Page 346 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
beginning of a world.” God creates not by rearranging what
already exists, but by calling into being what did not exist before.
All genuine and truly creative art presupposes the intention
to produce something new and unique. A machine can be copied
indefinitely, but a work of art must remain unique forever. Every
copy becomes another object, another identity. So too with
creation: it is unique and irreplaceable. God’s world cannot be
duplicated, because it bears the mark of personal creativity, not
mechanical production.
The uniqueness of every work of art is inseparable from the
uniqueness of the person of the artist. There is no art without
personhood, without a person who freely creates. In the same
way, God the Creator is personal, and creation depends constantly
on its personal relation with Him. It is His creation, or it is not
at all, just as Mozart’s music cannot be detached from Mozart
himself.
Perhaps the most remarkable resemblance between divine
creation and a work of art is the paradox that marks both: the
creator is present in the work precisely in the form of absence.
The artist is truly present in the work, yet cannot be grasped
there as an object among objects. If the creator were present in a
way fully controllable by our senses, personhood would
disappear, because a person cannot be reduced to something
measurable, predictable, and manipulable. This applies also to
God’s presence in creation. There are signs that witness to God’s
presence, but His presence is never objectifiable or subject to
control.
This becomes especially evident in the theology of the icon.
The icon differs fundamentally from secular art or Western
religious art, because the latter tries to represent reality as it is,
not as it will be. The icon is eschatological. It portrays beings not
in the condition of mortality and decay, but as they shall appear
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