Appendix B— AShort History of the Imagination
A Short History of the Imagination[1]
Not all peoples in history have valued the imagination as we do today. In fact, some of them feared what the imagination might do to their view of reality or their practice of the spiritual life.
Greece
Plato was an Idealist who saw reality as a copy of absolutes or universals. The artist who made a statue or painted a picture was only copying the copies, so art was “twice removed” from reality and therefore false. This explains why Plato expelled artists from his ideal state, for he felt they were dangerous.[2]
To begin with, artists were ignorant for making copies of the copies. Since what we see in nature isn’t the reality itself but only a copy, what the artists make can’t teach us anything about reality itself. They’re dealing only with appearances, and true philosophers seek for reality.
When we stop living by reason and start living only for appearances, we have a tendency to emphasize the lower desires at the expense of human reason; and this can make us less than human. Conclusion: art is dangerous. The fact that it can also lead to idolatry is another inherent weakness. (Paul would agree at this point; see Rom. 1:18ff.)
Not being an Idealist but a Nominalist, Aristotle encouraged the imagination as an important “link” with reality. Art imitates truth and helps us to “see” the universals. Aristotle believed that there were two aspects to the imagination, the rational and the sensible. The rational built the “bridge” from the inner person (the reason) to the world of reality. Aristotle taught that we think in images and these images are provided by the imagination. Here he would agree with Emerson. But he also believed that the imagination affects the feelings and helps to produce internal emotions and desires. Here he would agree with the Romanticists.
Both Plato and Aristotle saw the imagination as reproductive and not productive. Art imitates, it doesn’t create. The emphasis in Plato’s philosophy was on synthesis, putting things together; while in Aristotle’s philosophy, the emphasis was on taking things apart, analysis.
Israel[3]
Since the greatest sin the Jewish people could commit was idolatry, they saw the imagination as something basically evil, something that could lead people to create things that were contrary to God’s will. The Hebrew word translated “imagination” in many English texts (yasar/yeser) carries the idea of “forming, fashioning, desiring, inclining.”[4] Most Old Testament references to the imagination carry an overtone of evil (Gen. 6:5; 8:21; Ezek. 13:2, 17).
The Jewish people saw nature as a manifestation of God’s power and glory, a “window” through which they could see God. Their pagan neighbors worshiped the powers of nature and tempted Israel to imitate them; and when Israel did, God had to chasten them. Nature was also a “treasury” provided by God, and His people were stewards of His bounties. Adam and Eve were given dominion over creation and served as God’s “managers” in the garden.
In the building of the tabernacle and the temple, God gave His people the design. The art in these structures imitated reality and copied the things that God had created. Their art was imitation, not creation. Jewish crafts were utilitarian, not decorative. They were careful not to appear to make anything that might be conceived as an image, and thus sin against God.
Medieval Life
Augustine appears to be the first religious writer to use the Latin word imaginatio (“imagination”) consistently. Like Plato, he saw the imagination as the power to reproduce but not to create; and like the Jews, he saw the imagination as a possible source of trouble. Roman Catholic theologians were fearful lest the imagination take the worshiper’s mind away from the holy things of the Lord.
However, some of the fathers and teachers thought the imagination could be a “handmaid” of the intellect if allowed to be controlled by the Lord. Aquinas held a view similar to that of Aristotle, that the imagination was a “storehouse of images” that “mediated” between the mind and the real world. Of itself, the imagination was not any more wicked than any other human faculty; but it could be a source of sin if the images it created were not holy.
Renaissance Thought (mid-14th to 16th centuries)
Renaissance scholars interpreted Christian thought in the light of the classics and built the bridge from the medieval to the modern world. There was a new humanism abroad as man became the measure of all things. Also a new individualism appeared that was contrary to the “group think” mentality of medieval Europe. It was during this era that the foundations were laid for modern science.
The imagination was no longer seen merely as a mirror that reflected light (imitation), but as a lamp that radiated light (creation). People could investigate the world and discover truths by using their intellect and their imagination, both of which could glorify God. However, this new scientific approach to life led to the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, when science began to replace revealed religion and the gospel of the perfectibility of man and the progress of society replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From now on, it was “glory to Man in the highest” and salvation through the achievements of science.
The Puritans (1550–1660)
While the Renaissance was exalting humanism, the Puritans were seeking to exalt God alone. In doctrine and conduct, the Puritans exemplify for many people the quintessence of the Christian life. It’s unfortunate that the word Puritan has become a synonym for a person who is gloomy and opposed to pleasure. The caustic American editor H.L. Mencken defined “Puritanism” as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” They were indeed a people who lived austere lives, but they loved God, sought to love one another, and tried with God’s help to enjoy the sinless pleasures of life He had granted to them. The family as we know it is the product of the Puritan way of life, based on the Scripture.
The Puritans were a simple people who refused to give in to the artificial embellishments of life. In their dress, their houses, and their social habits, they avoided anything that called attention to itself. Even in their preaching, they avoided the kind of oratory or decoration that would exalt the preacher and not the Savior. They preached the Scriptures line upon line, precept upon precept, seeking to extract spiritual nourishment from every word and phrase. When John Bunyan published The Pilgrim’s Progress, he had to introduce it with a defense (“apology”) because he had written in the form of an allegory, a kind of literature that the Puritans didn’t readily approve. Bunyan pointed out that hunters and fishermen used “bait” to catch their prey, and his allegory was “bait” to catch the reader. The Lord used types, symbols, metaphors, and allegories in the Scriptures, so the precedent had already been set.
It’s unfortunate that many modern editions of The Pilgrim’s Progress omit “The Author’s Apology for His Book,” because it is a striking defense of the ministry of the Christian imagination. Bunyan closes his “apology” with: “And lay my book, thy head, and heart together.” He realized that you can’t teach effectively unless you address both the head and the heart, the intellect and the emotions. No wonder The Pilgrim’s Progress, written by an untrained humble tinker, has been a bestseller for centuries. Had Bunyan chosen any other approach instead of an allegory, his book might have been forgotten.
The Puritans have left us a wealth of expository sermons and commentaries, but I must confess that many of their books are difficult to read. I wish they had followed Bunyan’s example and used their imagination in packaging their spiritual treasures. They thought that the imaginative was something special that we did with language; they didn’t realize that imagination is the way language works no matter what we do with it.
Plain living and plain preaching were important elements in the Puritans’ lives; and even though they were suspicious of the power of the imagination, the Puritans were for the most part exemplary people who sought to glorify God in all things.
The Romantic Era (1760–1870)
Plato said that the imagination destroyed reality and the Jews said it threatened reality. The medieval church warned that the imagination could distract the devoted mind from reality; and the Renaissance Man learned that the imagination could help to create reality, thus ushering in the Age of Science. It was inevitable that a reaction would set it, and it did with the emerging of the Romantic Era, a protest against the mechanism and scientism of Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Kant, and Newton. The basic approach of the Romantics (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Schiller, Goethe, Emerson, Thoreau) was that the imagination helps us to experience reality.
The Romantic emphasis was on the sensory (not the sensual) and the fact that truth could be known “intuitively” as well as scientifically. Romanticism was an appeal for humankind to “return to nature” and experience something besides the artificiality of the new “scientific industrial complex.” Reality isn’t just something cerebral. The world around us must be experienced as well as explained, and there are many things in life that even the scientists can’t measure and explain. William Wordsworth’s poem “The Tables Turned,” quoted in chapter 3, is an expression of the Romantic philosophy.
The Enlightenment Man and the Romantic Man weren’t really enemies. They just didn’t see that both views of reality were necessary for an accurate assessment of the world. The scientist could take things apart and give us the facts, but it took the poet and philosopher to put things together and give us the truths. Fortunately, what started out as competition eventually became cooperation. Science today realizes how dependent it is upon imagination as well as investigation.[5]
The Western Contemporary World
If asked what the role of the imagination is in today’s world, the average scientist would probably reply, “Imagination helps us to interpret reality.” Scientists admit that the often nebulous images in their minds, the “models of reality” that they create, play an important part in discovering and defining what reality is and how it works. Imagination is not just an imitator; it is an interpreter, and therefore a co-creator. This helps to explain the great number of books that have appeared on creativity and innovation.
The Eastern World
If the Western contemporary world says that imagination helps us understand and interpret reality, the Eastern world claims that imagination is reality.[6] Because imagination “links” matter and spirit, it helps us perceive things as they are and not merely as they appear in the “accidentals” measured by science. While this approach is probably too subjective for most people, it does remind us that humans are more than bodies and minds and that the human psyche isn’t satisfied merely with facts and formulas.