Sublime Depravity - Human nature and the arts III

Can art be a “redeeming of the disorder mirroring God’s redeeming work in Christ”? Could creative endeavour be a part of the re-creation? There is a danger in speaking as if the arts in themselves extend Christ’s work, or as if artistic “inspiration” could be akin to “sanctification”. However, we can view human art as anticipatory. When order is wrested from the hands of chaos in a work of art, may we not catch a glimpse of the final goal of creation? The human imagination knows that something is not right with the present world. Art can turn us in the direction of a perfection we do not possess. The Christian is aided by the theme of Sabbath, which encapsulates this tension: while being a chance for enjoyment of God’s creation, it is also a reminder of the future “rest” not yet attained, but promised in Christ. There is no natural theology in the human arts; but the arts may display inklings of what Christians know and worship. In his speech at the Areopagus in Acts 17, Paul is able to take the words of a pagan poet - “For we too are his offspring” - as his text. Even art such as Francis Bacon’s - which explicitly denies God - is still asking the God-question.

Of course, I can also hear Karl Barth’s thundering “Nein!” Barth was emphatic that there was no relation at all between the arts and theology. And yet his love of Mozart’s music led him to make the astonishing claim that the composer should hold a “place in theology, especially in the doctrine of creation and in eschatology” . He wrote in the context of a discussion of the “shadowside” of creation, thinking of finitude and all its effects. Barth heard in Mozart an expression of the goodness of creation, including its limits; and that “creation praises its Master and is therefore perfect.” This is in harmony with the Wisdom literature. Inklings of God are present in the human arts (just as they are in nature); the Christian has been given the eyes to see them. The musical, poetic and painterly renditions of the human condition may take us to the “very threshold of transcendence and the theological;” but it is only encounter with Christ that takes us over it. Works of art are altars to an Unkown God - the God that makes himself known in the glory of the incarnate Word.