I challenged my students to take part in a discussion centered on an apparently simple question: Do human beings have the ability to create—yes or no?[1] Some answered no, arguing that although we can express ideas, combine materials, and transform things, we cannot produce something out of nothing. Others said yes, because we can imagine, design, and give form to things that did not previously exist in that way. Although everyone shared the conviction that God is the only Creator, capable of giving life, as human beings created in His image, we can imagine, transform, and give shape to something new—and perhaps that, too, is creating.
The question we discussed in class deserves a closer look at the language of the Bible. The Andrews Bible Commentary[2] points out that the Hebrew verb bara, translated as “created,” does not always describe creation out of nothing (ex nihilo). Amos uses it when speaking of the God who creates the wind; Isaiah, when announcing that He will create new heavens and a new earth; and in Psalm 51, David uses the same verb when asking God, “Create in me a clean heart.” Each passage places a different emphasis on the concept of creating. They do not necessarily focus on what existed before, but all highlight the action of God, who makes something new possible.
With that understanding, we can be certain that God is the only Creator, while recognizing that we, too, can create with what we have received from Him. There is no contradiction. Acknowledging God as the Creator does not prevent us from recognizing the creative capacity He has given us.
But “create” is not the only verb the Bible uses to describe God’s creative activity. Genesis 2:7 says that “God formed man of the dust of the ground.” The verb “formed,” from the Hebrew yatsar, evokes the work of an artisan shaping clay and giving it form. The word “potter,” which appears in several chapters of Isaiah and Jeremiah, comes from the same root.
This brings us to another dimension of what it means to create: taking a material, discovering its possibilities, and giving it a form it did not have before. Think of the figures children make with modeling clay; the hands that shape bricks from clay; artists sketching in pencil or painting in oils; architects designing great structures of steel and concrete; or manufacturers producing objects with 3D printers. In each case, our hands work with something that already exists to make something new.
It begins to make sense, then, to say that we are creators—and I emphasize the lowercase “c.” Although we can imagine possibilities that have not yet become reality and give them form, we cannot originate life.
That is the distinction I want to emphasize. We can think, generate ideas, work with materials, imagine what does not yet exist, and give it form. But life comes exclusively from the breath of God. In Romans 9:20–21, Paul returns to the image of the potter and asks, with a measure of irony, whether what has been formed can say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
We can shape many things, but we must never forget that we ourselves are the work of God’s hands. Our capacity to create, with a lowercase “c,” is extraordinary. But God’s capacity as Creator, with a capital “C,” is what makes our own lives possible—and, through those lives, everything we may ultimately create.
All of this brings us to a simple but necessary truth: We depend on God. Psalm 100 reminds us, “It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves.” We can draw, design, build, and delight in watching our ideas take shape, but even the minds with which we imagine, the hands with which we work, and the lives that allow us to do so are gifts we have received from God.
None of that diminishes the value of our ideas or the satisfaction of turning them into something real. On the contrary, it gives them deeper meaning. We can fully embrace and enjoy our capacity to create, as long as we do not forget our origin:
We are creators because we were first created by the Creator.