Question: Is it possible to do art that "pleases" God and not be a Christian?
“ Of two evils, choose neither ." Spurgeon's quote has been posted numerous times on social media by Christians who find themselves in a moral conundrum at the very thought of voting for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Here’s the problem with Spurgeon’s idea. Biblically there is no such thing as a choice between two evils. Let me explain. Moral philosophers and theologians have long spoken of the problem of "tragic moral choice", also known as the “incommensurability in values.” The man on the street simply calls it “choosing between the lesser of two evils.” The best known example of tragic moral choice is the one about the Nazis during WW II. Do you handover the Jews knowing that your choice makes you complicit in their deaths? Or do you lie and violate the Ninth Commandment? The Lutheran scholar, John Warwick Montgomery, has argued that such choices are unavoidable and of necessity cause us to sin. The Bible, however, takes a dim view of the...
I saw no one had commented, so I thought I'd give it a shot :)
ReplyDeleteI say Yes. Though the image of God in man has been distorted by sin, vestiges of that image still remain, and are in some sense reflected in all forms of art... even that of unbelievers. I think that this can be reflected from a standpoint of the creative gifts that God has created man to have, and even to some extent in the message of the work itself.
Just my simple thought...what say you?
I've purposely posed a difficult question. I like Bavinck's differentiation between "action" and "motivation." If we isolate the action to one of creativity in light of the imago Dei, then yes, there is a strong sense in which a non-Christian can produce art that is pleasing to God. But Bavinck (perhaps with greater stress than his predecessor at the Free University, Kuyper), wants to consider the role of motivation e.g. if a person cannot do art from the born again spirit to God's glory, then that work falls short of glorying God in the fullest sense. Klass Schilder leaned even harder in this direction. I have a little booklet on the topic, Art to the Glory of God (Wipf and Stock). You can tell I've been around the Dutch lately. Thanks for replying!
ReplyDelete