Imagination
IMAGINATION
Is a power or faculty of the mind, whereby it conceives and forms ideas of things communicated to it by the outward organs of sense; or it is the power of recollecting, and assembling images, and of painting forcibly those images on our minds, or on the minds of others. The cause of the pleasures of the imagination in whatever is great, uncommon, or beautiful, is this; that God has annexed a secret pleasure to the idea of any thing that is new or rare, that he might encourage and stimulate us in the eager and keen pursuits after knowledge, and inflame our best passions to search into the wonders of creation and revelation; for every new idea brings such a pleasure along with it, as rewards any pains we have taken in its acquisition, and consequently serves as a striking and powerful motive to put us upon fresh discoveries in learning and science, as well as in the word and works of God.
See Rev. W. Jones’s Works, vol. 6: ser. 17; Ryland’s Contemplations, vol. 1: p. 64; Akenside’s Pleasures of Imagination; Addison’s beautiful papers on the Imagination, vol. 6:; Spect. p. 64, &c.; Grove’s Mor. Phil. p. 354, 355, 410, vol. 1:
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
imagination
(Latin: imago, image)
The faculty of representing to oneself objects not present, characters not existing in real life, conjunctions of events or circumstances never actually witnessed. This faculty takes the impressions by external objects made on eye, ear, and other senses at one time or other, and presents them in the form of an image to the intellect. It may present them just as they occur to the memory, or it may alter them, combine several together, and even create entirely new images. These may be the result of voluntary and deliberate recollection, as of scenes of the past, or they may spring up spontaneously as in moments of reverie or the familiar day-dream. The imagination exercises a motive force on the intellect and will. It may be a power for evil and for good. It may present a forbidden thing so vividly and alluringly as to excite passion, darken the intellect, and captivate the will. On the other hand, it is a force in meditation helping to focus attention on the person, place, or event, chosen as the subject of meditation. It is the starting point of all our intellectual and moral operations. The intellect depends on it, but should always control it. Unfortunately most people live more by imagination than by intellect; hence the misconceptions, misjudgments, prejudices, and even fears, or phobias, particularly in matters of religion. The new psychology, so called, or the study of the soul which ignores the soul’s existence, is largely to blame for this, since it stops at the imagination, or consideration of images, and never rises to the study of intellect and ideas.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Imagination
ITS NATURE
Imagination is the faculty of representing to oneself sensible objects independently of an actual impression of those objects on our senses. It is, according to scholastic psychology, one of the four internal senses, distinct, on the one hand, from the sensus intimus, the sensus aestimativus, and the memory, and, on the other hand, distinct from the spiritual intellect. The last distinction is to be specially noted on account of the similarity between the operations of the imagination and certain acts of the intellect. We acquire knowledge of our different faculties only from a study of their operations, and the nature of image is the object of endless controversy. Is it psychologically identical with perception, being differentiated only by lesser intensity? Or, on the contrary, has it a specific nature of its own? It would be hard to say. The problem is very complex and perhaps insoluble. The analogy and the points of contact between the image and the perceptive representation are evident, but they hardly seem to justify an identification of the image with the complete perception, and the opinion which regards them as distinct still seems to us the more probable. The imagination is a psycho-physical faculty. To think it can be reduced to the physiological functioning of the brain is an unwarranted and misleading assumption, though it is quite clear that its operations postulate a material basis. Cerebral fatigue, mental disease, and the necessarily quantitative character of its objects leave no room for doubt on this point.
OBJECT
Although the imagination is independent of actual impression by sensible objects, yet it can represent only what has in some way passed through the senses. There is in this regard however, a very marked difference between the different external senses. In the case of normal subjects visual images are the most numerous and the most perfect. Those derived from the sense of hearing are also very common; but the images arising from the senses of taste, smell, and touch are much rarer, and many persons, normally constituted, declare that they never have them unless perhaps in almost imperceptible degree. There has been much discussion of late in regard to “affective” images. Ribot believes we can unhesitatingly assert their existence; they are constituted he claims, by the revival of an affective state, independent of the mental representation of the object which first occasioned it. But the question is not settled, many persons emphatically deny the existence of such images, and the question may be raised whether the so-called “affective image” is not the mere imaginative representation of a past affection, or the actual affective re-echo of an unusually impressive image.
DIVISIONS
Imagination is twofold, retentive (reproductive) and creative (productive). The object of the first is a sensible reality, which we have previously perceived as such. The creative forms its object by combining elements which were separately perceived. The analysis of the creative imagination es of considerable importance for the psychology of invention, and of artistic and intellectual initiative. It brings us in contact with that as yet mysterious region, which is designated by the very indefinite and certainly collective name of “subconsciousness”. Judged by their relative perfection, images are complete or incomplete, generic or schematic. The complete image approaches, in richness and precision, objective perception. It occurs most frequently among the passive images which will be discussed farther on. The incomplete image, as its name indicates, is less rich, less precise. Certain details of the object escape consciousness, but what is represented is still sufficient to characterize an individual object. Of course, its complete or incomplete character is relative and, consequently, susceptible of innumerable gradations. The generic image results from the fusion of several more or less analogous images, with the incompatible differences eliminated. It corresponds to the ensemble of all the individual objects of one kind that the subject has ever perceived. This is why materialists and even persons incapable of psychological observation confound it with an abstract idea, from which, however, it is absolutely distinct. The generic image is evidently very incomplete. The schematic image is still more summary It is hardly ever sought for its own sake; it gives only the schema of the object that is to say certain characteristic outlines sufficient to support the intellect in its proper functions. As a rule the schematic image alone would be insufficient for this purpose; it is, for instance, impossible to imagine a multitude of 40,000 objects, in a manner sufficiently precise to supply the intellect with the sensible factors, indispensable for the mathematical operations to which this number lends itself. Hence the irresistible tendency to complete the schematic image by the verbal image, and the part which the word thus comes to play in the process of thought has given rise to serious errors. Not a few psychologists have mistaken the verbal image, which adds precision to the schematic image, for the idea itself, and it is evident that such a psychological error leads directly to nominalism.
As regards genesis, images are either voluntary or spontaneous. Voluntary images are produced freely. We will to imagine our home, our parents, or some familiar place we have left. These images are usually incomplete, vague, and dull, we render them somewhat more definite by fixing the attention on each part in turn, the grouping of all the parts into a unit being the work of memory. Spontaneous, or passive images are entirely different. Without the slightest impulse or direction of our will, they spring up suddenly in consciousness, representing at times an object which has no apparent connexion with the trend of our thoughts. Images occurring in a dream are a good example, but sleep is by no means necessary for their production; anyone who is accustomed to introspection will readily acknowledge that there are constantly arising from the depths of the soul passive images which often become the starting point of new associations. However, they are best observed in the state of reverie. When this is brought on by fatigue, the most surprising images appear, and they are so well defined and so perfect that they might well pass for pseudo-hallucinations.
THE EXTERNALIZING OF IMAGES
The relation existing between the image and the “consciousness of presence” is highly complex. The main point is to determine whether the image tends naturally to externalize itself, i. e. whether the image if left to itself would picture its object as existing outside the mind. This has been denied at times, on account of the probable distinction between the perception and the image, and also because a complete image is a rare occurrence. Are we to admit that a generic or schematic image could externalize itself? To admit this would not settle the question, it is, rather, probable that every image would project itself were it not inhibited by some other influence. It is, indeed, difficult to recognize in a dream anything else than the play of images. For the animal as well as for man, a dream manifestly runs its course in exterior space, and provokes acts, which, if the externalizing of images be denied, are quite incomprehensible. This theory is supported by the characteristics of hallucination which also throw some light on the mechanism of inhibition. In the case of hallucination the image, even though corrected by reason, represents its object as existing in exterior space. We must remark, further, that hallucination takes place in cases of extreme fatigue or when certain cerebral centres appear to be paralyzed by poison. It is possible, of course, to refer the phenomenon not to paralysis but to toxic stimulation. But such a solution seems to be excluded by the manner in which we seize on the subconscious elements and by the circumstances in which these elements come to the surface. Pseudo-hallucination offers a form intermediate between the totally inhibited image and hallucination. At times the objects appear with wonderful clearness making us almost feel their presence; but the space they occupy does not correspond with external space, nor have they any spatial relation with the objects which we perceive by our senses. They occur most naturally when one is dreaming or in a half-awakened state, and it is well-known that they are due to fatigue or to the suspension of critical reason and voluntary intellectual activity. It is consequently when the image is most intense and when another function, especially critical reason, is in abeyance, that images display a tendency to externalize themselves, and, sometimes, are actually externalized. It seems therefore that, normally, the image would be projected, if no other factor intervened. An analysis of normal perception leads to the same conclusion. This, we know, is the outcome both of sensory impressions and of the images that we externalize. What the latter contribute is, it seems to us, just as objective as what is contributed by the sensory impressions. There may be another way of interpreting the phenomenon; but when we consider it in conjunction with the facts just mentioned, it seems necessary to admit that, normally, the image externalizes itself.
Psychologists often raise the question why certain states of consciousness, such as perception, give us the impression of the external presence of an object. Probably this impression is a primordial characteristic and, from a psychological point of view, it would be more natural to enquire why images, in certain cases are devoid of that characteristic. Of course, that is no solution of the philosophical problem concerning the objective value of our faculties; but the fact is of considerable importance in the domain of experimental psychology. The only possible answer to the question seems to be as follows: the image is inhibited and appears as subjective whenever its externalization would produce incoherence in the things perceived. It is quite certain that children, possessing less of the critical sense and fewer acquired associations, readily believe “whatever comes into their heads” and again great fatigue, drunkenness, and other states of the sort which are evidently obstacles to the action of reason are precisely the conditions in which images have the greatest tendency to externalize themselves.
In normal circumstances there is always some special note in the image or in the thing perceived which prevents them from corresponding exactly. Disagreements therefore appear which force us to place images in a category distinct from that of perceptions, and our acquired associations convince us that they belong to the unreal, or at least less real, world of the conscious subject. This view is corroborated by the phenomenon of normal perception. The data of sense stir up through association images that complete them; the latter, then, must be in perfect accord with the former, and, as a matter of fact, we know that we externalize them spontaneously. In dreams we project into outer space incoherent images, but frequent observation shows that we coordinate and complete them, arranging them in a logical whole. It would seem then most likely that along with this coherence we produce their illusory externalization. It is well known how suddenly fantastic images disappear as soon as we recognize their absurdity. There seems to be no doubt then that images of their own nature tend to externalize themselves, and they do so as long as no conflict results therefrom. It will be urged, perhaps that we are not conscious of this rational criticism demonstrating the logical impossibility of externalizing the images; to this we rejoin that analytic reason intervenes in exceptional cases only, and that it is nearly always a question of simple acquired associations. Dogs and cats, without an inkling of the principle of causality, seek the cause of sensible phenomena. In like spontaneous fashion we inhibit or suppress our subjective images when they differ too widely from reality.
THE MOTIVE FORCE OF IMAGES
It is well known that an image inclines to action, and Ribot has formulated the general law that “every image tends to its own realization”. If external action does not always reveal all the images that arise in consciousness the reason is that many of them are neutralized by antagonistic images, which, owing to the character of their object, tend to issue in actions of an opposite sort. This motive force of images makes itself felt at every moment of our lives; but it should be observed that ordinarily it acts only through an emotional state and perhaps, as scholastic philosophers maintain, by means of a special “locomotive” faculty. Be that as it may, it seems to be proved that, in order to influence action and movements, images need not necessarily be in consciousness, much less at its focus. “Marginal” images, or even totally subconscious images, can act on our members and produce at times very complex movements. It would be an error to think that this occurs only exceptionally and in abnormal conditions; nevertheless it is through the practices of spiritism, table turning, automatic writing, etc., that special attention has been drawn to it and the most striking examples of it offered to the psychologist. The “motive force” of images is only a particular instance of a law so general that it dominates the whole psychic life. Each psychic state,whereveritmayoccur in the human person, tends to spread over adjacent areas and thereby produce equilibrium, i. e. the harmonious condition of the whole personality. An image causing a muscular contraction illustrates this diffusion in a very striking way, and that is why it has been observed sooner and formulated in a more precise manner than any other.
ELABORATION OF IMAGES BY THE INTELLECT
The image is the starting point and in some measure the immediate matter of all our intellectual operations. It is certain that any cessation of imaginative activity puts an end at once to intellectual function; and since these two faculties, imagination and intelligence, are subjectively distinct, this dependence must be of an objective sort, i. e. the intellect borrows from the imagination. An analysis of our higher knowledge even the most abstract, gives this explanation all the corroboration that immediate experience can furnish. The ideas of the most spiritual things, such as God or virtue, yield through analysis just those elements which are taken from the purely sensible order, and are presented by the imagination. Consequently there can be no doubt as to the objective cooperation of the imaginative faculty in the phenomenon of ideation. But certain dangerous errors in this matter must be guarded against. Hitherto we have insisted on the distinction to be observed between the schematic image and the idea. It would be a serious mistake to admit that any combination of images, however summary and refined, can furnish the object of the idea. Abstraction is often explained as though its initial process, the leaving aside of the individualizing notes, applied to the image itself, and as though the residue of that operation were the intellectual determinant, the species impressa, which starts the intellect itself into action. This is clearly an illusion. The image in its own essence is, and remains, individual; no separation of parts can bring to view the universal, the non-quantitive, in it. We must consider the role of the image in ideation as something quite different. It determines, not the intellectus agens, which would be inconceivable, but the conscious subject, to produce the intellectual object. There is no proportion, so far as the nature of the processes goes, between the image and the object of the intellect. Only a spiritual faculty (the intellectus agens) is proportioned to such an object; but the image is, as it were, a bait, which, in accordance with the nature of its own object, draws out the superior powers of the conscious subject. Hence, although everything in our intellectual knowledge is derived from the images, everything in it transcends them. These two aspects of the question the essential dependence of the intellect on the images, and its transcendency in respect to them, must always be considered if we are to understand accurately the part played by the image in the process of ideation. There result therefrom important consequences the study,of which pertains to the psychology of intelligence.
To conclude: we conceive the higher realities only by analogy with sensible things, but it in no way follows that we concieve nothing but what is material. Images play a very important part in all the activities of the intellectual order; but they do not constitute that order itself. The very spirituality of the human soul depends on this latter truth.
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M.P. DE MUNNYNCK Transcribed by Tomas Hancil
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Imagination
(Lat. imaginatio). The meaning of this word enters into many relationships, and is thereby rendered difficult to define. The principal meaning is doubtless what connects it with poetry and fine art, from which the other significations branch off. The simplest mode of explaining this complicated relationship will be to state in separation-the different constituents of the power in question. We shall then see why and where it touches upon other faculties, which still require to be distinguished from it.
1. Imagination has for its objects the concrete, the real, or the individual, as opposed to abstractions and generalities, which are the matter of science. The full coloring of reality is implied in our imagination of any scene of nature. In this respect, there is something common to imagination and memory. If we endeavor to imagine a volcano, according as we succeed, we have before the mind everything that a spectator would observe on the spot. Thus, sensation, memory, and imagination alike deal with the fullness of the actual world, as opposed to the abstractions of science and the reasoning faculties.
The faculty called conception, in one of its meanings, has also to do with this concrete fullness, although, in what Sir William Hamilton deems the original and proper meaning of that word, this power is excluded. In popular language, and in the philosophy of Dugald, Stewart, conception is applied to the case of our realizing any description of actual life, as given in history or in poetry. When we completely enter into a scene portrayed by a writer or speaker, and approach the situation of the actual observer, we are often said to conceive what is meant, and also to imagine it; the best word for this signification probably is realize.’
2. It is further essential to imagination in its strictest sense that there should be some original construction, or that what is imagined should not be a mere picture of what we have seen. Creativeness, origination, invention, are names also designating the same power, and excluding mere memory, or the literal reproduction of past experience. Every artist is said to have imagination according as he can rise to new combinations or effects different from what he has found in his actual observation of nature. A literal, matter-of-fact historian would be said to be wanting in the faculty. The exact copying of nature may be very meritorious in an artist, and very agreeable as an effect, but we should not designate it by the term imagination. There are, however, in the sciences, and in all the common arts, strokes of invention and new constructions, to which it might seem at first sight unfair to refuse the term in question, if originality be a leading feature in its definition. But still we do not usually apply the term imagination to this case, and for a reason that will appear when we mention the next peculiarity attaching to the faculty.
3. Imagination has for its ruling element some emotion of the mind, to gratify which all its constructions are guided. Here lies the great contrast between it and the creativeness of science and mechanical invention. These last are instrumental to remote objects of convenience or pleasure. A creation of the imagination comes home at once to the mind, and has no ulterior view.
Whenever we are under the mastery of some strong emotion, the current of our thoughts is affected and colored by that emotion; what chimes in with it is retained, and other things kept out of sight. We also form new constructions that suit the state of the moment. Thus, in fear, we are overwhelmed by objects of alarm, and even conjure up, specters that have no existence. But the highest example of all is presented to us by the constructions of fine art, which are determined by those emotions called aesthetic, the sense of beauty, the pleasures of taste; they are sometimes expressly styled pleasures of the imagination.’ The artist has in himself those various sensibilities to an unusual degree, and he carver and shapes his creations with a view to gratifying them to the utmost. Thus it happens that fine art and imagination are related together, while science and useful art are connected with our reasoning faculties, which may also be faculties of invention. It is a deviation from the correct use of language, and a confounding of things essentially distinct, to say that a man of science stands in need of imagination as well as powers of reason; he needs the power of original construction, but his inventions are not framed to satisfy present emotions, but to be instrumental in remote ends, which in their remoteness may excite nothing that is usually understood as emotion. Every artist exercises the faculty in question if he produces anything original in his art.
The name Fancy’ has substantially the meanings now described, and was originally identical with imagination. It is a corruption of fantasy, from the Greek . It has now a shade of meaning somewhat different, being applied to those creations that are most widely removed from the world of reality. In the exercise of our imagination we may keep close to nature, and only indulge the liberty of recombining what we find, so as to surpass the original in some points, without forcing together what could not co-exist in reality. This is the sober style of art. But when, in order to gratify the unbounded longings of the mind, we construct a fairyland with characteristics altogether beyond what human life can furnish, we are said to enter the regions of fancy and the fantastical.
The ideal’ and ideality’ are also among the synonyms of imagination, and their usual acceptation illustrates still further the property now discussed. The ideal’ is something that fascinates the mind, or gratifies some of our strong emotions and cravings, when reality is insufficient for that end. Desiring something to admire and love beyond what the world can supply, we strike out a combination free from the defects of common humanity, and adorned with more than excellence. This is our ideal,’ what satisfies our emotions, and the fact of its so doing is the determining influence in the construction of it SEE IDEALISM.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Imagination
IMAGINATION
Imagination is the faculty by which we are able to reproduce mentally the images or copies of past elements of sense-experience. This may be done in three ways: (1) passively, as when we reproduce our mental pictures in the form or order in which we experienced them as sensations; or (2) actively, as when we combine the images of past sensations into fresh groups for purposes of our own, as in the telling of an imaginary story; or (3) creatively, as when these images are used to symbolize abstract ideas, or to illustrate the teaching of moral and spiritual truth. There are great differences in the endowments of individual men and women in these respects. Many have but a faint power of mentally reproducing past events and objects, and among those in whom the power is well developed, some are able best to reproduce visual images (artists), others auditory impressions (musicians), others the images of movement (those possessing the dramatic gift). The poetic or creative temperament is richly endowed with all these aptitudes, and makes a free use of its resources in the presentation of ideal scenes and events as a medium for inculcating its message.
Students of our Lords personality will at once recognize that He possessed the creative temperament in its noblest development. He was psychically endowed with a rich and varied imagination, which was disciplined, like all His human gifts, to the finest pitch of efficiency, and consecrated to the highest uses. His discourses are crowded with bright and vivid pictures, symbolic of the great truths which He had come to reveal. They are expressed in language that is rich, musical, and full of verbal colour and rhythmic phrases. In the narrative portions and the parables there is also a striking dramatic element, which gives them wonderful life and movement.
1. Characteristics of the imagination of Jesus.It is the last featurethe dramaticwhich is the most prominent quality in the imagination of our Lord. If the form of His teaching can be relied on as an indication of His mental endowments, it is clear that truth naturally clothed itself for Him in the form of concrete pictures and symbolic events. This is probably the key to the Temptation scenes so vividly described in Mat 4:1-11. The temptations of His public life became visualized in these typical scenes, and in fighting them thus prophetically, He rehearsed the long drama of His future spiritual conflicts, and overcame them beforehand. The same dramatic way of dealing with the critical facts of His life and work may be seen in such incidents as are detailed in Mat 9:36-38; Mat 21:31; Mat 26:39; Mat 26:53, Luk 10:18, and many others. This instinctive love of a dramatic situation as the vehicle of imparting spiritual truth, is illustrated also in the frequent use of object-lessons full of incident and movement. Sometimes He made a sudden and skilful use of opportunities offered to Him in the course of social intercourse, as in Mar 5:30; Mar 10:15; Mar 12:41, Luk 5:24; Luk 7:44; Luk 14:1-6; Luk 17:17 etc. In other cases He deliberately created the situation, and then drew the lesson with which He desired to impress the spectators, as in Mar 9:33-37, Mat 18:2-5, Luk 22:17-20, and Joh 13:2-12. (The incident of the Blasted Fig-tree, if understood as a simple but vivid action-parable, loses all the ethical difficulties which have hidden its meaning from so many commentators).
The pictorial side of our Lords imagination is scarcely less obvious than the dramatic. He was temperamentally as well as spiritually in the deepest sympathy with Nature in all her varying moods, her wealth of life, her process of growth; and He was a keen and accurate observer of her ways, showing a vivid interest in the life of plants and animals (Mat 6:28; Mat 7:16; Mat 6:26; Mat 8:20) and in the common experiences of human life. These impressions were all stored up, as He watched them, in the treasure-house of a faultless memory, to be afterwards used as drapery for the everlasting truths of the Kingdom in a way which makes many of His discourses a perfect arabesque of beautiful imagery. His predominating love, however, was for images drawn from the incidents of human life and experience. He seldom used imagery of a purely natural kind, i.e. drawn from the impersonal action of physical or vital forces: there is nearly always some human agent or sufferer in view whose action or suffering invests the simile with it sympathetic as well as an intellectual aspect. Thus He was fond of drawing His word-pictures from the occupations of such familiar folk as shepherds, husbandmen, fishermen; from social customs in the home,marriage ceremonies, feasts, salutations, journeyings; and even from bodily life and sensations,the eye, ear, bones, feet, hunger and thirst, laughing, mourning, sickness, sleep, etc. Our Lords use of natural imagery may be put into words written elsewhere by the present writer:
Nature is interesting to Him only as the handiwork of God, and the mirror of His perfections or providential care for His creatures, or of Him as the Creator of human joys and sorrows. The cold impersonal attitude of the modern scientist towards the creation was impossible to the Lover of Souls. Nature with Him is the vehicle of truth as applied to conduct: she is a bundle of analogies in the sense of the poet:
Two worlds are ours; tis sin alone
Forbids us to descry
The mystic earth and heaven within
Plain as the earth and sky.
In this way our view of Nature is beautifully enriched and impregnated with higher meanings: and her operations resolve themselves into a series of delightful reminders of human duty and of Divine love (The Master and His Method, p. 67).
The imaginative side of our Lords mind is seen, finally, in the artistic use of language. Whether He spoke in the dialect of the common people, or (occasionally at least) in that form of Greek which was commonly known in Palestine, in which the Gospels have come down to us, it is unquestionable that even if we have His discourses only in translation, they are full of characteristic qualities of vividness, terseness, and colour. His use of popular proverbs in fresh applications (Mat 9:12-13; Mat 7:16; Mat 5:14; Mat 6:21; Mat 11:15; Mat 12:37; Mat 16:25, Mar 10:23; Mar 10:27 etc.); His love of paradox (see Mat 5:38-42 for four striking instances of this; also Mar 10:23 and Joh 6:53); the exquisite grace of some of His descriptions of natural processes (Mat 6:28 ff; Mat 7:24 ff.), and of social functions (Mat 25:1-12), together with the symmetrical build of many of His sentences and discourses (esp. Mat 25:31-46), show a mastery over the resources of language to which only a poet whose natural gift had been carefully disciplined to high uses could attain. The more the form of our Lords teaching is studied, the more does this verbal skill impress the reader as complete and minute.
2. Practical uses of this imaginative element in our Lords discourses.The method of Jesus being exclusively oral, it is easy to see how valuable is this pictorial, dramatic, vividly expressed quality that runs through them all. In order that this method should be effective under the circumstances of the time, it was essential that it should have the marks of simplicity, concreteness, vividness, and brevity. It must be simple, as it was meant to become current not amongst scholars, disciplined in the use of complicated trains of thought, well used to abstract lines of reasoning, and capable of retaining these in their memory for a long time, but amongst the common crowd of listeners who had had only an elementary education, and were incapable of giving a close and sustained attention to any train of thought. It must be concrete, because such people always thought and spoke in such terms as were closely allied to their daily experience. It must be vivid, because otherwise no deep or lasting impression could be made on such occasional and unstudied opportunities as our Lord habitually used to disseminate His teaching. And it must be brief and portable, for it was meant not merely for those who listened to Him at the time, but also for those who should afterwards believe in his name through the preaching and teaching of the eye-witnesses and auditors of His earthly ministry. All these ends were perfectly served by the imaginative method of presenting truth chosen by the Great Teacher, and consistently followed by Him throughout His public life. His wisdom is shown by the event. It was probably many years before any large portion of His discourses and life-story was committed to writing. But there are clear indications that great care was taken to give the general outlines of the teaching accurately and without admixture, and that the utmost reverence was felt for the ipsissima verba of their Lords utterances by the Apostles and their first pupils. Converts were carefully taught from the earliest times in catechumen classes in the doctrine of Christ (cf. 1Co 15:11, Col 2:6, Luk 1:1-2), and they were counselled to be specially careful to retain and transmit the exact form in which the teaching (the fair deposit of truth) had been delivered to them (cf. 2Ti 1:13, a very significant passage). It was only as these first witnesses were one by one removed by death, or so scattered as to be beyond the reach of appeal, that any need for a written version of the Gospel began to be felt. Then the immediate disciples of the Apostles would endeavour to perpetuate their record of the words and deeds of Christ by committing it to writing. In this way the first two Synoptic Gospels may have taken shape, using the common basis of the oral Gospel as a foundation on which to build. In time various versions would arise, which were collated and welded together into a more accurate whole by scholarly men such as St. Luke (Luk 1:1-3). Finally, as the last survivor of the original group passed away, his followers would have a strong desire to rescue his personal reminiscences from oblivion ere it was too late, and thus the Fourth Gospel arose as a supplement to the others.
If the Gospels and the Epistles are compared as to their form, further light is shed on the wisdom of our Lord in using the imaginative style of speech as a vehicle for His oral teaching. St. Pauls involved literary style, full as it is of technical terms, long sentences, and abstract trains of reasoning, could not possibly have served as the vehicle of a spoken Gospel, though, as a supplementary commentary and exposition of the truths enshrined in that Gospel, it is admirably adapted for its purpose; and the same is true, with qualifications, of the other NT writers.
3. A lesson for preachers.The example of the Great Teacher still applies to those whose business it is to carry on the Christian function of preaching. In more illiterate periods, preachers naturally followed this method of putting their discourses into a concrete, illustrative, and vivid style; but as books have spread, and the habit of reading has become general, there has been a growing tendency to throw sermons into a more literary form. While this has been partly inevitable and is so far justifiable, it is certain that the pulpit has lost much of its influence because of this unconscious change of method. All spoken discourse should aim at the qualities of simplicity, concreteness, vividness, and brevity of expression, which are so remarkable a feature in the discourses and parables of Christ. The very plethora of books makes this specially needful in an age when the human mind is overburdened with the rushing details of daily experience, and the evanescent appeal of ephemeral literature. Unique as are many of the qualities that belong to Christ as a preacher, and making due allowance for the contrast between the Oriental environment in which He lived and that of our own day, there is nothing that more needs to be built into our training of young preachers than a close study of the method of the Master with a view to adapt it to our own day and circumstances.
Literature.Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i. 106151: Stalker, Imago Christi, ch. xiii.
E. Griffith-Jones.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Imagination
IMAGINATION.In the AV [Note: Authorized Version.] imagine always means contrive and imagination contrivance. In the case of imagination a bad intention is always present (except Isa 26:4 AVm [Note: Authorized Version margin.] ), as in Rom 1:21 they became vain in their imaginations (RV [Note: Revised Version.] reasonings); 2Co 10:5 casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself (RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] reasonings). The Greek words have in these passages the same evil intent as the AV [Note: Authorized Version.] word, so that the RV [Note: Revised Version.] renderings are not so good. Coverdale translates Isa 55:7 Let the ungodly man forsake his wayes, and the unrightuous his ymaginacions, and turne agayne unto the Lorde.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Imagination
i-maj-i-nashun (, yecer, , sherruth; , dianoia): Imagination is the translation of yecer, properly a shaping, hence, a thought (Gen 6:5; Gen 8:21; Deu 31:21; 1Ch 28:9; 1Ch 29:18). In Isa 26:3 yecer is translated mind (King James Version margin thought or imagination), whose mind is stayed on thee (the Revised Version margin or imagination); in Psa 103:14 it is frame; of sherruth, obstinacy, stubbornness (Deu 29:19; Jer 3:17; Jer 7:24; Jer 9:14; Jer 11:8; Jer 13:10; Jer 16:12; Jer 18:12; Jer 23:17); in Psa 81:12 the King James Version it is, lust, margin hardness or imaginations; 3 times of mahashebheth, thought or purpose in the King James Version (Pro 6:18; Lam 3:60, Lam 3:61); once of dianoia, mind, understanding (Luk 1:51); of logismos, reasoning (2Co 10:5); and of dialogismos, reasoning through (Rom 1:21 the King James Version).
The Revised Version (British and American) gives stubbornness in each instance where sherruth is in the King James Version translated imagination; in Pro 6:18 the American Standard Revised Version has purposes; the Revised Version (British and American) has devices (Lam 3:60, Lam 3:61) and reasonings (Rom 1:21), imagination for conceit (Pro 18:11), and (English Revised Version) for device (Lam 3:62).
Imagination is frequent in Apocrypha, e.g. Ecclesiasticus 22:18 (dianoema); 37:3 (enthumema, wicked imagination); 40:2 (dialogismos, the Revised Version (British and American) expectation).
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Imagination
Gen 6:5; Gen 8:21; Deu 29:19-20; 1Ch 28:9; Pro 6:16-18; Mat 5:28; Rom 1:21; 2Co 10:3; 2Co 10:5
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Imagination
Imagination designates a mental process consisting of
The revival of sense images derived from earlier perceptions (the reproductive imagination), and
the combination of these elementary images into new unities (the creative or productive imagination.) The creative imagination is of two kinds
the fancy which is relatively spontaneous and uncontrolled, and
the constructive imagination, exemplified in science, invention and philosophy which is controlled by a dominant plan or purpose.
— L.W.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
Imagination
“a reasoning, a thought” (akin to logizomai, “to count, reckon”), is translated “thoughts” in Rom 2:15, suggestive of evil intent, not of mere reasonings; “imaginations” in 2Co 10:5 (RV, marg., “reasonings,” in each place). The word suggests the contemplation of actions as a result of the verdict of conscience. See THOUGHT.
dia, and No. 1, is rendered “imaginations” in Rom 1:21, carrying with it the idea of evil purposes, RV, “reasonings;” it is most frequently translated “thoughts.” See DISPUTE.
strictly, “a thinking over,” denotes “the faculty of thinking;” then, “of knowing;” hence, “the understanding,” and in general, “the mind,” and so, “the faculty of moral reflection;” it is rendered “imagination” in Luk 1:51, “the imagination of their heart” signifying their thoughts and ideas. See MIND, UNDERSTANDING.