CONCEPT ART, CLONES, AND CO-CREATORS: THE THEOLOGY OF MAKING

• Published in: Modern theology Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 219 - 236
• Main Author: NORTHCOTT, MICHAEL S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK and Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.04.2005
• Subjects: Art exhibits; Cloning; Creationism; Theology
• ISSN: 0266-7177; 1468-0025
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0025.2005.00283.x

In this essay the author compares postmodern art and the cloning of mammals and argues that they both rely upon a narrative of human creativity which sets humanity in the place of God as the only source of meaning and truth in the cosmos. The Christian tradition by contrast owns limits to human making—both artistic and scientific—which are provided by the natural order of creation and by the story of humanity as fallen, and then as redeemed by the unique reordering of reality which the original creator God makes possible in Jesus Christ. Human creativity in the Christian perspective is circumscribed by human creatureliness and this implies that Christian communities will subject aesthetic and technological invention to more careful scrutiny than does a science‐informed and industrially sustained liberal social order.