We have seen in past posts of this series, that God has created Reality so that symbols (verbal, visual, tactile, etc.) must be used for communication.  We saw also that everything is, at root, a symbol of God (Ps 19; Gen 1; Rom 1, etc.) that communicates knowledge or content to both the logical and the intuitive aspects of mankind.

We further saw that symbols communicate multiple levels of meaning simultaneously, and that the artist seeks to communicate on complementary, interlocking multiple levels deliberately, to form a nexus, a web of interlocked and overlapping layers of meaning.

Why, you may be asking yourself, would communicating through such a nexus of meanings be integral to the purpose of the artist?  A complex question, that one is, with a great many parts comprising its answer.  For our purposes, though, three reasons will suffice:

1) Man is, like the Triune Creator-God, that he is created in the image of a mysterious being (God is a great mystery; His image, man, is a small one).  Men are more that just intellect; they are emotion, intuition, supra-rationally, and the coherence of all of these aspects, as well.  As we saw in the last post of this series, the fact that art carries multiple meanings all at once allows the artist to address a much greater spectrum of the various parts of humanity in a concerted fashion, as well as communicating at much deeper levels than a communication deliberately shorn of a multiplicity of meaning layers (or, at least, as many layers as is possible.  We’ve seen in past that it is impossible to remove symbolic meaning from discursive or teaching forms; one can only somewhat restrict symbol in communication).  The broader meaning-spectrum, the deeper the communication to the intended audience.

2) Related to this last is the fact that, rooted in the image of God men bear, is what J.R.R. Tolkien called “sub-creatorship.”  Just as God is a Creator, so are we, His image-bearers, little or “sub creators.”  Our God is a Maker, and He created us to be makers, although His creative activity is ex nihilo, from nothing, and our making is derivative and limited by the boundaries God instituted when He constructed mankind.  This plays out for artists in two ways: (a) Just as God communicates through symbols on every level of being (since everything that exists is a symbol [cf. Rom 1; Ps 19; Gen 1; etc.]) all at the same time, so does art afford man, the sub-creator, the opportunity to communicate analogically to his Maker, on many levels simultaneously, just as God does; and (b) Art, like all work, allows man to fulfill the Creation (or Dominion) Mandate given Adam in the Garden (Gen 1:28-29) by creatively rearranging elements of Creation to maximize its created potential to reveal and glorify the Triune Creator-God.

3) Communicating artistically also allows the artist to interact redemptively with his fellow men and the rest of Creation, countering the Fall’s darkening of Reality by creatively reinterpreting (re-imaging), Creation in light of the heavenly vision, which shows us what Creation was and will be at the restitution of all things (Acts 3:21). Artistic expression is meant to restore the true vision of Creation as it was intended to be, as it is revealed in Scripture.  This vision is to be mediated through the artist’s reflective vision.  We can only see the true vision of what God desires for Creation through the redemptive and restorative work of Christ, who by His life and words revealed how we are to see Reality redemptively, following Christ’s will and example (which ability itself was only won by Jesus’ sacrifice and offering).  The vision we receive from Christ the Redeemer-God is meant to counter the Fall by His illuminating power.