Man the Maker
We make tools that make us
An excerpt from my Theopolitan Mission.
God created man, male and female, in His own image, after His own likeness (Gen1:26-27). What does that mean?
We get a clue from the following verse: “God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of thheavens and over every living thing that swarms on the earth’” (Gen 1:28). God rules the world He created. Men and women image the Ruler by ruling His world.
We gather more clues in the preceding verses. By the time we get to Genesis 1:26, we know a lot about God. An image of God is like God. To figure out what it means to be made in the likeness of God, we should ask, “What is God like?”
First and foremost, God “creates” (Heb. bara’). That Hebrew verb is used seven times in the first two chapters of Genesis. God creates “the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1). He creates great sea monsters (Gen 1:21), and He creates—creates—creates man (Gen 1:27). On the Sabbath, God “rested from all the work which God had created and made” (Gen 2:3), and the next section of Genesis describes things generated by heaven and earth “when they were created” (Gen 2:4).
The Creator is a Maker. The verb “make” (Heb. ‘asah) is used ten times in Genesis 1, eight times with reference to things God makes—the firmament (Gen 1:7), the lights of the heavens (Gen 1:16), the beasts of the earth and cattle (Gen 1:25), man (Gen 1:26, 31). On the Sabbath, God rests from the “work which He had made,” that is, “from all His work which He had made” (Gen 2:2). In case we don’t get the point, the author adds, “He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Gen 2:3).
As Athanasius observed, God’s productivity and fruitfulness isn’t accidental. He doesn’t become productive when He creates. It’s not as if God were eternally unfruitful and then became fruitful. The Father is eternally productive, eternally generating His Son who is His living Art and His Image. The Son is not created, but He is produced by the Breath and Power of the Spirit, the firstfruits of the Father’s eternal creativity.
God is a Creator and Maker. If we’re made in His likeness, we too are creators and makers. Made in His image, we’re made to make.
Man, the Maker
Christians sometimes minimize human creativity. “We don’t make anything,” they say. “We just rearrange what’s already there.” Maybe you’ve said it yourself.
Of course, there’s a difference between God’s making and ours. God says, “Light, please,” and there’s light where there’s never been light before. He says, “Let the waters teem,” and PRESTO! they teem. He says, “Let us make man,” and man is.
We can’t do that. We can’t create from nothing, simply by speaking. We always use pre-existing raw materials, which we receive as gifts from God. We break them down, mold them, and reassemble them. We don’t make animals. We tame them, so they provide work and, eventually, food. We don’t make trees. We plant them, cut them down, reshape the wood, and turn it into a shelter. We break and chisel God’s stones to make blocks and bricks for temples and palaces. We shear God’s sheep, spin their fleece into thread, and weave clothes. Or we wear God’s plants—flax, linen, cotton.
God hid some of His most valuable treasures deep in the ground. We mine and smelt His metals to make tools; we dig up gold and polish precious stones to make jewelry. We plant and harvest wheat, grind it to flour, and mix it with other ingredients to make bread. We learn to cultivate grapes, crush them, and slowly ferment them into wine. Eventually, we turn sand into silicon chips and metal into cars and planes and oil into plastics. But we don’t make wheat, grapes, sand, or oil. We simply transform them.
But we shouldn’t over-stress the contrast between God’s making and ours. After all, He doesn’t make everything ex nihilo. He makes from pre-existing material too. God makes the formless void, He speaks light into existence, and He appears to make other things by pure fiat.