Victory Over Evil Is Not Enough

8/14/2021

Up to now Christian consciousness has not known the creative revelation that man's task in the world is to create what has not yet existed, to supplement and enrich the creative work of God.

The world-process cannot be only the experience of sin and redemption from it, only the victory over evil. The world-process is the eighth day of creation, it is continuing creation.

All the mysteries of God are revealed in the cosmogonic world-process; the mysteries of creation and creativity. The world process is a creative process of revelation, in which both the Creator and the created being equally participate. In the creativity of the created being the Son of God and the Spirit of God are revealed.

The creating man partakes in Divine nature; in him the divine-human creation is continued.

- from Nikolai Berdyaev's The Meaning of the Creative Act

Thoughts:

Traditional Christianity has generally overemphasized redemption from sin as a core purpose of religious living and has under-emphasized the core purpose of religious creativity. Victory over sin and evil is essential, but viewed in isolation it limits meaning in life via negative purpose.
The sheer existence of your mortal life in the world is already a declaration of the immense power and potential of spiritual creativity. The world was not the same before you came into it, and it won't be the same after you leave it. Why not take advantage of this immense opportunity God has given you and make the effort to create, to really create that which has not existed - to create something that God alone could not create on His own?
It is becoming increasingly evident - at least to me - that true communion with God is only possible through the spiritually creative act. True communion with God via the external channels of Traditional and conventional Christianity are dissolving and breaking apart. The obedient church-going, Bible-reading Christian no longer participates in Divine nature in any deep and meaningful sense. On the contrary, he is being stultified by Old Testament views of God as sole creator and/or is being led astray by church leaders, the vast majority of whom have committed themselves, either actively or passively, to spiritual destruction.
Most Christians appear incapable or unwilling to even rise to the challenge of the experience of redemption from sin or victory or evil. Creativity remains a mystery to all but a few.
We live in uniquely evil times, but we should not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of focusing exclusively on how to "beat" evil because the path to victory over evil lies in creation. Awareness of evil is vital, but it should not eclipse the aim of creation.

13 Comments

Magnus Stout

8/15/2021 02:24:18

How do you get spiritually humble? Is that a retrograde idea? Traditionally, this is captured by Job. What would that look in a positive way?

One thought I had is that I was particularly moved (intellectually & spiritually) by Fractals in Nature (Benoit Mandelbrot). When I think about such discoveries, I analogize God as a parent hiding "Easter eggs" for his children to find (joyous for both parties). I am sure there are other undiscovered things which would reveal God's nature.

Francis Berger

8/15/2021 17:40:48

@ Magnus - It's difficult to outline Berdyaev's observations concerning creativity in a blog comment. Suffice it to say that creativity requires spiritual mounting up rather than humbling.

Creativity goes against traditional concepts of God as sole creator (Supergod). It is the understanding that man possesses some of the same creative potential as God.

Rather than God hiding Easter eggs for us to find, we should begin creating Easter eggs for God to discover and find.

According to Berdyaev, God is waiting for man to display creativity, but creativity is something man will have to discover on his own, from his own divine center. Berdyaev regards it as an inner revelation rather than a revelation from up high.

Man should begin focusing on the undiscovered things within himself that would reveal *his* true nature to God. If this is done, God will reveal his true nature to man.

8/15/2021 03:23:43

One thing just struck me as illustrating your point: Adam naming the animals.

What an odd story.... Why did God do this?

He could have easily:

(1) named them Himself;
(2) provided rules to Adam;
(3) simply gave Adam dominion (no need to name).

God must have wanted (needed?) Adam's creativity. The act of naming brought together God (as audience/Father), Adam (as performer/son), and the animals (co-performer/object). Whatever that experience (performance/exhibit) was, God was happy with it. Does that capture the essence of what called "co-creating" with God?

When I think about the possibilities of "doing" such creativity, it seems boundless and uplifting. Why would you *not* want live in such a way? Maybe that is one reason why official Evil-dom necessarily attacks/despises/destroys beautiful art. Evil is hostile to the Divine spark.

8/15/2021 17:31:17

@ Magnus - See Bruce's comment below regarding creativity. Berdyaev's observations about creativity are not about art and science, but spiritual creativity - the potential of man becoming an active co-creator with God in Creation, of adding something new and original to creation that did not exist before, that could not have existed without man's latent creative potential.

bruce charlton

8/15/2021 20:24:43

" the potential of man becoming an active co-creator with God in Creation, of adding something new and original to creation that did not exist before, that could not have existed without man's latent creative potential."

I think the great difficulty traditionalist Christians have is explaining how this is possible. You can see this with CS Lewis and Tolkien. Both believed in this kind of creativity, but grappled (complexly but ultimately unsuccessfully, if one is being rigorous) with explaining it within the metaphysical assumptions of their Anglican or Roman Catholic theology.

8/15/2021 08:48:35

Very good. But if I had read this a decade ago, I would have thought that creativity meant something similar to what great artists, poets and scientists do. But of course it means all which is creative, in the same kind of way that God created all kinds of things. The key is that this creativity originates (to at least some extent) in the individual Man - and is Not simply a 're-arrangement' of God-given materials.

In 'divine creating' the individual Man originates something really new and additional to what already-existed - and this new thing could be in any form - including thought.

A deep problem is that traditional theology based on an omni-God (or what Wm calls Supergod https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-supergod-delusion.html) has no place for real human-divine creativity of this kind.

8/15/2021 17:27:53

@ Bruce - Yes, mention creativity and people immediately think the arts or sciences, which is not the same as spiritual creativity.

If Supergod is true, creativity is not only irrelevant, but impossible.

Of course, I don't believe Supergod to be true, so creativity is both relevant and possible. I'll go a step futher - it is necessary.

Ann K.

8/15/2021 12:53:14

To be clear, Eastern Orthodoxy always has had theosis—union with God—as it’s true goal.

Unfortunately, what most of us call “traditional Christianity” is Catholicism (the Roman branch that left the church in 1054) and Protestantism, which split from the Roman branch some 500 years later.

This is one of the major differences between the church and the heretical views adopted by others.

8/15/2021 17:22:51

@ Ann - Though true, your point about theosis in Eastern Orthodoxy misses the point as far as creativity is concerned.

As a Russian, Berdyaev was steeped in Eastern Orthodoxy, but his concept of creativity goes beyond all church "traditions" - even those within Eastern Orthodoxy.

8/15/2021 21:06:55

@ Bruce - "I think the great difficulty traditionalist Christians have is explaining how this is possible."

That's a good point. As far as I can tell, creativity cannot really be explained via conventional/traditional Christian metaphysical assumptions. I've explored creativity through the lens of Catholicism, but I never get far before hitting a dead end.

8/16/2021 02:19:20

I'm still struggling to understand the concept of "divine creating" vs "just-creating." Where does the Christian and/or spiritual part come in? Is the rule this: "creativity" [new & original]=good [what God needs/wants]?

For example, the Aztecs certainly created many new and original things. They were deeply spiritual as well and left us many examples of their inner natures. That said, I would judge them as predominately Evil.

Where does Divine Revelation enter? One reoccurring theme of history is this need for Revelation to make explicit what cannot be implicitly derived through Man's efforts (creative or otherwise) alone.

Maybe this "Creativity" concept builds from Divine Revelation? Can we find hints/echos of such in previous Revelation? And, I assume the issue of "sin" is dealt with by an alignment, through personal discernment with the "good" and rejection of Evil? Finally, in this view, there doesn't seem to be a "point" to "doing church" as historically practiced (sacraments, confession and veneration of God and saints). Is that considered outmoded to a spiritually mature person?

8/16/2021 07:21:05

@ Magnus - Those are good questions. Some answers can be found in the following Berdyaev article called "Salvation and Creation" , which provides a good, succinct overview of the some of the issues you've raised (the site in which the article is posted is an excellent resource, one established and maintained by my late pen friend Fr. Stephen Janos, who translated a great deal of B's early works):

http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1926_308.html

Otherwise, I suggest checking out B's "The Meaning of the Creative Act."

Also, Bruce has written a ton of posts on creativity - both the conventional and spiritual kind. Word search "creativity" on his blog.

Doc

8/16/2021 06:22:27

Good post. It is what we were created to do now, and into eternity.

In my own personal experience, a major stumbling block to creative expression was Christianity's constant focus on false humility.

You remain a terrible, worthless sinner even after the mantra of "saved by grace through faith"

The thought of joining God as a partner in his creative endeavors was inconceivable. "Who me? I'm not worthy."

A radical departure from this doctrine was necessary. Unfortunately, it was only possible through intuitive, personal (divine?) revelation.

I can't really express it clearly, even to those closest to me. It makes them uncomfortable.

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Victory Over Evil Is Not Enough

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