A human artist cannot sculpt without tools. My best tools are my hands. They provide me the most basic connection with the clay. My hands can tell me exactly how much pressure to use. They can tell me what the back side of the sculpture is shaped like without looking at it. Sometimes I love to just feel a handful of clay without looking. I turn it over and over and feel its raised areas and contours, its smooth and rough areas. I like to squeeze and feel it yield to my pressure and then stay in its newly imposed shape.
But my hands have limitations. They cannot, for example, sculpt tiny detail. They also cannot provide certain textures or take accurate measurements. Some of the other tools I use to do the things my hands cannot are wire loop tools, large and small, gouges, and knives, for shaping and carving. Because sculpting can become quite technical, I also use measuring devices, such as a ruler, plum bob, tape measure, calipers, and calculator to check for proportions, scale, and symmetry. For reference gathering I use a camera, computer, books, etc. I have been known to use odd things as tools, too, such as bailing wire, a heat gun, mirrors, Styrofoam, paperclips, pencils, toothpicks, and even a hot glue gun. If I could figure out a way to use chewing gum or Silly Putty, I am sure they would have an important place in my tool box as well!
You will not find any of my tools in God's tool box. He does not use paperclips and plumb bobs. In a way His tools are actually much simpler, yet infinitely more profound. For example, Genesis 1:3 says, "Then God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light." What tool does God use here? All He had to do was open His mouth and speak, and something as amazing as light was made!
Some tools God used to create Man are mentioned in Gen. 2:7, which says, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." It is incredible to think that the very hands of God, His own palms and fingers, molded man out of clay from the ground! He bent down and scooped up a formless mass. He turned it this way and that, feeling its bulk, considering its shape. Like all sculptors, He undoubtedly felt a thrilling surge of creativity as He considered the possibilities. Acting with divine love and wisdom, He then began to mold the very first human.
When God was finished sculpting man's outward shape, He still was not finished. I am sure that it was beautiful, a masterpiece, the perfect human specimen. Yet it could do no more than lay there, cold and still. Up to this point His sculpture, though immeasurably more complex than any human creation, was nevertheless merely a lifeless shape, the same as any human sculptor's. Even the great Michelangelo could not take his work beyond this point. It is said that Michelangelo, after completing a more than twice life-size marble carving of Moses, was so moved by the life-likeness of his own carving, that he threw his chisel at it, shouting, "Speak!" But despite all of his talent, the carving remained silent. To this day there is a nick in Moses' knee where the chisel landed. It remains today just as Michelangelo left it, a masterpiece among human masterpieces, appearing to be alive, yet cold and lifeless nevertheless.
So as Adam laid there, lifeless, Gen. 2:7 says God's next tool was His breath: "and [God] breathed into his [Adam's] nostrils the breath of life." You see, it is God's divine breath, that mysterious gift of life, which ultimately and profoundly distinguishes the Master Sculptor's work from that of any human sculptor. With that breath Adam's chest rose, his eyes fluttered open, and he became more than a chunk of clay. He became a living being!