Home

Creativism is a progressive worldview uniting ideas from science, philosophy and religion. It is also the ethic of truth, love and creative action.

Creativism and "the meaning of life"

The purpose of this website is to stimulate new and enlightened thinking on the biggest questions we all face: does life have a meaning, what matters, how should we live, and so on. Philosophy and religion are full of answers but how do we make sense of them when there are so many contradictions, and how do we deal with the new knowledge continually presented by science? Creativism is a progressive worldview which provides answers fit for the 21st century.

The intended audience is people of goodwill, wherever they may be found. No religious or other background is assumed, for wisdom has no boundaries. All that is asked is an open mind and respect for other points of view.

Three principles are promoted here: truth, love and creative action. These are the principles that I consider are the core of all goodness and wellbeing. Truth, interpreted broadly, is both a way of living and a characteristic of the Universe. Truth is honesty, fairness, diligence, reliability and so on; it is also the fundamental rightness of the cosmos – its right order. Love likewise has many meanings and is more than a way of living. Love is right relationship, whether this be between people, animals, plants, waves in the sea, beams of light or even sub-atomic particles. When truth and love come together there is creative action; when they do not, there is conflict or chaos or simply inertia. Creative action is the essence of our everyday living and the essence of all life, and it requires the presence of truth and love on a cosmic scale.

So what, you might ask, is creativism? Creativism is a worldview in both philosophy and theology; it is also an ethic. As a philosophy it is the belief that the world and life are best explained in terms of creative action. Life without creative action is seen as having no meaning. Our origins and history, our place in the Universe, our future - all can be interpreted as creative action or process which is linked to some kind of value. Creativism is also a theology, the belief that the divine (God or gods) is best understood through its creative aspect. Finally, as an ethic, creativism is the dedicated pursuit of truth and love joined in creative action. This ethic arises out of the philosophical and religious worldview.

The website does not attempt to give a comprehensive argument in favour of creativism but simply to present a reasonably coherent set of propositions. With any luck there will be moments when a reader sees a proposition and has an “Ah hah!” moment as a result. I am working towards a book which, when it eventually sees the light of day, will supply the argument and detail that are missing here.

The main part of the website is a series of meditations or essays on creativism and the search for meaning. These essays are complemented by a selection from my poetry, which addresses the same topics. Poetry is sometimes a better medium both for thought and for conveying meaning, especially in matters which challenge ordinary everyday reason. The third part of the website is a blog, a medium for presenting occasional opinion pieces on topics of current moment. Social media like Facebook and Twitter are good for rapid-fire commentary on topics of the day, but not sufficient for more extended discussion.

I have tried to construct the website in a way that is consistent with the principles of truth, love and creative action:

  • There is an honest attempt to capture as wide a range of thought as possible, not limited to any culture, and to make conclusions that are consistent.

  • Different views, while not necessarily shared, are treated with respect, and synergies are sought where possible. Respect also means balance; in other words, not giving undue weight to any one school of thought.

  • There is a constant search for new ideas or new conclusions based on existing ideas.

The search cannot thrive without shared effort, so please, dear reader, give feedback. My email address is banishingboundaries1@gmail.com.

I am the sole author here and take full responsibility for the contents. To clarify, I am not the Dr Phil Roberts of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Nor indeed am I the Canadian Phil Roberts who is the author of How Poetry Works, the British Phil Roberts who wrote Fargone, or the Australian Philip Roberts who publishes poems on www.booksie.com. There may be others in the Phil Roberts tribe who should also be mentioned here, but I regret I do not know them. If you want to know who I am, please see my bio.

Phil Roberts



The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the Universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a Universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. (Albert Einstein, 1930)

Privacy Policy. The privacy of visitors to this website is respected. Google Analytics are used to track usage of the site, so that the author can receive statistical data such as number of visitors and pages most often visited, but individual visitors are not identified in any way. Google Analytics operates through cookie technology, which is a secure method of data collection without risk of viruses or malware.