God and the world: Separate or together

God and the world:Separate or together?

William Blake’s best-known painting is probably The Ancient of Days. Originally done in 1794 as the frontispiece for one of his illustrated books, it’s now in the British Museum. Often reproduced as a popular art poster in recent decades, the work depicts God as an old man in the sky, complete with white hair and beard. He sits in the clouds, leaning down with a compass in his hand, creating the world. The painting takes its title from the book of Daniel where the ‘Ancient of Days’ is the name for God (7:9). Another of Blake’s masterpieces is Newton as a Divine Geometer (1795) in which the scientist Isaac Newton sits at the bottom of the sea, marking out creation like God with a compass. Blake’s Newton is vividly portrayed in Eduardo Paolozzi’s striking bronze sculpture just outside the British Library in London…