, let alone share that.
It is a valid question. We can wonder whether the world needs something from us when it feels like there are already three-plus versions of everything under the sun.
Many times I have thought that surely there is nothing new to bring. Nothing new for us to create. I find that this partly stems from another of these false creative myths we find prevalent in our culture today; that the role of a creator is to make something new. The artist or designer is championed throughout recent history as doing something novel or original.
For those of us wanting to use our creativity, we find that this definition of creativity produces an impossible pressure that we must do something new. That our work and ideas must stem from a lightbulb moment within us. That the thing we create should be something radical, alternative, fresh and original. I find this idea creeping into my own making consistently. It’s hard to shake.
A romantic vision of an artist alone in their studio, staring down at the blank canvas, searching inwards, finding some feeling and a radical new thought, splashing paint out onto the canvas in a dash to the masterpiece. Transforming culture. Ushering a new movement overnight. Critically praised for the originality of the work. Shaking off the shackles of tradition and the past.
And yet, this is rarely the reality, if ever.
As humans, our starting point for creating has always been from within the given world. A world given to us by God and packed with raw materials along with a purpose to create. Starting from a place of something rather than nothing. Only God creates ex-nihlo, from nothing. Only God has created something that is entirely new. The kind of creativity we do is ex-materia. Creating from that which is already in existence.1
There is a far deeper and more beautiful purpose to be found in our making. A purpose beyond producing something original. Beyond making an entirely new thing. More important than doing something radical and unexpected.
The pursuit of the original
Using your creativity matters. And what you create with that is valued by God with a purpose in his Kingdom.
It is this purpose that fuels me to keep typing away at the keyboard, dabbing at those little details on the canvas, waiting with a camera in the cold for the sun to rise.
For a long time, I thought that my role as a creator was to make something new. To imagine and bring into existence something entirely different and separate from what had been before.
In this day and age, definitions of creativity are very preoccupied with the original. Producing something entirely unique and unknown. To create something new out of nothing is seen as the goal of artistry.
It’s an interesting idea that has become one of the main criteria we hold against works of art in the 21st century. Is this something new? Is it original? We start to look down upon works that reconstruct existent ideas; that tell timeless stories. There’s a growing sense that a created work that borrows from others or isn’t in the majority something entirely original, is of lesser value. As creators, we worry that we might be cheating, or that we are not a real artist or writer if we don’t have something new to say.
Art has to be original, we are told. It feels like this has become the definition and purpose of our creativity. To bring about something new; out of nothing. Trevor Hart explores these ideas in great detail in his brilliant book Making Good. He writes that creativity has become a “dogged pursuit of the original”.2
We strive for originality in our making because we believe that to be our role and the real determiner of value. We are afraid to share our work for fear that someone will point out we have stolen the ideas, that it is not ‘true’ creativity or art because it is not something solely poured out from ourselves.
This feels to me like a consequence of our individualistic culture, where the self is the centre of the universe and we take significance from delving ever deeper into some hidden part of our being that is our ‘true self’. It’s suggested that to create something original is a statement of independence and significance; a show of strength and that we, alone, hold the brilliance to produce this.
imago dei
The pursuit of the original strikes me as an interesting switch in how we think of ourselves as those made in God’s image.
As Christians, we see this as central to our theology of creativity. That being made in the image of the Creator makes us creators as well. This is certainly true.
Where the pursuit of the original gets it wrong is placing our focus on that initial starting point of nothing. The “beginning” when the earth was made. The “earth that was without form and void”. It’s from nothing that God created. 3
Perhaps, like me, you have felt the pressure to replicate this. To search for the blank page; find a space where you can bring something from nothing: a pure new thought, a light bulb moment. It’s a doomed pressure for newness. A pursuit of the original leads to a pursuit of the self and increasing isolation. The pressure is that in our creating we must entirely rely on the self and find something new from within.
The flaw in pursuing originality is that as humans made in God’s image, living and making within the world He created, originality is not possible. Rock and wood; paint and ink; paper and pixels: we create using materials that already exist. We form works out of something made directly by God or by other humans putting together those raw materials. As it reminds us in John 1:
“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”4
And then our ideas and concepts; are narratives and styles come from the rich and beautiful tapestry of human & heavenly making. We build layers upon layers. We take inspiration from others and collaborate in our making in a multitude of ways.
As humans create within the gift of God’s creation, we don’t make new. Instead, we become collaborators. We’re subcreators working within the purposes of God’s vision. There’s a lot to explore in Tolkien’s concept of subcreation, but John Carswell summed it up well when he wrote:
“work of the subcreator is an additive work” in that it “by the supernatural vision mysteriously granted to him, works to beautify and glorify the world before him”5
We find purpose in our creating, not because we are making something new; having some remarkable, original idea. We are part of a rich tapestry, weaving together the materials and heritage of this world towards goodness. It is harmony. And in a fallen world, it is pursuing good to bring about renewal. Restoring or uncovering the good that God made and intended in the world’s formation. Putting together the pieces we hold to show truth, beauty and goodness.
Our task is not to produce something original, as much as many of us will dislike that idea. Our purpose as creators is to weave together and sing in harmony.
So if we cannot make new, what are we doing? What are we creating? We might also ask what even is creativity if not making new?
The pursuit of the good
Trevor Hart suggests that the Biblical idea of human creativity is not the “pursuit of original”.
“True creativity,” writes Hart, “is always a pursuit of the good which renders the self adjacent; it is an act of love.”6
To be made in God’s image means that our creator-identity doesn’t come from within, but is given by God. It doesn’t point towards the context of God’s making, his power, or the starting place but from his character. From who God is. And God is love.
We also receive God’s vision. We are called to be subcreators in the act of making good; of renewal.
And so we see that love makes good. Which is to say creativity is an external outlook. It’s a giving to and drawing closer to, another. It is what Makoto Fujimura calls “culture care”.7
God creates from relationship, from an abundance of love, from being love itself. Not for newness. Not for any need, but because of generosity and love. From relationship for relationship. As Fujimura reminds us, the role of the artist is to ‘feed the soul’.
So when we set out to use our creativity, let us step further into that true identity given by God. To join him and pursue good. We can be free from the pressure to create something original. What you make doesn’t have to be radical and new.
When you make something, you are adding your strand to the tapestry of culture, helping to weave a landscape of goodness. Gifting a small morsel for souls to feed on that brings sustenance.
What you create matters, not because you are to create something new, but because you are new. You are unique, made by God who can produce originality. Formed by God, and through his love and grace eternally renewed.
You are a work of art created by God out of his pursuit of you. Inspired and driven by love.
It is because of this that we create.
We weave together the strands of nature and culture to reflect the current of beauty, and truth and to make good. To join in the harmonious song so that a glimpse, a note from this, might give others a glimmer of God.
This essay comes as part of a series exploring what it means to pursue good stuff. Subscribe for free to receive the next part in the series: What is good stuff?
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These concepts are explored further in Why Art Matters by Alistair Gordon and Making Good by Trevor Hart.
Trevor Hart, Making Good, p. 229
Genesis 1:2 ESV
John 1:3 ESV
John Carswell, ‘All Tales May Come True: Tolkien’s Creative Mysticism’, Mallorn, Issue 58 (Winter 2017), p.13.
Trevor Hart, Making Good, p. 312
See Makoto Fujimura, Culture Care, (2017)