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The Mind of the Maker: The Expression of Faith through Creativity and Art
The Mind of the Maker: The Expression of Faith through Creativity and Art
The Mind of the Maker: The Expression of Faith through Creativity and Art
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The Mind of the Maker: The Expression of Faith through Creativity and Art

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An investigation into the nature of God and creativity from the author of the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, with an introduction by Madeleine L’Engle.

From the first pages of Genesis, it is clear that God and man share one vital trait: the ability to create great works out of nothing. More than any other group, artists feel impelled to create, and this urge brings them closer to God. By contemplating the creative drive of humanity, we can better understand the works of God, and by reading deeply into the tenets of Christianity, we can better understand the creative spirit of man.
 
Dorothy L. Sayers explores the concept of the Holy Trinity within the context of invention: the creative idea, the creative energy, and the creative power. In this searching, wide-ranging treatise, one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century shows us what it means to be an artist—and what it takes to make humankind.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 10, 2015
ISBN9781504004480
The Mind of the Maker: The Expression of Faith through Creativity and Art
Author

Dorothy L. Sayers

DOROTHY L. SAYERS (1893-1957) is best known as the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey. Her blue-blooded sleuth romps cheerfully through 1920s and 1930s high society. According to some, Sayers was the most intellectual of the leading "Golden Age" crime writers. She was also a distinguished theologian and classical scholar, whose translations of Dante are still in print today.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sayers argues that the trinity is part of man's inherent nature and illustrates this through an examination of the human creative process. Her views of literature are fairly traditional and may strike some as outdated. But her observations on the formal unities and on the differences between literary art and reality are fascinating. Christian readers will find her insights into the analogy of human to divine nature fascinating. Highly recommended for writers and "close" readers who want new ways of looking at literature as well as those interested in Christian theology.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've wanted to read this book for years, and it is everything I'd hoped it would be. Very like C.S. Lewis, which is high praise indeed. It's a synthesis of literary theory and theology, which means that it could have been written only for me. The first quarter, where she's setting up her thesis, made me think I'd dropped a few IQ points - it is very dense - but it is a very happy ride from then on. This is now one of my favorite books.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Mind of the Maker is a masterly thesis on how human creativity reflects the triune nature of the Christian God, the ultimate Creator. Dorothy Sayers, an acquaintance of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and sometime Inkling, was a brilliant scholar and creative artist as well as a Catholic Christian. This work is not a defense of Christian doctrine in the apologetic sense, but is rather an exploration of whether or not Christian theology "works" in practice as observed in the artist. Sayers' main contention is that human creativity can be broken down into three parts: the Idea, the Energy, and the Power. These three elements correspond with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In human creativity, the Idea (the Father) is the core of the work, the creative seed, perfect and whole, before it is expressed. The Energy (the Son) is the manifestation of that Idea, the medium in which the Idea is clothed. The Power (the Spirit) is that which gives life to the work of art, conveying the artistic vision to its audience. Sayers explores each of these elements as they relate to human art. The chapter on scalene (unequal) trinities was especially fascinating because Sayers diagnoses artistic problems in light of her Trinitarian premise. She points to Blake as a father-centered artist — which means that he was deficient in the son and the spirit. Son-centered artists are very good at expressing the artistic vision, but the vision itself is not unified or well defined. The spirit-centered artist has power to convey, but the Idea is weak and the Energy flawed. The closer an artist comes to equality among his trinity, the better his work will be.Like many works which attempt to deal with the Person and role of the Holy Spirit, this book falls somewhat short in explaining the Spirit's corner of the triangle. Perhaps it is just my understanding of it that is deficient, but it seems that the roles of the Son and Spirit are rather similar. I did not see enough distinction between what they do. The Father is the Idea, the Son is the manifestation of that Idea... and the Spirit conveys it? Isn't that what the manifestation does? I think I need to reread that part for clarity.Not that Sayers is difficult to read! She is often quite witty and funny. I loved the part where she talks about a man named Garrick who rewrote Hamlet to make it (what he considered to be) a better play. Sayers' utter abhorrence of his version is evident, and in her dryly British style, rendered very funny indeed. I imagine it would be even more comical if one had read Garrick's play. But from Sayers' description, it doesn't sound as if we've missed much! And there are many other witty little asides that made the reading fun as well as enlightening.I do think there are some theological issues here. Sayers claims that human nature "runs true to itself" when not sinning, and this would *appear* to deny the doctrine of man's depravity. Perhaps what she means is that human nature runs true to its original design when not sinning. In one place Sayers quotes the Old Testament passage about the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children, and calls it an observation of the Jews (p. 12). It isn't a mere observation of the Jews; in Christian doctrine, it is the Word of God. I didn't like the implicit devaluing there. I was also not a fan of an author she kept quoting, Berdyaev, who seems to have a very unorthodox view of God and man. I don't know how extensively his work influenced Sayers', but the direct quotes of his that are in this book were, more often than not, theologically problematic. I found that most of the theological issues occur in the early chapters, and once we really got going I found much less to criticize and much more to appreciate. Sayers makes so many keen observations that I started reaching for pen and paper to note the good stuff around page 22. I'll just give a quick précis of the main points that jumped out to me:• We are continually tempted to confine the mind of the writer to its expression within his creation (p. 50).• The vital power of an imaginative work demands a diversity within its unity (p. 53). • God's work in creation is like the misquotation of a perfect poem; the poet is responsible for the poem, but is not guilty of the misquotation. The poem is still his (p. 104–5). • "It is the business of education to wait upon Pentecost" (p. 112). We can teach artistic theories and skills, but until the artist is infused with the Spirit (as at the Christian Pentecost), the vision will have no power. • Man is solidly theistic when it comes to books; he never assumes that the combination of paper and ink, of words and ideas in his hands is a mere accident. He always attributes it to a maker (p. 113). • It is hard to trace the creative act because even in doing so, we are being creative. It is like trying to follow the movement of your own eyes in a mirror; you cannot (p. 115). • The likeness between human creativity and God's breaks down — or must be adjusted — when we realize that the response to God's creation comes only from His creatures. It is as if a book were written to be read by its own characters (p. 128). • Sayers is famous for her defense of her characters' free will, especially that of her detective Lord Peter Wimsey. She defends his right to do as he wishes, apart from her authorial authority (p. 131). Characters cannot be manipulated outside of their natures, or the fidelity to the Idea is corrupted and the entire work is weakened. Sayers gives several convincing examples of this, such as when Mr Micawber gets a very uncharacteristic ending in Dickens' David Copperfield. Most people would agree that something does not ring true there; this is an example of an author dominating his characters to the detriment of their free will and, ultimately, to the work as a whole.• "The artist must not attempt to force response by direct contact with any response of his own; for spirit cannot speak to spirit without intermediary" (p. 155). In this passage Sayers talks about how the artist must always be in control of himself while creating art. I could not agree more. I think half of art is controlling one's expression of it.• "The glory of the sonhood is manifest in the perfection of the flesh" (p. 168). • Artistic Gnosticism, like theological Gnosticism, kills the work. All heresies have disastrous consequences, whether they are spiritual or artistic (p. 169).• Sayers addresses the question of whether or not the commonalities between Christian doctrine regarding the creative God and human art is a coincidence. She also acknowledges the argument that perhaps Christian doctrine has been formulated from observation of human creativity. But if one advances that point, one must acknowledge that there is nothing alien or strange in the concept of the Trinity, as it is validated by human observation and experience (p. 182). • Life is the art of the common man. In Sayers' more eloquent words, "Also, he [the common man] supposes that the artist exercises complete mastery over his material. But the average man does not feel himself to be a complete master of life (which is his material)" (p. 185). • I especially appreciated and am mulling over what Sayers says next about the dangers of thinking of life as a series of problems which need solutions. She posits the idea that instead of seeing traumatic/painful things as problems, to which there exists somewhere a solution, a more realistic approach is to take what exists and make something new of it. It must be transformed by creative power. When someone says, "I can make nothing of my problems," he is speaking more truly than he knows. It is a mark of the creative artist to not think in terms of problems and solutions, but rather to take life as material for the act of creating. I am still pondering the significance of this view, so different from what we imbibe from our culture. Sayers says, "The desire to solve a living problem by a definitive and sterile conclusion is natural enough; it is part of the material will to death" (p. 208). Overall, I found this to be a very well-written, thought-provoking read that will influence my view of the creative process. It has also given me something to ponder in the idea of life in general as creative rather than mathematically "problem and solution." It is an intelligent and eminently readable book, whether or not you agree with its premise. I will certainly revisit it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I cannot pretend to have comprehended all of this, but here is what I gleaned.She uses the terminology of Christianity, such as Trinity and Creator, to instruct on the art of artistic creation, with a focus on writing, since she is a writer. Her "trinity" is the Father (artist or Idea of the work), the Son (practical craft of material creation such as plot, grammar, etc.) and the Spirit (the power of the work in the minds of those who behold it). From there she proceeds to describe how and why a work fails or succeeds. Demonstrating that it is usually a lack in one or the other of the trinity. I love her insights into the craft of writing. She uses the playwright as a special example, because it is easier to demonstrate the above ideas in a drama written for the stage. Fascinating stuff.At the very beginning and towards the end of the book, she points out the differences in the way language is used. Describing the scientific/literal bent of the world she was living in (WWII era), and the inclination of scientists and behaviorists of the day to dismiss analogy from their terminology, she points out the futility of it, since human experience of our world is really the only thing we have to go on. At the end, there is a bit of a rant over the use of the words "problem" and "solution." She spends a chapter disputing that view of life and suggesting that when a problem has been solved, it is then finished or dead. This is no way to live life and leads to great disappointment, since most of life is not a detective novel and therefore cannot be "solved." She suggests that a better way to approach life is to apply our natural creativeness and through that create a new thing which has not been before. This is really a chapter which must be read to be fully appreciated, it offers a great way to look at life and this world.Now, if what I've written above does not make a lot of sense, don't blame Dorothy L. Sayers, blame me for my lack of descriptive abilities!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I had this book in my library for years before I read it, even though I am a devoted fan of DLS's fiction. I am pleased to say it is marvelous. Psychological analogies of the Trinity can only be so good, but this is as good as they get. The result, though, is one of the best analyses of the creative process I have ever read. It certainly gave me a lot of insight into my own writing process, insight that I'd been pursuing elusively for some time: it crystallized suspicions and opened up why certain strategies were successful. I realize now that the human being as creator in the image of The Creator was really the driving theological passion of DLS's life and work. That's a neglected emphasis in the Christian tradition and I am happy to see it restored to its proper place here.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Mind of the Maker is a masterly thesis on how human creativity reflects the triune nature of the Christian God, the ultimate Creator. Dorothy Sayers, an acquaintance of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and sometime Inkling, was a brilliant scholar and creative artist as well as a Catholic Christian. This work is not a defense of Christian doctrine in the apologetic sense, but is rather an exploration of whether or not Christian theology "works" in practice as observed in the artist. Sayers' main contention is that human creativity can be broken down into three parts: the Idea, the Energy, and the Power. These three elements correspond with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In human creativity, the Idea (the Father) is the core of the work, the creative seed, perfect and whole, before it is expressed. The Energy (the Son) is the manifestation of that Idea, the medium in which the Idea is clothed. The Power (the Spirit) is that which gives life to the work of art, conveying the artistic vision to its audience. Sayers explores each of these elements as they relate to human art. The chapter on scalene (unequal) trinities was especially fascinating because Sayers diagnoses artistic problems in light of her Trinitarian premise. She points to Blake as a father-centered artist — which means that he was deficient in the son and the spirit. Son-centered artists are very good at expressing the artistic vision, but the vision itself is not unified or well defined. The spirit-centered artist has power to convey, but the Idea is weak and the Energy flawed. The closer an artist comes to equality among his trinity, the better his work will be.Like many works which attempt to deal with the Person and role of the Holy Spirit, this book falls somewhat short in explaining the Spirit's corner of the triangle. Perhaps it is just my understanding of it that is deficient, but it seems that the roles of the Son and Spirit are rather similar. I did not see enough distinction between what they do. The Father is the Idea, the Son is the manifestation of that Idea... and the Spirit conveys it? Isn't that what the manifestation does? I think I need to reread that part for clarity.Not that Sayers is difficult to read! She is often quite witty and funny. I loved the part where she talks about a man named Garrick who rewrote Hamlet to make it (what he considered to be) a better play. Sayers' utter abhorrence of his version is evident, and in her dryly British style, rendered very funny indeed. I imagine it would be even more comical if one had read Garrick's play. But from Sayers' description, it doesn't sound as if we've missed much! And there are many other witty little asides that made the reading fun as well as enlightening.I do think there are some theological issues here. Sayers claims that human nature "runs true to itself" when not sinning, and this would *appear* to deny the doctrine of man's depravity. Perhaps what she means is that human nature runs true to its original design when not sinning. In one place Sayers quotes the Old Testament passage about the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children, and calls it an observation of the Jews (p. 12). It isn't a mere observation of the Jews; in Christian doctrine, it is the Word of God. I didn't like the implicit devaluing there. I was also not a fan of an author she kept quoting, Berdyaev, who seems to have a very unorthodox view of God and man. I don't know how extensively his work influenced Sayers', but the direct quotes of his that are in this book were, more often than not, theologically problematic. I found that most of the theological issues occur in the early chapters, and once we really got going I found much less to criticize and much more to appreciate. Sayers makes so many keen observations that I started reaching for pen and paper to note the good stuff around page 22. I'll just give a quick précis of the main points that jumped out to me:• We are continually tempted to confine the mind of the writer to its expression within his creation (p. 50).• The vital power of an imaginative work demands a diversity within its unity (p. 53). • God's work in creation is like the misquotation of a perfect poem; the poet is responsible for the poem, but is not guilty of the misquotation. The poem is still his (p. 104–5). • "It is the business of education to wait upon Pentecost" (p. 112). We can teach artistic theories and skills, but until the artist is infused with the Spirit (as at the Christian Pentecost), the vision will have no power. • Man is solidly theistic when it comes to books; he never assumes that the combination of paper and ink, of words and ideas in his hands is a mere accident. He always attributes it to a maker (p. 113). • It is hard to trace the creative act because even in doing so, we are being creative. It is like trying to follow the movement of your own eyes in a mirror; you cannot (p. 115). • The likeness between human creativity and God's breaks down — or must be adjusted — when we realize that the response to God's creation comes only from His creatures. It is as if a book were written to be read by its own characters (p. 128). • Sayers is famous for her defense of her characters' free will, especially that of her detective Lord Peter Wimsey. She defends his right to do as he wishes, apart from her authorial authority (p. 131). Characters cannot be manipulated outside of their natures, or the fidelity to the Idea is corrupted and the entire work is weakened. Sayers gives several convincing examples of this, such as when Mr Micawber gets a very uncharacteristic ending in Dickens' David Copperfield. Most people would agree that something does not ring true there; this is an example of an author dominating his characters to the detriment of their free will and, ultimately, to the work as a whole.• "The artist must not attempt to force response by direct contact with any response of his own; for spirit cannot speak to spirit without intermediary" (p. 155). In this passage Sayers talks about how the artist must always be in control of himself while creating art. I could not agree more. I think half of art is controlling one's expression of it.• "The glory of the sonhood is manifest in the perfection of the flesh" (p. 168). • Artistic Gnosticism, like theological Gnosticism, kills the work. All heresies have disastrous consequences, whether they are spiritual or artistic (p. 169).• Sayers addresses the question of whether or not the commonalities between Christian doctrine regarding the creative God and human art is a coincidence. She also acknowledges the argument that perhaps Christian doctrine has been formulated from observation of human creativity. But if one advances that point, one must acknowledge that there is nothing alien or strange in the concept of the Trinity, as it is validated by human observation and experience (p. 182). • Life is the art of the common man. In Sayers' more eloquent words, "Also, he [the common man] supposes that the artist exercises complete mastery over his material. But the average man does not feel himself to be a complete master of life (which is his material)" (p. 185). • I especially appreciated and am mulling over what Sayers says next about the dangers of thinking of life as a series of problems which need solutions. She posits the idea that instead of seeing traumatic/painful things as problems, to which there exists somewhere a solution, a more realistic approach is to take what exists and make something new of it. It must be transformed by creative power. When someone says, "I can make nothing of my problems," he is speaking more truly than he knows. It is a mark of the creative artist to not think in terms of problems and solutions, but rather to take life as material for the act of creating. I am still pondering the significance of this view, so different from what we imbibe from our culture. Sayers says, "The desire to solve a living problem by a definitive and sterile conclusion is natural enough; it is part of the material will to death" (p. 208). Overall, I found this to be a very well-written, thought-provoking read that will influence my view of the creative process. It has also given me something to ponder in the idea of life in general as creative rather than mathematically "problem and solution." It is an intelligent and eminently readable book, whether or not you agree with its premise. I will certainly revisit it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is one of the most original books I know. How does the experience of the human creator, especially the dramatic writer, help us to understand the Trinity of the Divine Creator? The question is biblically very justified, since God created Man in his likeness. Dorothy L. Sayers really knew her craftmanship as a storyteller. That's why "The Mind of the Maker" is not one of those lofty theories about human creativity, which are out of touch with the reality of the artist.Despite her very unorthodox, original approach, her theology, far from being liberal, is in fact steeped in the creeds of historical Christianity. Her understanding of the laws of storytelling are very helpful. Intelligent, funny, unique reading!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Ms. Sayers begins her preface by stating, "This book is not an apology for Christianity, nor is it an expression of personal religious belief." It's hard to know how to absorb such an astonishingly false utterance. The Christian side of me has decided to plunk for naïveté, in the sense that perhaps it is very difficult to diagnose one's own bias that is based on deep-seated conviction. The thesis of the book is that insight into the divine Creator is accessible to human beings through making an analogy with a creative writer. For example, the doctrine of the trinity is described by analogy with the author's "Idea" (the Father -- the eternally existing "something" that the author knows in his/her soul and which is the essence of what the author needs to communicate), the "Energy" (the Son -- the blood, sweat & tears that are expended in crafting a material object [book]) and the "Power" (the Holy Ghost -- which enables the created object [book] to affect the reader). These concepts are based solidly on St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Arthur Eddington, and Huizinga. But that's OK, they're interesting enough to re-consider. There are some funny moments when Sayers decides to illustrate the doings of the Divine in the light of her own experience as the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey: the explanation of miracles by explaining the process of writing Gaudy Night, for example. I say again, there is more than a little of the ingenuous about Dorothy Sayers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not an easy read, but a fascinating theology of the trinity.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sayers writes with great vigor, insight, and wit. Pinpointing the creativity of God as one of His prime characteristics, and one in which we reflect His image, she uses the analogy of God the Creator/artist-as-creator to illuminate the nature of the Trinity, the creative process, free will, and much more. Fascinating from both the theological and artistic sides, and delightful to read. This is on my 'must re-read' list, and recommended to anyone who enjoys her prose style. (****)

Book preview

The Mind of the Maker - Dorothy L. Sayers

PREFACE

THIS book is not an apology for Christianity, nor is it an expression of personal religious belief. It is a commentary, in the light of specialized knowledge, on a particular set of statements made in the Christian creeds and their claim to be statements of fact.

It is necessary to issue this caution, for the popular mind has grown so confused that it is no longer able to receive any statement of fact except as an expression of personal feeling. Some time ago, the present writer, pardonably irritated by a very prevalent ignorance concerning the essentials of Christian doctrine, published a brief article in which those essentials were plainly set down in words that a child could understand. Every clause was preceded by some such phrase as: the Church maintains, the Church teaches, if the Church is right, and so forth. The only personal opinion expressed was that, though the doctrine might be false, it could not very well be called dull.

Every newspaper that reviewed this article accepted it without question as a profession of faith—some (Heaven knows why) called it a courageous profession of faith, as though professing Christians in this country were liable to instant persecution. One review, syndicated throughout the Empire, called it a personal confession of faith by a woman who feels sure she is right.

Now, what the writer believes or does not believe is of little importance one way or the other. What is of great and disastrous importance is the proved inability of supposedly educated persons to read. So far from expressing any personal belief or any claim to personal infallibility, the writer had simply offered a flat recapitulation of official doctrine, adding that nobody was obliged to believe it. There was not a single word or sentence from which a personal opinion could legitimately be deduced, and for all the article contained it might perfectly well have been written by a well-informed Zoroastrian.

It is common knowledge among school-teachers that a high percentage of examination failures results from not reading the question. The candidate presumably applies his eyes to the paper, but his answer shows that he is incapable of discovering by that process what the question is. This means that he is not only slovenly-minded but, in all except the most superficial sense, illiterate. Teachers further complain that they have to spend a great deal of time and energy in teaching University students what questions to ask. This indicates that the young mind experiences great difficulty in disentangling the essence of a subject from its accidents; and it is disconcertingly evident, in discussions on the platform and in the press, that the majority of people never learn to overcome this difficulty. A third distressing phenomenon is the extreme unwillingness of the average questioner to listen to the answer—a phenomenon exhibited in exaggerated form by professional interviewers on the staffs of popular journals. It is a plain fact that ninety-nine interviews out of a hundred contain more or less subtle distortions of the answers given to questions, the questions being, moreover, in many cases, wrongly conceived for the purpose of eliciting the truth. The distortions are not confined to distortions of opinion but are frequently also distortions of fact, and not merely stupid misunderstandings at that, but deliberate falsifications. The journalist is, indeed, not interested in the facts. For this he is to some extent excusable, seeing that, even if he published the facts, his public would inevitably distort them in the reading. What is quite inexcusable is that when the victim of misrepresentation writes to protest and correct the statements attributed to him, his protest is often ignored and his correction suppressed. Nor has he any redress, since to misrepresent a man’s statements is no offense, unless the misrepresentation happens to fall within the narrow limits of the law of libel. The Press and the Law are in this condition because the public do not care whether they are being told truth or not.

The education that we have so far succeeded in giving to the bulk of our citizens has produced a generation of mental slatterns. They are literate in the merely formal sense—that is, they are capable of putting the symbols C, A, T together to produce the word CAT. But they are not literate in the sense of deriving from those letters any clear mental concept of the animal. Literacy in the formal sense is dangerous, since it lays the mind open to receive any mischievous nonsense about cats that an irresponsible writer may choose to print—nonsense which could never have entered the heads of plain illiterates who were familiar with an actual cat, even if unable to spell its name. And particularly in the matter of Christian doctrine, a great part of the nation subsists in an ignorance more barbarous than that of the dark ages, owing to this slatternly habit of illiterate reading. Words are understood in a wholly mistaken sense, statements of fact and opinion are misread and distorted in repetition, arguments founded in misapprehension are accepted without examination, expressions of individual preference are construed as oecumenical doctrine, disciplinary regulations founded on consent are confused with claims to interpret universal law, and vice versa; with the result that the logical and historical structure of Christian philosophy is transformed in the popular mind to a confused jumble of mythological and pathological absurdity.

It is for this reason that I have prefixed to this brief study of the creative mind an introductory chapter in which I have tried to make clear the difference between fact and opinion, and between the so-called laws based on fact and opinion respectively.

In the creeds of Christendom, we are confronted with a set of documents which purport to be, not expressions of opinion but statements of fact. Some of these statements are historical, and with these the present book is not concerned. Others are theological—which means that they claim to be statements of fact about the nature of God and the universe; and with a limited number of these I propose to deal.

The selected statements are those which aim at defining the nature of God, conceived in His capacity as Creator. They were originally drawn up as defenses against heresy—that is, specifically to safeguard the facts against opinions which were felt to be distortions of fact. It will not do to regard them as the product of irresponsible speculation, spinning fancies for itself in a vacuum. That is the reverse of the historical fact about them. They would never have been drawn up at all but for the urgent practical necessity of finding a formula to define experienced truth under pressure of misapprehension and criticism.

The point I shall endeavor to establish is that these statements about God the Creator are not, as is usually supposed, a set of arbitrary mystifications irrelevant to human life and thought. On the contrary, whether or not they are true about God, they are, when examined in the light of direct experience, seen to be plain witness of truth about the nature of the creative mind as such and as we know it. So far as they are applicable to man, they embody a very exact description of the human mind while engaged in an act of creative imagination. Whether this goes to prove that man is made in the image of God, or merely that God has been made in the image of man, is an argument that I shall not pursue, since the answer to that question depends upon those historical statements which lie outside my terms of reference. The Christian affirmation is, however, that the Trinitarian structure which can be shown to exist in the mind of man and in all his works is, in fact, the integral structure of the universe, and corresponds, not by pictorial imagery but by a necessary uniformity of substance, with the nature of God, in Whom all that is exists.

This, I repeat, is the Christian affirmation. It is not my invention, and its truth or falsehood cannot be affected by any opinions of mine. I shall try only to demonstrate that the statements made in the Creeds about the Mind of the Divine Maker represent, so far as I am able to check them by my experience, true statements about the mind of the human maker. If the statements are theologically true, then the inference to be drawn about the present social and educational system is important, and perhaps alarming; but I have expressed no personal opinion about their theological truth or otherwise; I am not writing as a Christian, but as¹ a professional writer. Nobody, I hope, will be so illiterate as to assert that, in pointing out this plain fact, I am disclaiming belief in Christianity. This book proves nothing either way about my religious opinions, for the very sufficient reason that they are not so much as mentioned.

¹ If one must use this curious expression. The theory that what writes is not the self but some aspect of the self is popular in these days. It assists pigeon-holing. It is, of course, heretical—a form of Sabellianism,² no doubt. Even so, it is very loosely used. Mr. Jones writes as a coal-miner usually means that the critic knows Mr. Jones to be a miner, and takes it for granted that he understands mining. But Mr. Smith writes as a Christian may mean only that the critic perceives Mr. Smith to have some understanding of Christianity, and takes it for granted that he is a Christian. "This fact [that I had many Christian friends], says Mr. Herbert Read, plaintively, together with my intellectual interest in religion, and at one time my frequent reference to scholasticism, has often led to the assumption that I was at least in sympathy with the Catholic Church, and perhaps a neo-Thomist" (Annals of Innocence and Experience). Naturally; what else could he expect?

² Sabellius was a theologian of the third century, who maintained that God was not at one and the same time, Father, Son, and Spirit, but assumed these manifestations consecutively. His heresy died out in the fourth century.—EDITOR’S NOTE.

INTRODUCTION

by Madeleine L’Engle

IN her preface to The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers bewails the public’s inability to read. This illiteracy comes from neglecting to understand what the words are actually saying. It might be added that this lack of understanding is caused by the fact that readers inevitably impose their own prejudices and questions on what they are reading. If, when Dorothy Sayers sets down an objective statement of church doctrine, it is then referred to by the reviewer as her own personal statement of faith, this is because the reviewer brings a personal faith or lack of faith to the reading. This may be deplorable, but it is inevitable.

I am reading The Mind of the Maker as a woman who has spent her life being a writer, and therefore I bring to the reading, no matter how objective I try to be, all the conditioned reflexes built up over many years through the habit and discipline of story. Were I a particle physicist or a certified public accountant then different sentences would spring at me out of the pages.

I first read this book many years ago with great appreciation. I had approached it a little diffidently, remembering my disappointment on reading Tolstoy’s What Is Art? In my youthful ardor I had expected him to answer all my questions about art, and of course he didn’t. Nor does Dorothy Sayers. Nobody—thank God—can. But Sayers does give us a marvelous glimpse of the trinitarian way of creativity.

She reminds us that the statements in the creeds are theological—which means that they claim to be statements of fact about the nature of God and their universe.

The creeds came into being not because the early Fathers were eager to force the limitations of language onto what they believed about the nature of God, but to combat heresy, statements that distorted the truth about the nature of the Creator.

Miss Sayers claims that This book proves nothing either way about my religious opinions, for the very sufficient reason that they are not so much as mentioned. They do not have to be mentioned in order to be apparent, and part of the joy of this book is the vitality of the writer’s mind, and her luminous understanding of human creativity (her own included) in terms of the Trinity as set forth in the creeds. Indeed, I do not believe that this book could have been written by one who was not a totally committed Christian.

Saint Thomas, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, is quoted as saying, Those things which are said of God and other things are predicated neither univocally nor equivocally, but analogically. To some extent this analogic view happily contradicts the creeds as mere statements of fact; their truth is higher than and beyond the literalism of fact.

Dorothy Sayers pursues this analogical way of thinking when she writes, The characteristic common to God and man is apparently … the desire and ability to make things.

It is universal experience, Sayers says, that the work of art has no existence apart from its translation into material form. Surely that has been my experience and the experience of other artists I have talked with. Not only does the work of art exist in our own imaginations before it is made into a story, a sculpture, a symphony, but it exists even before it awakens our imaginations, and therefore part of the work of making of the artist is the tangible realizing of this work.

The creation ex nihilo by God is expressed thus by Berdyaev: God created the world by imagination.

Sayers goes on to quote Augustine: It is not the concept of trinity-in-unity that in itself presents any insuperable difficulty to the human imagination. No. It is as always over-literalism, over-definition, which causes confusion.

In art, the Trinity is expressed in the Creative Idea, the Creative Energy, and the Creative Power—the first imagining of the work, then the making incarnate of the work, and third the meaning of the work.

When I am asked how long it takes me to write a book, the answer is trinitarian: (1) when I start actually putting the words on paper; (2) when the idea of the book first came to me; (3) when I was born, before I was actually aware of any particular book. The ideas and metaphors for a book start long before we are actually aware of them.

A writer may be heard to say: ‘My book is finished—I have only to write it.’ Mozart’s works were complete in his head before he ever set them down in musical notations. But the work must be completed in order for it to become real. What is conceived in the imagination must be brought into being, made manifest.

Even if the book is all there, the writing, the Creative Energy, is work, and the Creative Power of an imaginative work demands a diversity within its unity; and the stronger the diversity, the more massive the unity. A ballad is less diverse than the Bach B Minor Mass, and so its unity is less massive.

When we have experienced a work of art, large or small, we know something of the maker of it. But, Sayers warns, it is a great mistake to think we know all about the maker. We know something of Dostoevski from the profundity of his writing, but there is more to Dostoevski than the sum of all his works. When I was in high school I was privileged to hear Rachmaninoff in a concert of his own works. My ears were filled with a rich energy of passion, and yet Rachmaninoff himself sat at the piano absolutely stiff, his expression closed, his body unmoving except for his fingers on the keyboard, and I glimpsed something of the miracle of creativity. So it is with God. We glimpse something of the nature of the Maker by what has been made, but the mystery remains.

In the beginning of her chapter Free Will and Miracle, Dorothy Sayers quotes two very dissimilar writers, Nicholas Berdyaev and W. Somerset Maugham.

Berdyaev: God created man in his own image and likeness, i.e. made him a creator too, calling him to free spontaneous activity and not to formal obedience to His power. Free creativeness is the creature’s answer to the great call of its creator. Man’s creative work is the fulfilment of the Creator’s secret will.

And Maugham: A character in a writer’s head, unwritten, remains a possession; his thoughts recur to it constantly, and while his imagination gradually enriches it he enjoys the singular pleasure of feeling that there, in his mind, someone is living a varied and tremulous life, obedient to his fancy and yet in a queer, wilful way, independent of him.

The thoughts of these two men are seminal to the book. The mystery of free will can never be explained by the human creature. Berdyaev insisted that God cares so much that we have free will that the Creator chooses not to know the future, will not write the end of the story before we have lived it. Our human calling is to co-create with God.

Most artists equally insist on the free will of their work. I have yet to meet a writer who is not surprised by the actions or speeches of various characters, and the more the free will of the imaginary character is respected, the more alive the work tends to be. When the writer allows the free will of the character, this is a metaphor for God’s respect of our own free will.

If the artist is willing and able to allow the characters to have their autonomy, then the creator has truly served and loved the creation, and then, as Dorothy Sayers points out, the writer will realize that its service is perfect freedom. The serving of the creation involves honoring it, and this means that the artist must work at the discipline of painting or writing or making music. The greatest potential violinist remains no more than potential unless the violin is practiced hour after hour, day after day.

When life is particularly difficult, or we encounter some grievous tragedy and consequently tend to want God to come in and manipulate and change what is going on, regardless of the visible consequences of our free will, all we need to do is read a novel by a writer who is a manipulator, who controls characters, denies them their freedom, to realize that (no matter how terrible life can sometimes be) we do not want a dictator God.

For Dorothy Sayers, the life of Jesus is the autobiography of God, but "though it is a true revelation it is only a partial revelation: it incorporates only so much of the mind as

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