Imagination

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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 Lord’s 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 feature—the dramatic —which 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  Matthew 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  Matthew 9:36-38;  Matthew 21:31;  Matthew 26:39;  Matthew 26:53,  Luke 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  Mark 5:30;  Mark 10:15;  Mark 12:41,  Luke 5:24;  Luke 7:44;  Luke 14:1-6;  Luke 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  Mark 9:33-37,  Matthew 18:2-5,  Luke 22:17-20, and  John 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 Lord’s 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 ( Matthew 6:28;  Matthew 7:16;  Matthew 6:26;  Matthew 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 Lord’s 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 Lord’s 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 ( Matthew 9:12-13;  Matthew 7:16;  Matthew 5:14;  Matthew 6:21;  Matthew 11:15;  Matthew 12:37;  Matthew 16:25,  Mark 10:23;  Mark 10:27 etc.); His love of paradox (see  Matthew 5:38-42 for four striking instances of this; also  Mark 10:23 and  John 6:53); the exquisite grace of some of His descriptions of natural processes ( Matthew 6:28 ff;  Matthew 7:24 ff.), and of social functions ( Matthew 25:1-12), together with the symmetrical build of many of His sentences and discourses (esp.  Matthew 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 Lord’s 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 Lord’s 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 Lord’s 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.  1 Corinthians 15:11,  Colossians 2:6,  Luke 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.  2 Timothy 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 ( Luke 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. Paul’s 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. 106–151: Stalker, Imago Christi , ch. xiii.

E. Griffith-Jones.

Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words

1: Λογισμός (Strong'S #3053 — Noun Masculine — logismos — log-is-mos' )

"a reasoning, a thought" (akin to logizomai, "to count, reckon"), is translated "thoughts" in  Romans 2:15 , suggestive of evil intent, not of mere reasonings; "imaginations" in  2—Corinthians 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.

2: Διαλογισμός (Strong'S #1261 — Noun Masculine — dialogismos — dee-al-og-is-mos' )

dia, and No. 1, is rendered "imaginations" in  Romans 1:21 , carrying with it the idea of evil purposes, RV, "reasonings;" it is most frequently translated "thoughts." See Dispute.

3: Διάνοια (Strong'S #1271 — Noun Feminine — dianoia — dee-an'-oy-ah )

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  Luke 1:51 , "the imagination of their heart" signifying their thoughts and ideas. See Mind , Understanding.

King James Dictionary

IMAGINA'TION, n. L. imaginatio. The power or faculty of the mind by which it conceives and forms ideas of things communicated to it by the organs of sense.

Imagination I understand to be the representation of an individual thought.

Our simple apprehension of corporeal objects, if present, is sense if absent, is imagination conception.

Imagination, in its proper sense,signifies a lively conception of objects of sight. It is distinguished from conception, as a part from a whole.

The business of conception is to present us with an exact transcript of what we have felt or perceived. But we have also a power of modifying our conceptions, by combining the parts of different ones so as to form new wholes of our own creation. I shall employ the word imagination to express this power. I apprehend this to be the proper sense of the word, if imagination be the power which gives birth to the productions of the poet and the painter.

We would define imagination to be the will working on the materials of memory not satisfied with following the order prescribed by nature, or suggested by accident, it selects the parts of different conceptions, or objects of memory, to form a whole more pleasing, more terrible, or more awful,than has ever been presented in the ordinary course of nature.

The two latter definitions give the true sense of the word, as now understood.

1. Conception image in the mind idea.

Sometimes despair darkens all her imaginations.

His imaginations were often as just as they were bold and strong.

2. Contrivance scheme formed in the mind device.

Thou hast seen all their vengeance, and all their imaginations against me.  Lamentations 3

3. Conceit an unsolid or fanciful opinion.

We are apt to think that space, in itself, is actually boundless to which imagination, the idea of space of itself leads us.

4. First motion or purpose of the mind.  Genesis 6

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Proverbs 6:18 Lamentations 3:60-61 Deuteronomy 31:21  Romans 1:21 Luke 1:51 2 Corinthians 10:5 1 Chronicles 28:9 Deuteronomy 29:19 Jeremiah 3:17 Jeremiah 7:24 Jeremiah 9:14 Jeremiah 11:8 Jeremiah 13:10 Jeremiah 16:12 Jeremiah 18:12 Jeremiah 23:17 Genesis 6:5 Genesis 8:21  Luke 1:51  Acts 17:29 Ezekiel 13:2 13:17 Isaiah 65:2 Isaiah 66:18

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

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:

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

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   Isaiah 26:4 AVm [Note: Authorized Version margin.] ), as in   Romans 1:21 ‘they … became vain in their imaginations’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘reasonings’);   2 Corinthians 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   Isaiah 55:7 ‘Let the ungodly man forsake his wayes, and the unrightuous his ymaginacions, and turne agayne unto the Lorde.’

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) The representative power; the power to reconstruct or recombine the materials furnished by direct apprehension; the complex faculty usually termed the plastic or creative power; the fancy.

(2): ( n.) The power to recombine the materials furnished by experience or memory, for the accomplishment of an elevated purpose; the power of conceiving and expressing the ideal.

(3): ( n.) A mental image formed by the action of the imagination as a faculty; a conception; a notion.

(4): ( n.) The imagine-making power of the mind; the power to create or reproduce ideally an object of sense previously perceived; the power to call up mental imagines.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(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 Φαντασία . 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).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

i - maj - i - nā´shun ( יצר , yēcer , שׁרירוּת , sherı̄rūth  ; διάνοια , diánoia ): "Imagination" is the translation of yēcer , properly "a shaping," hence, "a thought" (  Genesis 6:5;  Genesis 8:21;  Deuteronomy 31:21;  1 Chronicles 28:9;  1 Chronicles 29:18 ). In  Isaiah 26:3 yēcer is translated "mind" (King James Version margin "thought" or "imagination"), "whose mind is stayed on thee" (the Revised Version margin "or imagination"); in  Psalm 103:14 it is "frame"; of sherı̄rūth , "obstinacy," "stubbornness" ( Deuteronomy 29:19;  Jeremiah 3:17;  Jeremiah 7:24;  Jeremiah 9:14;  Jeremiah 11:8;  Jeremiah 13:10;  Jeremiah 16:12;  Jeremiah 18:12;  Jeremiah 23:17 ); in  Psalm 81:12 the King James Version it is, "lust," margin "hardness or imaginations"; 3 times of maḥăshebheth , "thought" or "purpose" in the King James Version ( Proverbs 6:18;  Lamentations 3:60 ,  Lamentations 3:61 ); once of dianoia , "mind," "understanding" ( Luke 1:51 ); of logismós , "reasoning" ( 2 Corinthians 10:5 ); and of dialogismós , "reasoning through" ( Romans 1:21 the King James Version).

The Revised Version (British and American) gives "stubbornness" in each instance where sherı̄rūth is in the King James Version translated "imagination"; in   Proverbs 6:18 the American Standard Revised Version has "purposes"; the Revised Version (British and American) has "devices" (  Lamentations 3:60 ,  Lamentations 3:61 ) and "reasonings" ( Romans 1:21 ), "imagination" for "conceit" ( Proverbs 18:11 ), and (English Revised Version) for "device" ( Lamentations 3:62 ).

"Imagination" is frequent in Apocrypha, e.g.  Sirach 22:18 ( dianóēma ); 37:3 ( enthúmēma , "wicked imagination"); 40:2 ( dialogismos , the Revised Version (British and American) "expectation").

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The name appropriate to the highest faculty of man, and defined by Ruskin as "mental creation," in the exercise of which the human being discharges his highest function as a responsible being, "the defect of which on common minds it is the main use," says Ruskin, "of works of fiction, and of the drama, as far as possible, to supply."