Engaging God's World: Creation

I think that one of the greatest desires of the human is perfect communion with others. We want the perfect spouse, parents who love us and who we can appreciate in return. I know this sounds angsty, but many of our attempts at impressing others are out of desire for others to notice us, to make ourselves more appealing, to stack the odds of us being worthy of communion with others. I don’t know how to explain exactly why we have this great desire to please others and be pleasing to them, but it is very apparent to me that we are not made to be alone.

For clarification, I shall use Plantinga’s definition of perichoresis (The communion experienced by the trinity) as a working definition of communion. It occurs when each person “harbours the others at the center of his being. In a constant movement of overture and acceptance, each person envelops and encircles the others.” This perfect communion is what humans, in our strange, needy way, strive for. This striving could take the form of baking cookies or using a large vocabulary. Really, these strivings are any way that we show other people that we are interested in them, that we love them, and we want them to love us. As such, I would call these strivings art.

Because art is an expression of what we feel. Sure art is often made to imitate reality, but it is always a reality that the artist wants you to see. It is an expression, a reaching out. Art is a song that strives to tell people about a world that they want to share. It is the first tendril of a communion.

Plantinga suggests that we are God’s expression of imaginative love. God the artist has no need for communion as we do, for he has his Trinitarian self. But, although he doesn’t need to love as we do, he desperately wants to love. God, then, created us his art because he so loves to love. He didn’t need us as his art, but he loves us because in us he sees potential for the perfect communion he has within the trinity.

For art is not for art’s sake. It is not a self-gratification. It is a satellite signal, probing the universe for sign of life. An artist either wants her work hated or loved, for that is why it was made. The only reaction an artist can’t abide is to have her art ignored.