Creativity and Freedom

I want to share a complicated idea that I was introduced to yesterday. For a long time I have held that one of the qualities that makes us, as humans, unique and reveals that we are made in the image of God is our creativity. God's first action was a creative one. Or at least, the first recorded action of God was thus. He made the heaves and the earth.

Likewise, we ourselves are distinct from bluebirds, earthworms and cows by this attribute of creativity that permeates who we are. Inwardly we understand this, even if we do not contemplate it. When we create we feel good. Musicians, artists, architects, writers love nothing more than this process of expression. There is something magically satisfying about being creative. This is what makes it all the more tragic when a teacher or parent stifles or destroys the creative urge within a child in order to make that child conform to some robotic ideal.

The new thought I had yesterday, stimulated by a sentence from Dallas Willard's book Renovation of the Heart, was that there is another aspect of God's nature that we share, which I had never considered before. God is a free agent. You see it again in the first sentence of the Book: "In the beginning God created..." The implication here is that God, of his free will, performed this creative act of bringing the worlds into existence. It was a choice that originated somewhere within the mind and being of God.

For this reason, when we live freely, as human beings we are happier. Freedom is an arbitrary need. It is again part and parcel of the original design.

Two corollaries emerge from this idea. First, one reason America became a great nation and world power was because to a large extent it was a culture with immense freedom and creativity. The fertile soil of freedom enabled the wondrous creativity of Americans (I am not blind to the awfulness that is also part of our history) to produce a vibrant, technologically advanced commerce. Capitalism itself is founded on the notion of free markets. And the American Revolution was a revolt against tyranny in an effort to allow families to enjoy freedom.

The second pertains to our personal situations. To the extent that we are not free, to that extent we are inwardly unhappy. I am not referring at this point to the economic necessities which require that we work 40 to 60 hours a week to provide for our families, though this can be stifling if one is not in a satisfactory situation. I am referring, rather, to our many bondages as Americans: alcoholism, addictions to drugs, sex, gambling, various eating disorders, etc. The list goes on. To the degree we find ourselves enslaved by self-destructive vices or behaviors, to that degree we are failing to express the original design. We are born to be free, and our happiness is directly related to our experience of freedom, both inward and outward.

When we get caught in self-destructive cycles and find ourselves enslaved, it is depressing and steals our happiness.

Although humanity shares much with other creatures, often forget that we are uniquely made in God's image. That is, we are not like all other animals. We do have a right to rule the earth, though it comes with the responsibility of being caretakers consistent with God's character. We are not components in a giant machine called society. We are people of inestimable value because we are God's children. We express it best when we are joyfully creative and free.