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Mind of the Maker Paperback – January 17, 2005
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Dorothy L Sayers' great lay contemporaries in the Church of England were T. S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, but none of them wrote a book quite like The Mind of the Maker. In this crisp, elegant exercise in theology, Sayers illuminates the doctrine of the Trinity by relating it to the process of writing fiction, a process about which she could speak with complete authority. She illustrates her thesis with many examples drawn from her own books, and even illuminates the Christian heresies by analysing certain failures of creation which regularly occur in literature. This marvellous classic describes the creative process in terms of the arts and shows that literature can cast light on theology and vice versa.
- Print length206 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherContinuum
- Publication dateJanuary 17, 2005
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.44 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN-100826476783
- ISBN-13978-0826476784
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Without question, Dorothy Sayers was brilliant, witty, and articulate. She had strong opinions and expressed them well. She had strong faith and wrote about it thoughtfully. But our group wrestled over the course of several weeks to figure out what to do with "The Mind of the Maker." We discussed whether she was trying to use human creativity as a means to better understand the trinitarian God or trying to use her particular view of the trinitarian God to help her readers understand their creative nature. We mostly decided that the answer was "yes," that she was doing both things, in a rather integrated and simultaneous (but sometimes cumbersome) fashion. But that's a fancy way of saying that many of us couldn't decipher what she was trying to do through this book.
An obvious barrier for our ability to understand and embrace the book was the immense cultural gap between a mid19th-century Brit and we 20th-century Americans. Her literary references were at least 95% unknown to us, such that her points of reference were meaningless (without tedious internet research).
But beyond that, there was a sense from our group that this book was really meant for writers, rather than for Christians who don't happen to be writers. There is no doubt that the art of writing was her consistent narrative thread throughout the book. I was able to extrapolate some of her points relatively seamlessly to the sermons I write, but the engineers and teachers and administrators among us struggled to bridge that gap. I believe that she was making universal points, but she left it to the reader to find their way from her examples to their lives. We had to connect those dots.
Ultimately, what I did gain from this book? I found her framework to describe the Trinity as Idea (Father), Energy (Son), and Power (Spirit) to be fresh and profound and helpful, while also opaque and inaccessible. I found her invitation and call to embrace the creative life that is part of our being created in the image of a creative God to be galvanizing and exciting. I found her reflections on free will and sovereignty to be lively and clarifying. I found her analysis of clamhood to be brilliant and funny. I found her critique of our tendency to look for inappropriately simple solutions to unsolvably complex problems to be timely and timeless.
Like many (but not all) of the folks in our group, I'm glad I read this book. It contained some nuggets that helped me think about God and about my own creative impulses differently. It made me laugh. It made me think. But it also made me grunt, sweat, and mutter under my breath. "The Mind of the Maker" was a tough slog. To reward myself, I think I'll check out Sayers' Peter Wimsey mysteries and enjoy the expression of this brilliant mind in less taxing form.
In support of her arguments, Dorothy Sayers spends the remainder of the work discussing the three aspects of the creative process (Idea, Energy and Power) and how they reflect the created order and the Creator. In simplistic terms, the three aspects of the creative process are:
1. Idea, which is the initial concept of the thing to be (or being) created
2. Energy, which is the work, the activity, the process of bringing into being what the idea represents
3. Power, which is how the work is communicated to the world and it is also what produces a corresponding response to the work by those who see it.
She spends a good deal of time refining and clarifying the meaning of these terms, and along the way has some incredible insights into the world in which we live.
The book can be read as Apologetics in defense of certain Christian creeds. But, it can also be read on a purely secular level as a highly insightful discussion of the creative process. In either case, if read with an open mind, it is filled with amazing reflections on creativity.
Although highly unique in its approach, while reading this book I felt like I had one foot on a dock and one foot on a boat (her boat) that was slowly drifting toward her own destination and conclusions. That is, I never felt fully on board, and yet she kept going; stretching the analogy thinner and thinner. However, the problem with analogies is that they breakdown, and I felt as if hers did long before the book was over.
This is just my personal opinion; that this book just didn't do much for me. If, however, you're looking for a unique perspective on the great mystery of the Trinity, this book will certainly challenge and intrigue you.






