Imaginatio Dei - Faith and Imagination

In the general opinion, faith and imagination have nothing in common, unless viewed with suspicion, when faith is understood as something entirely imaginary. Instead, a devout Christian never considers the object of faith as a thing imagined. And how could one do that? The object of our faith is the very core of existence, the most true of all.

 Perhaps the most celebrated definition of faith in the Bible is "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Heb 11,1; RSV) Thus, faith inevitably contains the dimension of imagination. This verse is particularly illuminating for our purpose.  The Greek word hypostasis may be rendered "that which has actual existence." ( I am not discussing the Trinitarian facets of the word here). Therefore, faith is hardly mere fantasy, but an act of imagination that penetrates into the actual, ultimate reality.

Religious institutions tend to be conservative, to say the least, or, rather, narrow-minded. It is a pity, for, in principle, there should be nothing to prevent them to be adventurous and pioneering in their investigations. "The conviction of things not seen" inspires us into new possibilities, towards the worlds unseen. Religious thought might be a creative impulse to the world of business management. Current management literature is interested in the power of imagination. Organisations that venture to anticipate unlikely situations survive in the unpredictable business environment of today. Persons who ask implausible questions are likely to be tomorrow's leaders. In a word, business and economy hardly fare without an open, religious attitude.

Open, religious attitude is something altogether different from closed religious beliefs. They may be hard to distinguish. The word "God" may stand for warrant of the tradition or religious authorities. "God" may as well stand for the ultimate courage to challenge them. Faith, or faithfulness (the Greek pistis has both meanings) suggests both the unyielding adherence to one's own principles and the assurance of hope, the certainty that our seeking is not in vain. Where does your faith lead into? 

The fact that "Christian values" are tantamount to reactionary conservatism, is eventually surprising, taken that Christianity emerged as a program that challenged the basics of Jewish religion (the sabbath, circumcision, and ritual purity) while maintaining that Christians were thus fulfilling its deepest intentions. Creative adherence to the sacred tradition is something essential to Christianity. There has always been radicals who have tried to simplify the Christian religion by omitting burdensome traits of its tradition, from Gnostics and Marcion, who abandoned the Old Testament, to Enlightment theologians and contemporary nonrealists (e.g. Don Cupitt) who promote Christianity exempt from supernatural beliefs. However, the Christian attitude to the sacred tradition is not negligence but improvisation. 

Improvisation is a musical term, that includes thorough knowledge of the instrument, the musical genre and the basics of music theory. In addition to that, improvisation takes place in a close collaboration to other musicians. A musical dilettant may play whatever he/she likes, but we do not call it improvisation in its proper sense. Improvisation is probably the most demanding aspect of musicianship. No wonder few musicians venture into it. Jeremy Begbie, a remarkable musician and theologian of our day, offers as a Biblical example of improvisation the chapters 9-11 in Romans, where Paul simultaneously holds to the Old Testament view of Israel as the people of God and maintains that the promises given to Israel belong to pagan Christians. We need the idea of theological improvisation, when we discuss, say, the problem of same-sex marriage.