CREATIVITY - PART 13 - THE GREAT MYSTERY

THE GREAT MYSTERY OF CREATION

Philosophers from the time of Aristotle have grappled with the idea of an underlying cause to everything we see in the world we occupy. This notion of a chain of causes leading back to a 'prime cause' is one that we can readily relate to.

Basically the idea is this: Everything we experience has come about as a result of some change or some event, which can be pointed to as the CAUSE of that particular experience. But that change or that event itself was caused by something, and so on, back into past time, till eventually, we must reach some ultimate or 'first cause'. A very reasonable sounding concept, but there are problems with it.

The problem is first that the notion of cause and effect assumes a time sequence from past toward the future. In that model, once the energy of the first cause gave things their initial push, like the cue ball hitting the assembled colored ball on a pool table, things then can go bouncing along all by themselves, all in a pre-determined order, till finally things wind down and stop dead. No, in our search for God, the first cause falls somewhat short.

We rather prefer to think of a Creator rather than just a cause - a creator is involved with its creation not just for an initial shove, but throughout all of time. The key difference lies in the notion of time. Our creator is not bound by a time sequence, but operates outside of time as we know it. We may assume this because time is intimately associated with space, and with forms, and objects, and in the absence of these, we have no definition of time.