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.