Recently, I was blessed with the opportunity to visit the Tuscan town of Montepulciano. I was on my honeymoon with my new bride. As we walked the cobbled and winding roads up the hills of the town, we were encouraged by passersby to visit the tower standing tall in the main piazza. After handing over a few euros and learning some strict rules, we ascended the tower.
We found ourselves upon the parapet, dwarfed by bells that no longer rung, looking out over the most beautiful vistas we had ever seen. As I looked out over the valley and the twisting and turning streets ascending to the piazza, I found myself filled with sincere joy. I found myself smiling.
I was not smiling because I was in Europe, or because I just tasted Contucci family Nobile wine from their thousand-year-old cellars, or because I was on my honeymoon, although I had joy for all of these. I was smiling at the history: the history of the piazza where there were festivals, dances, and weddings; the history of the fresh bread baked in bakeries, with their smells wafting through streets morning after morning; the history of the twisted and turning street where men laughed and sang as they laid stones; the history of the valley where armies contested their ownership of the verdant fields; the history of the joy shared by Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, or Margaret of Cortona as they visited friends and family there. There is joy to be had in history. It is not a joy that needs to be discerned or sought out.
But then again, I was smiling at more than just history. Because as I smiled at the history I witnessed, I did not feel distant from that history, but embedded within it. I have pondered why I feel “embedded” within it and in so doing have discovered more of my vocation as human. This vocation is what I will address in this article. I felt embedded because it was not history as that which has passed, but history as the encapsulation of the created world and what has been created in it. Specifically, the created world in the work of man as creator, a sub-creator acting upon his personhood as made in the imago Dei.
In our progression towards our eternal goal, it is easy to spurn the carnal, material world. But it is not just a way stop on our journey. Not just a place for us to punch our timecard. God created the air, sea, land, fish, and animals and over all these, He gave man dominion. With this dominion is a vocation to stewardship and to a life as sub-creators within the created world.
Stewardship is the safeguarding and just use of the resources available to us. As Saint Peter wrote, “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” [1 Peter 4:10] Stewardship could be qualified as simply the ‘conservation’ of the created world. However, our dominion requires more than just conservation, action is required. We are called to act in alignment with the magnitude of the gift of dominion, we are called to participate in a divine act, although limited by our humanity. God in his infinite generosity allows us to praise Him in a deeper manner by participating in the creative act. This is our vocation as sub-creators. There is a great depth of philosophy and theology to explore related to the concept of stewardship, but I will not dive deeper into our role as steward but focus on our role as sub-creator. For more insights into stewardship, I would recommend the writings of St. John Paul II on the topics of stewardship, creation, and work, as well as The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena.
Our role as sub-creator is tied directly to our being made in the imago Dei. [1:27] We cannot create ex nihilo, ‘out of nothing’, as only God himself can, but we can create with that which is already pre-existing. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa warns on this point that our creative work should always be distinguished from that of God’s: “Creative art, which it is the soul's good fortune to entertain, is not to be identified with that essential art which is God himself, but is only a communication of it and a share in it.”[1]
One of the foremost purveyors of the concept of “sub-creation” was J.R.R Tolkien. He founded his pursuit of fictional writing on the belief that the writing of creative and fantastical literature was a participation in divine creativity. Tolkien expanded his thoughts on the concept on late night walks with C.S. Lewis[2], who had not come around to the idea that myths (the bulk of Tolkien’s writings) were not just “lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver.”[3] Despite his friend’s reservations concerning fantasy, Tolkien worked on convincing Lewis that myths were not lies, as man by nature does not lie, but perverts his thoughts into lies, and that “our imaginative inventions must originate with God, and must in consequence reflect something of eternal truth.”[4] Tolkien continued to Lewis: “Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”[5] Tolkien even went so far as to point out that the pagan myths cannot be complete lies but hold some truth in them.[6] In a poem directed to Lewis, Tolkien sums the argument beautifully in the third stanza of Mythopoeia.[7]
The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.
So, Tolkien addresses the work of the writer as a sub-creator, but what of those who are not writers? The role of sub-creators applies to all the work of man - as St. John Paul II lays out in his address to artists: “The craftsman, by contrast, uses something that already exists, to which he gives form and meaning. This is the mode of operation peculiar to man as made in the image of God.”[8] John Paul II reaffirms that man cannot create ex-nihilo but can give “form and meaning” to existence. He continues, “God therefore called man into existence, committing to him the craftsman’s task. Through his “artistic creativity” man appears more than ever “in the image of God”, and he accomplishes this task above all in shaping the wondrous “material” of his own humanity and then exercising creative dominion over the universe which surrounds him. With loving regard, the divine Artist passes on to the human artist a spark of his own surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power.”[9] John Paull II points out with joy, that man is called to a participation in the divine creative power even if it is just a “spark” of God’s wisdom.
But again, John Paul II is addressing artists specifically. Tolkien spoke from the position of a writer. Is the common, modern man, who may not be a writer, craftsman, or artist called to this role as sub-creator? John Paul II is ready with an answer: yes. He says: “Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”[10] John Paul II shows that the making of one’s life, their daily work, their personal creativity, is also a share in the divine creative power, and is fulfilling a vocation as sub-creator.
We are called to a specific vocation as sub-creator, proceeding from our gift of dominion over the earth and preceded by a vocation to stewardship. Our earthly task is not to bury the “talents”[11] given to us but to use and multiply them. Our time here is not a waiting period, but a time to build the Kingdom of God by participating in the divine creative power even if it is just by a sliver of His wisdom. That day, upon those parapets, I could not yet place the words to the joy I was experiencing. But as I stood there looking out, imagining the armies marching through the valley, or the smells of fresh loafs in the morning, or the songs of men building their roads and even the visits of those great Saints, maybe I was unknowingly participating in God’s imaginative creativity, imagining with a sliver of His wisdom, and sharing in the infinite joy. And with that joy comes the realization of an impossible task, a most demanding duty which can only increase as it is carried out in time; the realization that all the work, all the art, and all the history of those gone before us falls to us, the living, to preserve, continue, and pass along to those yet to come.
[1] Dialogus de Ludo Globi, lib. II: Philosophisch-Theologische Schriften, Vienna 1967, III, p. 332.
[2] Around twelve days after their talks, Lewis wrote to Arthur Greeves saying he had moved from belief in God, to belief in Christ, in Christianity. Carpenter, 148.
[3] Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 43.
[4] Ibid., 43
[5] C.S. Lewis, eds. Essays Presented to Charles Williams (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1974), p. 72.
[6] Carpenter, 43.
[7] Tolkien, J. R. R. 2012. Tree and Leaf: Including Mythopoeia. London: Harper Collins UK.
[8] Letter Of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Artists, 1999, 1.
[9] Ibid., 1.
[10] Ibid., 2.
[11] In Reference to Matthew 25.