[4]

If we speak about culture^a, then it is a special kind of encounter^b: it is creative encounter^c. Not every encounter is creative--most are transitory, and nothing lasting is created by them. But SOME encounters are creative. What does that word mean? "Creative^d" comes from mythological language and was first applied to the gods and their creative power, and to the God of the Old Testament in a special way: creating the world and everything in it. From there, it has been taken and applied to man's activities in an analogous way. Let me make a footnote here. I am sometimes a little worried about the use of the word "creative" in connection with culture, especially when I have heard from my children that they have lectures in "creative writing." Now here the analogy to the divine Creation is very far away! [laughter] Nevertheless, one may use that word wherever something is produced which didn't exist before and which has the power-of-being in an indep- endent way. If this is the case, then perhaps the analogy to the divine Creativity may have some sense... But otherwise, please be a little more cautious with the journalistic use of the word "creative." In a creative act, both sides--the subject of creation and the object upon which the creation is exercised--are transformed, and in such a way that something qualitatively new, which has power-of-being^e, of resisting non-being, is created. Wherever we encounter a cultural creation--e.g., my favorite example for all this: a painting--its colors, lines, light and shadow are used by a subject (the painter), and something new comes out which, if it is a good or great painting, has the power-of-being, of lasting from century to century, and to radiate this power-of-being on those who look at it. That is what I mean with "creative encounter^f." Religiously speaking, I would say the divine Creation ^gcan be called "original Creativity^h," which goes on in every moment of time, here and now, and which makes that something is at all. Human creativity continues this original Creation and makes out of it that "new" which we call "cultureⁱ." This analogy alone shows how highly we must value man's cultural creativity. It is a point in which he is in analogy to the divine Creativity and has the power of continuing the original Creativity of being-itself. Now what does the creative subject encounter in cultural creativity? He encounters the subject himself, and the world to which he belongs and from which he is separated at the same time. Did you ever think about the marvelous fact that each of you sitting in this room is the center of a world? EACH of us has a world at which he looks and to which,