Artisanal God
Part 1
It would be foolish to say that God is satisfied with utility. That would mean that everything that God is — and does — finds its end in function as every part of God’s being and doing are already good. The problem lies in that satisfaction with function forsakes intimacy and God is an intimate God. His very Being is the perfect expression of intimacy: One in Essence, Three in Person. The Trinity has perfect intimacy that we see in their community, love, knowledge of each other, and a continuing list of aspects that to the uninitiated is ad nauseam. There must be more (than utility).
If God were a God of utility, that would mean we were ultimately created for utility, as we are the image-bearers of God. But observed by the very longings and desires of our hearts we know that we were made for more than utility. God has set eternity in the hearts of men, and there’s no way eternity is just functional. We long for the same lasting intimacies and pleasures of our Artisan.
Art is created to evoke something within the beholder that stirs them in a way the ordinary can’t. It draws forth some deep redolence within us that can’t be singularly described but only identified by what wrought it — art. It is very much possible to behold the things of God in a work of art that draws us nearer to Him and grants us a form of pleasure in His Persons that we wouldn’t have experienced otherwise.
God is an artist. He is the Master Artist and Artisan of the universe. Every atom of the cosmological expanse has been artisanally crafted into its place by the very word and Word of God. Every droplet of water among the earthly bodies, every speckle of dust wandering across infinity, every pebble upon every precipice of every mountain, every blade of grass along the plains, and every everything has been artisanally crafted by powerful poetry of God Almighty.
Yet, after wielding the power of His word across a blank universal expanse, He hand crafts an image-bearer; every atom of me and every atom of you formed personally by the very Hands of God. And in our creation and call to create, we were not made to celebrate ourselves, but instead, our Artisan.
God is not one for simple utility but intimate, enrapturing, evocative, beauty. That is to say that our creation by and relationship with God is not just a blood contract on His end and submission on ours, but we are to be enraptured in delight by His very Persons and having that delight permeate all of our causes — especially creativity.
But God’s creative prowess doesn’t end with the palette of creation. God’s written word, the Bible, is filled with poetry. Five books of the Bible are completely poetry, with one of them actually an anthology of five individual poetic books.¹ Even outside these dedicated books of poetry, much of the Bible is written poetically with figures of speech, laments, songs, and metaphors. Poetry is not utility, for such things we have prose (which the Bible also contains), but for all of these things, God creates ex nihilo — out of nothing. His palette paintless and page blank, He creates, and does so wonderfully.
Our God is an artist, so then, shall you create?
- Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes are the poetry and wisdom literature of the Bible. Psalms itself is an anthology containing five books of poetry.
