CREATION IS DIVINE

If you believe in any sort of higher power, creation as an act of divinity is not that tall of an ask. The very first story in the Bible, as a low-hanging fruit (pun) example, is the creation story. This is no coincidence. Our first interaction with this divine text is one of creation. The oldest story that we have, Homer’s Odyssey, begins with the invocation to the Muse, asking for Something Beyond to aid the journey. Creation is a divine act.

God created something from nothing. This act breaks logic and science, which states somewhere, I believe, the second law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed. Creation brings about something that did not exist before into the world. OK, so you say that the paint from the can just got thrown down on the page, arranged in a particular way, that is all painting is. On one level, I may agree with you, but what about the significance and meaning that painting brings to its audience? I have been drawn to tears looking at a painting on multiple occasions. This arrangement created emotion and added to the human experience. Those Legos are arranged in a particular way such that they bring joy ot the user. Something happened there that did not exist before. How is this not divine?

Let us explore the converse. One of the greatest poems ever written, Dante’s Inferno, describes the center of hell not as a fiery cave, but an ice-cold layer. Satan is frozen in ice. Inaction and non-creation. Very little movement. I have heard that the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. At least hatred is an action. Non-creation and stagnation are the Devil’s work.

One of my favorite phrases of late is ‘The Kingdom of God is Within’. Based on the above conversation, creation, and therefore divinity, is within us. All we have to do is bring it out.