“Human and divine creativity: a dialogue between philosophy, sciences and religion”
Throughout history, the question of creativity has been one of the most relevant, complex and mysterious problems of human culture, although it has never been an easy one. From myths and theology, to philosophy and empirical sciences, a wide range of disciplines see this as an issue fraught with problems and difficulties, that may even increase when considered from an interdisciplinary perspective. Science tries to understand the way humans create new instruments, new pieces of arts, new customs and institutions; even the problem of evolution has the question of natural creativity involved. Philosophy, on the other hand, is mainly interested in the ontological meaning of the novelty, and the questions it raises to the subject of causality. Concerning humans, creativity is directly related to free will, and to the possibility of humans to forge their own future. Western religions (and theology with it) interprets creativity as one of the main characteristics of God as creator; and, in consequence, as an essential feature of human being as imago Dei. But, does “creativity” mean the same to each of these disciplines? Are they talking about the same phenomenon? Can we build some solid conceptual bridges between those realms? The aim of this paper is, then, to consider these several and different approaches to the matter of creativity in search for possible convergence points, from which to contribute to the dialogue between science, philosophy and religion..