One of the most important developments in the episteme of our time is the recognition that all
being and all knowing are socially conditioned. This recognition raises the question of
subjective creativity: Is creativity or innovation possible? What is the locus of creativity?
Is it the subject or the structure of the structures of being of which the subject is part? Any
notion of creativity that takes seriously the condition of being is therefore bound to deal
with the perennial issue of freedom and determinism. Dialectic of Sedimentation and Innovation
examines the contribution of Paul Ricoeur to this question for the purpose of theological
consumption. Ricoeur's philosophical reconstruction of the subject as self creates a space
midway between the modern self-positing subject and the postmodern deconstructed subject where
reason rules but does not tyrannize. It is from this space that he proposes a view of humanity
that argues that to be human is to be homo voluntas homo lingua and homo capax. Dialectic of
Sedimentation and Innovation seeks to theologically appropriate these notions for Africa's
quest for a new creative identity.
