If evolution is true, then why among all the creations of nature do only humans create?
Have you ever contemplated the fundamental differences between human beings and every other life form on earth? It seems that at a gut level there exists a vast span of emotional, intellectual, and rational distance between beings known as “human” and every other being on earth.
And the vast difference seems to be not just in quantity, but in quality. Humans exhibit tremendous amounts of immaterial somethingness that other beings, plant or animal, simply do not have.
Take creativity, for example. Why is it that among all the plants and animals that supposedly evolved from the exact same first living life form, only humans are creative?
When we speak of human creativity we are, again, referring to something different in quantity and quality from the rest of nature. We are speaking of “noncontingent creativity,” that is, creativity that does not depend on the contingent state of the nature for its expression. By way of example, many animals possess contingent creativity, such as creativity compelled by instinct. Yes, instinct can simulate creativity in many animals. Birds, for example, can instinctively build very creative-looking nests and spiders spin creative-looking webs. But creativity by instinct is not noncontingent creativity; instinct merely drives a biologically necessary outcome. A Southern Masked Weaver will never build any other kind of nest than its instinct by nature compels; it is not creative in the sense of contemplating a unique design and executing it with originality.
Why do we find, then, among human beings the capacity to both create for pure aesthetics and to appreciate such creativity in others? Human beings alone produce new and original things on earth, sometimes with the only motivation being to produce something beautiful for beauty’s sake. And often the motivation is to produce something beautiful for private enjoyment.
What could possibly explain this evolutionarily strange phenomena in human beings?
Evolutionists attempt evolutionary explanations for creativity not because there are any, but because they must. For evolutionists, evolution is always the answer–not the question–when it comes to human habits and practices.
When it comes to human creativity the plausible evolutionary answers are few and those likely to be true are nonexistent. As with all unexplainable human traits and behaviors, evolutionists go to the bottomless well of “sexual selection” to bring up buckets of unfalsifiable ideas to ceremoniously dump out all over us.
Evolutionists’ dubious workhorse of sexual selection ties creativity in humans to the increased prospects among the creative of gaining mates for reproduction.
And most people nod as if an explanation based on evolution has proven some deep truth.
But is the base motivation of a sexual encounter the reason humans go about creating grand cathedrals, popular literature, moving symphonies, and public gardens? Is that your first thought when contemplating the remarkably original creative works of other people: Wow, if only I could do that I would surely gain at least a good one night stand!
In reality, except for possibly creating weapons to kill and destroy, evolutionary processes cannot possibly explain the development (in humans only) of any capacity for noncontingent creativity. Natural selection supposedly drives the evolutionary process, and natural selection requires that the better fit kill the lesser fit around them. What purpose, but to become more fit and to kill the weaker, can creativity play in the evolutionary process?
Despite any evolutionist’s blind trust in evolution, and their equally blind explanations involving “societal good,” there can be no evolutionary advantage to an organism building a hydro-electric power plant, creating a new medical device, or building the Taj Mahal. And further complicating evolutionary explanations is the habit among humans to paint a beautiful picture to be hidden in the cloister of a monastery, to carve an intricately complex statue for a patron’s private use, or to write an epic poem that will be read by no one.
Trust your gut on this one. Creativity in humans makes human beings different in kind from every other animal on earth. And no evolutionary explanation involving matter alone can explain this state of being. Atoms from the Big Bang being subjected to innumerable random genetic mutations churning down through generation after generation in a blind landslide of disorder cannot possibly explain the immaterial desire and inspiration to produce order creatively and to admire creativity for creativity’s sake.
Is it possible that the human capacity for creativity derives from another source? Perhaps both the immaterial desire and physical ability to create come from something that is itself immaterial and yet made us physical beings?
Maybe there is an echo of creativity that sounds deeply within each of us, resonating with a first magnificent sound of creativity long ago.
Maybe we experience a creative drive imparted to us as part of an image stamped into our very being by another, more creative, being.
Maybe we are ourselves created by a creative being having certain attributes communicated mysteriously to us as a gift for his pleasure and our good.
Maybe.
Think about it.
Photo by Frankie Cordoba on Unsplash
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