Creativity, imagination and being in the image of God

The Poetry and Music of Science (McLeish 2019) is centrally about human stories of poiesis, of bringing into existence that which was not, and the narratives that weave the fabric of those stories.Its writing is itself an example of such a 'narrative of creation'.On my occasional high-school visits to engage students on the history and philosophy of science, I am often impressed by their critical abilities and intelligence, but frequently wonder why at least some of the really bright ones choose not to study science at this level.Far too often, I get answers along the lines of, 'I didn't see any role for my own creativity or imagination.'At this point, I know that something has gone terribly wrong in the message young people are receiving about sciencethat it is simply a body of 'facts' to learn, a set of known questions with right 'answers'.Yet working scientists know that without imagination there can be no progress in science at all and that formulating the right questions, not answers, is the central and critical step in our inspirational calling to 're-imagine the universe'.What seems to have happened is that what I would now call the 'second half of the scientific method'that is, the way that we test our ideas when we have had themhas dominated all discussion of the way science is done, so that the first, and more important, half has been effectively silenced.There may be no formal 'method' for having the ideas or formulating the hypothesis in the first place but that does not diminish the essential importance of ideation.Historical shadows fall across this assumed unequal dispensation of creative imagination between the arts and the sciences.It is one aspect of the twentieth century conflict launched by C.P. Snow's (1959) Two Cultures Reith lectures and book, and which emerged a generation later in the 'Science Wars' between postmodern humanists and scientists.There are Romantic roots to the divergence as well: Keats and Poe both wrote famous poetic invectives against the science they perceived would 'unweave a rainbow', and this while their contemporary Wordsworth (1802) foresaw, albeit dimly, the day when science would inspire poetry as naturally as any other human endeavour.The historical journey to

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• An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

  David Hume, Peter Millican•An Enquiry Concerning Human…•2008

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• The Poetry and Music of Science

  Tom Mcleish•Poetry and Music of Science•2019

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