Imagining, Imitating, Being: A Kind of Fugue on Three Words Celebrating Human Co-Creativity

Drawing from a comparative analysis of the disciplines of mathematics, science, and art, this article relates human creativity to the activity of other animals and of artificial intelligences (AIs). Imagining coherent worlds of fantastic beasts and abstract mathematical concepts, humans display the godlike capacities of the imago Dei of Genesis, where the responsibility of stewardship comes along with the gift of co-creativity. In commonality with animals and AIs, human creative activity begins with imitation, reflection, and assimilation. But humans have the capacity to transcend nature under the impulse of the creative imagination. In co-creativity, there are significant analogies with the divine creativity as formulated in the Christian creeds. Scientists, artists, and mathematicians can be seen as participating in the creative enterprise of the Trinitarian Creator God. The Genesis mandate to “name the animals” includes a challenge to enter into the living experience of animals. “Being a beast” in loving imaginative identification is harder than studying the beast objectively. Can “being a machine” have any meaning at all?