FAITHFUL IMAGINATION

“…reason is the natural organ of truth;
but imagination is the organ of meaning.
Imagination,

producing new metaphors or revivifying old,
is not the cause of truth, but its condition.”

(from C.S. Lewis’ essay “Bluspels and Flalansferes” in Rehabilitations;

quoted by Corbin Scott Carnel in Bright Shadow of Reality: C.S. Lewis & the Feeling Intellect, p. 72)

“Faith begins in one’s imagination.”

I learned this from my father, Dr. Nicholas John Tavani, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at George Mason University and final District Superintendent of the Italian District of the Assemblies of God.

I first heard this statement in a sermon my father preached in a series of lectures he gave while visiting the college where I was an undergraduate student. He was exploring the difference between two of Jesus Christ’s disciples: Thomas whose doubt ended in faithful belief, and Judas, whose doubt led to cynical betrayal.

The point was that, although both doubted, the actions that proceeded from that doubt differed greatly because of how each imagined the outcome of what Jesus chose to do in setting his face like flint toward Jerusalem and death. Thomas willingly followed, even while acknowledging that it might very well lead to the death of them all; Judas, faced with what Jesus explicitly interpreted as preparation for his death when the woman extravagantly poured perfume as an anointing on him, cynically complained as though concerned about the alternative of using the perfume to feed the poor instead.

In these two responses were revealed the imaginative milieu of these two disciples’ thought life. Judas, imagining naught but what was seemly for himself, was blind to the Way of Truth revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ; Thomas, imagining the possibility of God’s coming Kingdom, saw in following Jesus his only hope of that possibility coming true.

Imagination is more than some mere mental mechanism that uses the raw material of abstract ideas to produce concrete words. Imagination is the very environment in which ideas may be formed – meaning first floats free in one’s oceanic imagination.

Liquid thought
flows from the boundless fanta-sea
into channels of focused concentration
that feed wells of categorization
from which one may draw one’s words
to express meaning particularly.
Yet
that formal expression of meaning
initially flowed from the formless fountain of fantasy.

The negative connotation that is often associated with fantasy has tainted the consideration of what positive possibilities lie in the realm of imagination. If one is accused of flights of fancy, that one’s ideas are not taken seriously. If one is said to fantasize, one may be thought to indulge in perverse sexuality. If something is called fantastic, then that thing may very well be considered beyond the realm of possibility. And this all may be very well true – one’s fantasy may be the fruit of folly or be derived from a darkened imagination. But this is not necessarily so.

Imagination is one’s access to the universal, the transcendent aspect of life that lies beyond one’s immanent fact of individual being. One person alone is faced with the reality of one’s finitude.
Fantasy, however, is not finite. The manifestly finite limits of physical existence are unbound in one’s apparently infinite imagination. In such immensity one approaches, though never reaches, the infinite realm inhabited by God, the source of Truth itself.

God, then, is the One from Whom Truth begins to flow.

That flow is always unidirectional,

from God toward universal creation.

“All truth is God’s truth.” This quote is attributed to the late Arthur Holmes, a professor at Wheaton University. One’s apprehension of Truth is wholly dependent on one’s relationship to God. That which is true is that which corresponds with Truth. Truth is greater than any particular true expression. Apprehending Truth all at once is like attempting to drink in the whole ocean – one is not able to do so, physically, mentally or spiritually.

Through one’s imagination, however, Truth may be absorbed into one’s system of thought. One might be overwhelmed by a glorious vision, one might splash about in a dream, one may drink deep in meditation, one may slurp up sloppy fantasy, or one may sip away at conversation. One’s imagination is a wonderful plumbing system through which Truth flows into meaning; through imagination one finds means of expression that plumb the depths of Truth.

Truth not only transcends any expression of truth, but also any conception of truth. One must always remember that Truth is greater than one’s imagination, else one will fall prey to self-deception, seeing lies to be true because one’s imagination makes it seem to be so.

This submissive attitude, this constant realization of One greater than oneself, is the humility that is the beginning of wisdom. Such humility is the posture that makes faith possible, faith that recognizes oneself by looking at the face of God, a fearful thing indeed.

Fear of God is not some mere matter of being afraid of possible consequences but more about being aware of actual circumstances. Anyone who forgets that God is always greater is someone who finally becomes a fool. It is those flights of foolish fancy that fail to reflect Truth; the flow of meaning becomes obstructed by the sediment of selfish suppositions. This process of erosion leads to lying as the only means of expression possible.

What then is needed is a holy baptism of one’s imagination in which all such silly sediment is washed away, clearing the channels so that one is able to see and speak the truth.

"Do not conform yourself to this age

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,

that you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good and pleasing and perfect."

Romans 12:2