God, the Artificer and Poet
Is God an artificer or a poet?
When we think of an artificer, we imagine a skilled craftsman—someone who creates objects or machines with precision and practiced hands. A poet, on the other hand, is also a kind of craftsman, but one who works with language, rhythm, and imagination. The difference between the two is not only in their crafts but also in the traits we typically associate with them. A blacksmith or artisan is often seen as disciplined, grounded, practical—perhaps even stoic or reserved. By contrast, the poet is thought of as imaginative, romantic, airy, empathetic, and idealistic.
So which image better reflects God? Is He more like the precise and practical artificer, or the expressive and romantic poet?
To be clear, I do not intend to manufacture a conflict between two metaphors that are, at best, limited human attempts to use language to describe an infinite and transcendent Being. Still, I believe that exploring God through the lens of these two analogies can bring some meaningful insights into His nature and character.
There is a growing movement within Protestant theology1 to retrieve a classical view of God—a vision that shaped the church for most of its history but has faded somewhat in recent decades. This movement seeks to recover the church’s traditional understanding of God’s incommunicable attributes—qualities that belong to God alone, such as immutability (unchangeableness), simplicity (God is not made of parts), and aseity (God’s self-sufficiency and self-existence), among others. The retrieval of divine immutability is particularly significant. Scripture clearly affirms that God does not change: “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6). Throughout the Bible, God’s unchanging nature is presented as a source of hope, stability, and trustworthiness. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Flowing naturally from this doctrine is another classical attribute: divine impassability. Simply stated, God does not experience emotional fluctuations or passions as humans do. While we are swayed by changing moods and inconsistencies, God is not subject to the shifting tides of emotion. Instead, he only experiences the constancy of His divine perfections.
What does this have to do with our original question—Is God an Artificer or a Poet?
Well, some have pushed back against the classical view, particularly the doctrines of immutability and impassability. The common objection goes something like this: “This God seems cold, distant, even mechanical, more like a deistic designer rather than the living, loving God of the Bible.” This line of criticism often stems from a concern that a fully immutable and impassible God cannot truly love, respond, or empathize with His creatures. In short, such a God sounds more like the stoic Artificer than a romantic Poet.
However, this worry is only valid if you remove Beauty and Love from God’s character.
David Bentley Hart unknowingly brings light to this very conversation in his newest book, All Things are Full of Gods.2 In it, Hart employs a dialogical writing style to respond to the modern materialist worldview that pervades much of the scientific and philosophical community. The main characters in the dialogue are gods from Greek mythology—Psyche (the god of the soul), Hephaistos (the god of blacksmiths and artisans), Eros (the god of love), and Hermes (the messenger god, or god of language). It is telling that Hart casts Hephaistos in the role of defending a cold, mechanical worldview. Throughout the entire book, Psyche, Eros, and Hermes are attempting to persuade Hephaistos that the universe is not blind, pitiless, and indifferent,3 but is instead grounded in love, language, mind and intention. The entire conversation culminates with these lines,
Psyche: Try to get out of your workshop more often. Devote more time to the contemplation of living things and less to the fabrication of machines. It might change your perspective somewhat over time. If not, it would still be good for your soul.
Hephaistos: Perhaps I shall. I may even take up gardening.4
A beautiful ending which shows Hephaistos coming around to the idea that maybe the world has more to it than just pure mechanism. Maybe there is life, and love, and soul as well.
Here is the takeaway: Hephaistos is not wrong simply because he is the god of artificers—after all, God is a creator—but because he lacks what Eros and Psyche represent: Beauty and Love. Hart’s book subtly reveals the difference between a God who is unity and simplicity, and a pantheon of gods who embody fragmented attributes, arguing over the correct vision of reality. If God was made up of distinct fragmented parts, then we should have cause for concern. Instead, He is without divisions and therefore is fully all of His attributes.
So yes, if one could remove Beauty and Love from the nature of God we would be left with a cold, distant Creator. But classical theism has never promoted this. In fact, quite the opposite is true: the God of classical theism is not less loving or beautiful because He is immutable and impassible, He is more so. Since His love is not subject to emotional whim or momentary reaction, it is eternal, unchanging, and perfect. Because His beauty is not dependent on anything outside Himself, he is the radiant source of all things beautiful.5 He is perfectly love and perfectly beautiful, which means he cannot be any more loving or any more beautiful.
So once again, our question: Is God an Artificer or a Poet?
Perhaps we must say He is both, or rather, both characteristics are found in Him. As Artificer, God creates with perfect wisdom, order, and power. As Poet, He breathes beauty, harmony, and meaning into all He makes. This idea of God being an artist is what led Cambridge Platonist, Peter Sterry to say,
The world is God’s poem. It is a great drama, a great picture, a great piece of music, not a piece of mechanism.6
God is not less poetic for being immutable, nor less loving for being impassible. In fact, it is because He is immutable and impassible that He can be the unshakable source of all beauty, truth, and goodness.
We are not faced with a choice between a cold engineer and a sentimental artist. The God of Scripture and classical theology is the Logos—the divine Word who is both Reason and Beauty, both Craftsman and Poet, both Architect and Love.
I say Protestant theology in particular because the Catholic and the Orthodox Church haven’t lost this tradition.
Richard Dawkins
All Things are Full of Gods, p.483
“It is through Beauty that beautiful things are beautiful.” - Plato, Phaedo
Peter Sterry Platonist and Puritan. V.De S. Pinto, Cambridge University Press. 1934