homo creator
I've blogged before now about a small but important stream of theological thought called homo creator. the central idea is that the critical sense in which humanity is understood to be made in the image of God is that we, like God, are creative – can call into being things that were not there before. Only God can create ex nihilo, but our creative powers go far beyond simply reproducing or rearrainging what was there before. In the same vein, here's a little snip from Schillebeeckx, a Dominican theologian (who, along with Audrey Hepburn and Adolphe Sax is another fine and interesting person to have come from Belgium):
If we are created, and that means if we are created in the image of God, then people must be other than conservers, restorers and discovers of what is already given…God creates man as the principle of his own human action, who thus himself has to develop the world and its future and to bring them into being within contingent situations. For God can never be the absolute origin of man’s humanity, in other words, we cannot be a creator, if he makes man only the one who implements a blueprint predetermined by the divine architect. (Schillebeeckx)
-
author musician theologian
Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
-
Search
-
-
