{"id":33426,"date":"2016-02-03T10:16:08","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T15:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=33426"},"modified":"2016-02-03T10:16:08","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T15:16:08","slug":"divine-artistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/02\/divine-artistry.html","title":{"rendered":"Divine Artistry"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>It is common for theists to speak of God\u2019s artistry in creation. But that image sits awkwardly with a number of purported beliefs of classical theism. Artistry\u00a0involves challenge and accomplishment, but an omnipotent God\u00a0cannot overcome obstacles in any meaningful sense. Artistry involves choosing colors or melodies, but classical theism has asserted that God always \u201cchooses\u201d what is \u201cbest\u201d \u2013 which doesn\u2019t seem like a choice at all.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonion.com\/article\/god-admits-he-was-pretty-bad-place-while-creating--52272\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>The Onion<\/em>\u00a0recently had a piece<\/a> which depicts a God who could meaningfully create in an artistic sense \u2013 and whose being in a bad place could naturally account for the darker aspects of creation.<\/p>\n<p>God is often depicted in this manner in the Bible \u2013 as powerful rather than all-powerful, as angry but able to be dissuaded from pouring out wrath if he accepts the counsel of a human who is more level-headed than he is.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder how many religious people today, when push comes to shove, side with the philosophical and theological tenets of classical theism, and how many side with the more anthropomorphic depiction of God on the pages of the Bible.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scarletcitychurch.org\/blog\/post\/gospel--art-intersection:-god-is-the-great-artist\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-33430 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2016\/02\/God-is-the-artist.jpeg\" alt=\"God is the artist\" width=\"436\" height=\"640\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is common for theists to speak of God\u2019s artistry in creation. But that image sits awkwardly with a number of purported beliefs of classical theism. Artistry\u00a0involves challenge and accomplishment, but an omnipotent God\u00a0cannot overcome obstacles in any meaningful sense. Artistry involves choosing colors or melodies, but classical theism has asserted that God always \u201cchooses\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":33430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,101],"tags":[675,811,813,888,1068,2269,2277,4005,8375,9083,9084,12508],"class_list":["post-33426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-theology","tag-anthropomorphism","tag-artist","tag-artistry","tag-attributes","tag-beauty","tag-creation","tag-creator","tag-god","tag-omnipotence","tag-philosophical","tag-philosophy","tag-theology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Divine Artistry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is common for theists to speak of God&#039;s artistry in creation. But that image sits awkwardly with a number of purported beliefs of classical theism.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/02\/divine-artistry.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Divine Artistry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is common for theists to speak of God&#039;s artistry in creation. But that image sits awkwardly with a number of purported beliefs of classical theism.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/02\/divine-artistry.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-03T15:16:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. 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