Chapter 3 - Creation and Participation

Summary

As we consider the relationship of myth-making, at all levels of ‘artistic quality’, it is tempting to place the ‘creative’ moment of invention on a level with God’s action in the creation of the world. Even when the artist humbly attributes her ideas to the world, to her relationships, to her keen artist’s eye, there remains a sense that the novel remainder is somehow conjured by the artist’s genius itself. Indeed, the derivation of genius as the individual’s attendant deity retains some of the originary power suggested by the imposition of the verb creare onto the artist’s work. Before we can properly consider why such an application has been contentious, both theologically and in the attempt to understand what we mean by the poiesis of mythopoiesis, we must consider what Christian theologians classically have meant by ‘creation’ at all.