To begin with, spiritual creativity denotes extracting oneself from the objectified world and immersing oneself into the reality of Divine Creation. This is primarily an act of thinking, one motivated by love - particularly the love of Truth.
Though difficult to maintain consistently, especially in the early stages, this immersion into the reality of Divine Creation opens the possibility for two key revelations: man as microcosm and man as microtheos.
The first revelation unfolds the understanding that everything in the cosmos also within man. More to the point, man recognizes that everything he needs to know of the world is contained within himself because he is essentially a world unto himself.
The second revelation is the undeniable existence of the divine element within man; a divine element that not only provides the essence needed to commune with Divine Creation and the Creator, but also provides the opportunity to influence and add to Divine Creation.
Man as microcosm and microtheos underscores the significance of the individual and personal over collective and impersonal. The new creative element man can add to Divine Creation is not and cannot be determined from the outside, but from what is most personal about each individual man. During mortal life, man has need of the material world in order to create for he cannot create in a vacuum, but what he creates is not determined by matter, but by spirit.
When the microtheos - the divine element with man - is attuned to God, man's vision of the world becomes God's vision of the world.
Becoming attuned to God is a response to God's creative calling, which is only possible through Christ, who, through a free, gracious act of love, is able to illuminate the divine element within man. This lays the groundwork for theandric freedom - the possibility of divine-human operation.
The divine nature of humanity makes this divine-human operation possible, but it can only occur if man recognizes and embraces his own divine nature.
Note added: I recorded the bulk of these observations and interpretations while reading N. Berdyaev's The Meaning of the Creative Act.
Though difficult to maintain consistently, especially in the early stages, this immersion into the reality of Divine Creation opens the possibility for two key revelations: man as microcosm and man as microtheos.
The first revelation unfolds the understanding that everything in the cosmos also within man. More to the point, man recognizes that everything he needs to know of the world is contained within himself because he is essentially a world unto himself.
The second revelation is the undeniable existence of the divine element within man; a divine element that not only provides the essence needed to commune with Divine Creation and the Creator, but also provides the opportunity to influence and add to Divine Creation.
Man as microcosm and microtheos underscores the significance of the individual and personal over collective and impersonal. The new creative element man can add to Divine Creation is not and cannot be determined from the outside, but from what is most personal about each individual man. During mortal life, man has need of the material world in order to create for he cannot create in a vacuum, but what he creates is not determined by matter, but by spirit.
When the microtheos - the divine element with man - is attuned to God, man's vision of the world becomes God's vision of the world.
Becoming attuned to God is a response to God's creative calling, which is only possible through Christ, who, through a free, gracious act of love, is able to illuminate the divine element within man. This lays the groundwork for theandric freedom - the possibility of divine-human operation.
The divine nature of humanity makes this divine-human operation possible, but it can only occur if man recognizes and embraces his own divine nature.
Note added: I recorded the bulk of these observations and interpretations while reading N. Berdyaev's The Meaning of the Creative Act.
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