Imagination is the Muscle of Meaning
- Posted by Steve K. on April 20th, 2009 filed in General
- 4 Comments »
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about imagination. I hope to spend some time this year reading and thinking more deeply about imagination and the role of imagination in communication and mission.
To get things started, here’s an interesting quote from C.S. Lewis:
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.”
My takeaway: We can get all of the facts and information correct (i.e., communicating truth), but if we don’t understand the context and if we fail to engage our audience at a deeper, more fundamental level (the level of imagination and wonder), then the meaning will be lost and transformation will not truly occur. This is true whether we are communicating the Gospel or whether we are communicating about Gospel ministry. Imagination is the muscle that flexes to turn facts into fascination and ultimately transformation.
To put it another way, I’d beg to differ with Sir Francis Bacon: Imagination is real power—for transformation in hearts and minds. Let’s pray for transformation through our communication, not just information transfer!
(HT: emailcopywriter)
April 20th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject recently. It seems to me that a lot of modern evangelical Christianity is too doctrine-heavy to be captivating … And it says a lot that C.S. Lewis is still one of the most incisive apologists of the faith that we have in these post-modern times.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
In a post-modern visual society, how do we project the image of the truth (ie. Jesus) in such a way that the content engages with people in ways relevant to them, yet is also authentic to the meaning?
April 20th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Steve, thanks for your post. I’ve long connected imagination with meaning, so I appreciated the Lewis quote. The imagination is relational and part of meaning is sensing my relationship to something larger and grander than myself–intellectual propositions cannot do this. When I teach creative writing, I will sometimes tell my students that God gave us two faculties with which to relate to him and one is the intellect. They can only guess the other–the imagination–when they’ve exhausted almost everything else. Clearly, there’s work to do in our faith communities around this vital capacity.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Good word. I would add that stories are the vehicle for communication of imaginative ideas. Stories communicate on a whole different level than facts.