Wiebe Quotes on Creativity

A quotation from Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship written by Paul C. Vitz (copyright 1977)

CREATIVITY AND THE CREATOR (pg. 138, 139)

For the selfist, creativity is conceived as personal growth through self-expression, and hence as an achievement. It is the way the individual self gains value, very often in comparison to others. In a sense, wealth, intelligence, and integrity all take a back seat today to this truly middle-class value of "creativity". Most application forms for graduate and professional schools give prominence to it, and to be labeled creative has become the ultimate goal for millions.

For Christians the emphasis is very different. It is on developing one's abilities in the service of God and others, as shown in Christ's parable of the talents. C. S. Lewis describes the Christian's indifference or antipathy to preoccupation with creativity as follows:

"Nothing could be more foreign to the tone of scripture than the language of those who describe a saint as a 'moral genius' or a 'spiritual genius,' thus insinuating that his virtue or spirituality is 'creative' or 'original'. If I have read the New Testament aright, it leaves no room for 'creativeness' even in a modified or metaphorical sense. Our whole destiny seems to lie in the opposite direction,... in acquiring a fragrance that is not our own but borrowed, in becoming clean mirrors filled with the image of a face that is not ours." [C. S. Lewis "Christianity and Literature" in Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967) pp.6-7.]

Therefore a Christian artist or writer should never strive for creativity per se but instead should try to embody some reflection of eternal beauty and wisdom. Lewis notes that the Christian approach to literature, for example, groups itself with certain existing theories of literature as against others. The Christian position...

"...would have affinities with the primitive or Homeric theory in which the poet is the mere pensioner of the Muse. It would have affinities with the Platonic doctrine of the transcendent Form partly imitable on earth.... It would be opposed to the theory of genius as, perhaps, generally understood; and above all it would be opposed to the idea that literature is self-expression." [Lewis, "Christianity and Literature," p.7.]