Blog

Business development and communications for growing businesses.

Using Imagination

Posted Jul 28 2010 by Jonathan Brink in  with 12 Comments

My friend Josh asked some really great questions in regards to Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity. The first one is really great.  He asks:

“Why call God’s perspective of unchanging love towards us and His objective judgment of our value apart from our works or other qualities the God IMAGINATION when imagination usually is understood as something unreal or only potential reality which only exists in the mind but is seen as lacking fleshed out reality? If truth and objectivity apart from our own perception (or misconception) is the point, this choice of words seems rather counterintuitive.“

What I hear Josh ask is, “If God’s perspective is real then why use a word that suggests something that is rather illusory to describe something concrete.”  I hope I’m getting you right Josh.

I wrestled deeply with how to describe this way of seeing God’s perspective.  I deeply believe it is concrete and something that produces life when taken in.  Yet our experience of it is often illusory.  We take it on in faith and develop our experience of it over time.  This process of experience happens inside the brain as we wrestle with the judgments we make about the self, God, our neighbor and the world.  The word that best described this process to me was imagination.  It’s illusory yet becomes real over time. It’s expanding as much as we allow it.

Categories: 

About the Author

Jonathan BrinkI am an business development and communications consultant. I am also the senior editor and publisher for Civitas Press. I recently published, Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole, New Christianity. (Civitas, 2011)View all posts by Jonathan Brink →

  • http://openmindedconversations.blogspot.com/ jshmueller

    Yes, you definitely understood the point of my question and I do get that as far as we are concerned both problem and solution begin in the mind and work transformation from a changed mindset (a changed inner reality) to changed action and habits in a more tangible way.

    But if I understood you correctly, you also use the term to describe God's view of us independent of our willingness to make it our own or not. And it is at that point that the term is prone to misunderstanding because God doesn't imagine our goodness, He sees it as already existing. So rather than using a term that many will misunderstand as an esoteric visualization technique or psychological self-help manipulation, I personally would have preferred something less ambigious, simply because so many aren't even willing to investigate actual content and meaning in the mind of the author if the title puts them off.

    I'm not sure what term would convey both God's objective view and what we see in our minds. “Discovering God's unchanging view” is not exactly the kind of title that would attract a lot of a readers either even if it is more to the point.

  • http://openmindedconversations.blogspot.com/ jshmueller

    Let me just add that it actually depends on who your preferred target audience is. Someone is who more intrigued by an esoteric sounding title may decide to read the book just for that reason and be surprised by what (s)he finds. But if the target audience is a more conservative Christian audience they may not decide to investigate and engage in the first place.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Josh, I do understand your tension. I would suggest that imagination can be real. It can be something concrete and objective. It's the image we see in our heads the becomes the creation.

    I would also say that we live in the tension of the objective, holding it lightly knowing we don't establish it. We only realize it. Thus it is taken on faith.

  • http://openmindedconversations.blogspot.com/ jshmueller

    Since capturing God's eternal unchanging judgment of value is at the core of your thesis, it really boils down to a process of inner enlightenment and knowing God. Phenomenologically there is no difference between an idea that is “only” in our heads but illusory and an idea that corresponds to objective reality apart from the mental processes themselves. In other words: something can be real but not necessarily true. The difference between us and God is that this dichotomy does not exist in God. There is nothing that could be untrue in God's imagination. So the misunderstanding really arises because of our anthropomorphic way of thinking where we fashion God in our own image.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Josh, as strange as it may seem, I completely agree. The problem is always in us, not in God. As you said, there is nothing that could be untrue in God's imagination, which is what informs us of reality.

    I deeply wrestled with our understanding of the word and even knew that it may turn some readers off because of our evangelical understanding of the word. But in the process I believe I opened myself to a larger audience that is undefined by our traditions but is wrestling through the Gospel.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Josh, my friend Rich sent me this.

    http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/07/im…

    Seems rather interesting in light of this conversation.

  • http://openmindedconversations.blogspot.com/ jshmueller

    Yes, you definitely understood the point of my question and I do get that as far as we are concerned both problem and solution begin in the mind and work transformation from a changed mindset (a changed inner reality) to changed action and habits in a more tangible way.rnrnBut if I understood you correctly, you also use the term to describe God’s view of us independent of our willingness to make it our own or not. And it is at that point that the term is prone to misunderstanding because God doesn’t imagine our goodness, He sees it as already existing. So rather than using a term that many will misunderstand as an esoteric visualization technique or psychological self-help manipulation, I personally would have preferred something less ambigious, simply because so many aren’t even willing to investigate actual content and meaning in the mind of the author if the title puts them off.rnrnI’m not sure what term would convey both God’s objective view and what we see in our minds. “Discovering God’s unchanging view” is not exactly the kind of title that would attract a lot of a readers either even if it is more to the point.

  • http://openmindedconversations.blogspot.com/ jshmueller

    Let me just add that it actually depends on who your preferred target audience is. Someone is who more intrigued by an esoteric sounding title may decide to read the book just for that reason and be surprised by what (s)he finds. But if the target audience is a more conservative Christian audience they may not decide to investigate and engage in the first place.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Josh, I do understand your tension. I would suggest that imagination can be real. It can be something concrete and objective. It’s the image we see in our heads the becomes the creation. nnI would also say that we live in the tension of the objective, holding it lightly knowing we don’t establish it. We only realize it. Thus it is taken on faith.

  • http://openmindedconversations.blogspot.com/ jshmueller

    Since capturing God’s eternal unchanging judgment of value is at the core of your thesis, it really boils down to a process of inner enlightenment and knowing God. Phenomenologically there is no difference between an idea that is “only” in our heads but illusory and an idea that corresponds to objective reality apart from the mental processes themselves. In other words: something can be real but not necessarily true. The difference between us and God is that this dichotomy does not exist in God. There is nothing that could be untrue in God’s imagination. So the misunderstanding really arises because of our anthropomorphic way of thinking where we fashion God in our own image.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Josh, as strange as it may seem, I completely agree. The problem is always in us, not in God. As you said, there is nothing that could be untrue in God’s imagination, which is what informs us of reality.nnI deeply wrestled with our understanding of the word and even knew that it may turn some readers off because of our evangelical understanding of the word. But in the process I believe I opened myself to a larger audience that is undefined by our traditions but is wrestling through the Gospel.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Josh, my friend Rich sent me this.nnhttp://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/07/imagine-a-world-2.htmlnnSeems rather interesting in light of this conversation.

Business development and communications for growing businesses.