What is Greater, the Art or the Artist?

Late in our conversation at a park, I asked a man named Julio “Isn’t an artist greater than the art they create?” I guess I thought the answer would be obvious, but Julio thought about it and said that no, not necessarily, as he has sometimes appreciated great art pieces only to find out that the artists who created them were basically jerks who were full of themselves.

He made a good point, and I needed to rethink my argument that one of the reasons God is worthy of our worship is because, as the ultimate Artist, God is so much greater than His wonderful creation which so often leaves us awestruck and speechless at the beauty of its creativity or vastness or intricacy. I had assumed Julio would agree with my assessment that any one of God’s attributes, His creativity in this case, would be so perfect as to compel us to bow down in worship.

Earlier Julio had said that he believes in some sort of God or higher power but saw no need to worship Him, saying that the need to be worshiped would be a sign of weakness or a trite human emotion. In fact, Julio sees himself on the same level as God, believing that we are all part of God as both creator and creation.

I think this illustrates what can happen when the lines between Creator and creation become blurred. We either bring God down to our level and criticize him for appearing to have human flaws and weaknesses, or we elevate ourselves up to God’s level and fail to acknowledge the awesomeness of His being that is so much higher and greater than ourselves. Either way, the result is the same: Like Julio we could never bring ourselves to bow down to God in worship.

So to rethink my assumption that any one of God’s attributes would be enough to inspire us to worship, I need to say that God’s attributes probably should not be considered in isolation from one another. In the case of God’s creativity, for example, I could picture someone like Julio appreciating the Creator’s wonderful creation, yet considering the Bible’s description of God to have character flaws in his harsh judgement of sin, not realizing God has other perfect attributes such as His justice and His holiness.

The Bible tells us we have only a partial understanding of God’s attributes from our observations of nature, which theologians call His “general revelation”. Romans 1 tells us that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” This “general revelation”, available to all people regardless of religious background, is enough to convict us of our pride, our arrogance, and our sin in relation to a Creator who is so much greater and wiser than ourselves.

But this general revelation is not enough to save us. For that, we need the specific revelation of God’s Word, where we can read or hear about God’s “specific revelation” of salvation through faith in Jesus. As Christians and believers in God’s Word, we have the freedom to enjoy each of God’s many attributes, whether we learned of them in general revelation through nature, or in the specific revelation in God’s Word. When we see God’s attributes in context, we can enjoy them all without condemnation. We can appreciate the art of the Creator, yes, but we can also bow down and worship the Artist himself in all of his glory.