Sub- and super-creations

In The Birth of Tragedy (trans. Walter Kaufman), Friedrich Nietzsche writes:

… we may assume that we are merely images and artistic projections for the true author and that we have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art – for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified – while of course our consciousness of our own significance hardly differs from that which the soldiers painted on canvas have of the battle represented on it. Thus all our knowledge of art is basically quite illusory, because as knowing beings we are not one and identical with that being which, as the sole author and spectator of this comedy of art, prepares a perpetual entertainment for itself. Only insofar as the genius in the net of artistic creation coalesces with this primordial artist of the world, does he know anything of the eternal essence of art; for in this state he is, in a marvelous manner, like the weird image of the fairy tale which can turn its eyes at will and behold itself; he is at once subject and object, at once poet, actor, and spectator.

Supposing that Nietzsche were precisely correct – that the (phenomenal) world is a work of art, and God the artist? This is only a metaphor (as is all attribution of human characteristics and activities to God); but then, metaphors are all we may use to understand God, Whom we may not comprehend directly by our own intellect.

Dorothy L. Sayers, in The Mind of the Maker, considers this metaphor in a rather different light. The one thing we know for certain about God is that, if God exists at all, God is a Creator – that God creates. The human creative process, she suggests, is not truly "creative," in that we only manipulate materials already existing, as opposed to the true, or Divine, creation, in which the materials are themselves created; but perhaps human creative behavior is in fact a way, if not indeed, the way, in which "man was created in God’s image." Sayers uses this metaphor as an aid in understanding certain aspects of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. I would like to suggest that it may also be used to offer (metaphorical) solutions to several problems more directly related to the divine action of creation.

Consider if you will the (sub)creative process as it was described and/or exemplified by J.R.R. Tolkien. He began The Lord of the Rings, it seems, with only an idea, and a rather vague one at that, of where he intended it to go, and simply started writing.

He found that his characters would "take over" in the most uncomfortable way, frequently showing a quite stubborn unwillingness to do what he expected them to do, or even to be what he intended them to be. Yet – and this is perhaps the greatest single measure of Tolkien’s integrity as an artist – he would not violate the integrity of his creations, even when this forced him to completely reassess his understanding of them.

This is (I think) an elegant metaphor for God and the "free" will of humans: God could, considered solely from the standpoint of omnipotence, easily override our will and make us "behave." But to do so would be to violate our integrity as "characters" – which is to say that, having given us "free" will, God will/does/can not override that freedom; to do so would be a violation of God’s integrity. (Of course, it would also conflict with God’s unchanging nature, as well as that of any partial character of eternity [=being-without-time] which God may have included in the human construct.)

This also offers an oblique approach to the Problem of Evil, at least when it is conceived in the rather naïve form, "since God is omniscient, He must have known humans would sin; so why did He give them free will unless he wanted them to sin?" Using Tolkien again as an example – without Sauron, Saruman, Shelob, Smaug, and Sméagol (all his greatest villains begin with the letter "S"), there would not have been a story. Would it be true to say that Tolkien wanted to inflict evil on Middle-earth? No; in fact, it is fair to say that he loved his sub-creation, and the people in it. It would be equally fair to say that he not only would not have loved them without Morgoth, Sauron, and company – he would never have created them in the first place without them – not with any depth and detail, at any rate. Not because he "wouldn’t have wanted to," but because there simply would not have been any depth and detail to create.

It is here that one must be very careful in applying the metaphor. God, from the perspective of eternity, always knew-knows before-during-after creating the Universe that humanity will fall-falls-has fallen, that there was-is-will be evils of all kinds; indeed, that fall reverberates backwards and forwards throughout creation. It is fair to say, in Christian terms, that the nature of the universe is "tainted" by human sin, and that taint is the reason for natural disasters, disease, etc.; it is equally fair to say that the fall was always-already inherent in all those things.

Consider, too, that events and discoveries (relatively) late in his narrative would force him to go back and revise what had gone before. To select but two examples: Before Aragorn was revealed to the Hobbits (and to Tolkien!) as the Heir of Isildur and rightful King of Gondor, he was known to Tolkien (and the Hobbits!) as Trotter – a Hobbit! Also, the revisions that Tolkien had to make in the character of Gollum and the riddle-game, when he discovered the nature of Bilbo’s magic ring – this is a well-known tale. Thus, late discoveries caused the author to go back and alter an entirely separate, supposedly "finished," work; and the hints and legends spoken of in tLotR reflected backward in innumerable ways upon the Silmarillion and legends of Númenor, at minimum to the extent of fixing part of their form.

Now, speculate with me, if you will, upon the "outer" creation, the "real" world – Suppose that God did, indeed, create the world in seven days – once. And suppose that, as its history unfolded, God or God’s characters continually discovered annoying things which, if God wished the world to remain consistent, would force God to go back and revise the Creation itself, rather than violate the integrity of God’s characters – that is, us – and so violate our "free" will. (Again, one must be careful when using the word "force" with regard to God; no outside influence could force God to do anything. Rather, the force of God's own nature compels a kind of consistency.)

Will not some trace of the earlier "editions" or "versions" remain in the later history of the world? Might not some of the characters even remember the world in its unrevised form? And might this memory not be – Genesis?

Finally, some ethical considerations. In Utopia, book II (trans. Paul Turner), St. Thomas More writes:

… as [the Utopians] see it, the scientific investigation of nature is not only a most enjoyable process, but the best possible method of pleasing the Creator. For they assume that He has the normal reactions of an artist. Having put the marvelous system of the universe on show for human beings to look at – since no other species is capable of taking it in – He must prefer the type of person who examines it carefully, and really admires His work, to the type that just ignores it and like the lower animals remains quite unimpressed by the whole astonishing spectacle.

If we are to take seriously Nietzsche’s idea about the world-as-aesthetic phenomenon, then More’s idea, almost tossed aside as a casual idea in the profusion of ideas that is Utopia, takes on the character of a moral imperative. The project of science becomes one of the profoundest acts of worship in which a Christian may participate.