As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.
The nature of the imagination has been discussed extensively by philosophers, poets, and critics. Since the Enlightenment, prominent thinkers in this conversation have included Thomas Hobbes (who divided the imagination into simple and compound), Joseph Addison (who differentiated primary from secondary pleasures of the imagination), common-sense philosopher Dugald Stewart (who distinguished the fancy from the imagination), William Wordsworth (who linked fancy to the temporal and imagination to the eternal), and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who not only distinguished fancy from imagination, but divided imagination into primary and secondary faculties).
Why all of the discussion? The reason is that we ordinarily use the word imagination to cover several related but distinguishable operations of the mind. While the literature that discusses these operations tends to be rather opaque, we can perhaps review some obvious distinctions.
If we take the term imagination in its common, loose sense, it refers to our capacity to form and entertain mental images. We are able see objects with the mind’s eye that are not actually present to the sight. Under this definition, the most common form of imagination is simple memory. When we remember a thing, we are considering its image in our mind. We are inwardly re-calling its image into being.
Already in the act of remembering, disparities occur between individuals. Suppose three people see a snake. Later on, when they recall it, one remembers the snake’s position (it was wrapped around the limb of a tree). The second recalls its color (it was a vivid green with yellow markings). The third remembers its manner (it was showing its fangs and hissing—and the fangs were really big!). All three people are recalling the same snake, and they are all remembering it truly as far as their individual recollections are concerned. Nevertheless, they are all remembering the snake differently.
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
We have already emphasized the distinction between immanent reality (the here-and-now, sensible order) and transcendent reality (the eternal order that is outside of and above immanent reality). As Christians, we must be careful not to deny either the actual reality or the fundamental goodness of the immanent order. That is the error of Gnosticism. Nevertheless, we do deny its ultimacy. We recognize that the transcendent is prior to and above the immanent. If we wish to know the world as it ought to be known, then we must have at least a glimpse into the mind of God.
In order for us to get that glimpse, it must be given to us. It must come from God’s side. If God does not speak to us, then we shall forever remain ignorant of the eternal world, and consequently, we shall remain doomed to misconstrue the world in which we live.
Philosophers have asked certain questions about our dependence upon revelation. Is it possible for God to communicate with us? Is the eternal of such a nature that it can be grasped by human minds? Is human language even capable of bearing genuine revelation? These are important questions.
We need not speculate about the answers. We need merely to point to the Bible. The Bible is genuinely God’s message to us. It allows us to glimpse God’s mind and to discern enough of transcendent reality in order to let us understand immanent reality. For those who know and love God, there can be no questioning of the Bible’s authority.
Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Among conservatives, postmodernism is almost universally spoken of in derision. The derisive attitude is understandable, especially given the consequences of what postmodernity has produced. What conservatives sometimes fail to recognize, however, is the significant contribution that postmodernism has made in its critique of modernity.
The advantage of postmodernity is that it emphasizes the bankruptcy of the modern turn. Modernity progressively (the pun is deliberate) sacrificed the transcendent universe, then the moral universe, then the ordered universe. Without an ordered universe, of course, there is no universe at all. Whatever is “out there” can be construed in an indefinite variety of ways.
Far from bemoaning the postmodern criticism of modernity, I believe that we should applaud it. Modernity was an assertion of human arrogance and autonomy. It was based upon the pretence that the facts were clear in themselves and could be understood so as to produce truth transparently. Postmodernism reminds us that brute facts do not exist. Whenever an observer notices an object or event as a fact, that person has already, by the act of noticing, interpreted and assigned a value to it.
Postmoderns are right to insist that the only reality we know is interpreted reality. They are also right to insist that we always interpret reality from within our own situation, and that our interpretation of reality invariably reflects certain pre-interpretive commitments that we have made. In fact, as Christians we go even further along this line. We insist that every human, being depraved, has a pre-interpretive commitment to sin and idolatry. Faced with the facts, in our natural state we invariably construe them in such a way as to legitimate our treason against the Creator.
Discussion