IMAGINATION CREATION

Imagination is one of the greatest gifts God has given to the human mind. It allows us to imagine the "not yet," to plan for the future, to solve problems, to create art, to write stories, to build homes, to design ministries, and to imagine a better life. Someone designs a building before it is built. A preacher mulls ideas in his mind and waters them with prayerful tears before the sermon is delivered. Before a family vacation, a business plan, the erection of a new church edifice, or a work of art becomes a reality, it first exists in the imagination. Jesus asked, “Which king doesn’t sit down and calculate the cost before he goes to war?"

So is imagination bad? Not always. Like many human abilities, it can be used for good or for evil. The issue is not imagination as such, but what governs it.

The danger, as I see it, is not imagination. It is in mishandling Scripture, in "eisegesis" rather than "exegesis." Eisegesis is when one reads his or her own ideas, assumptions, or agenda into a biblical text rather than drawing true meaning from it. This is especially dangerous when someone takes part of a verse, removes it from its context, and then extrapolates it as a blanket statement. For instance, the phrase “casting down imaginations” (2 Corinthians 10:5) has sometimes been quoted to imply that all imagination is sinful. But Paul’s larger point is not a denial of creativity, planning, vision, or mental imagery. He is bringing an indictment against arguments, proud reasons, and thoughts that rise against the knowledge of God.

Such overgeneralizing can distort Bible doctrine. A partial statement becomes a church law of error. A warning against sinful or rebellious thought turns into a condemnation of all imaginative thought. Therefore, eisegesis can make Scripture seem to say more, or something else, than it really says. God warns that anyone who adds to or takes away from the holy Word shall have the plagues in the Bible added to them or their place in the Book of Life and the holy city removed (Revelation 22:18-19).

Another example is Jesus' teaching on lust. Jesus cautions us about looking at a woman. If we stopped with the first part of that verse, it would seem that no man may look at a woman. But in what He goes on to say, we see that He was not saying that visual thought itself is evil. Rather, He was speaking of the inward cultivation of sinful desire. The famous Baptist minister Billy Graham once said that it is not wrong to look at a woman. He saw that the wrongness comes when a man turns to look at her a second time. Imagination is dangerous when it rehearses sin, feeds temptation, or turns another person into an object of self-centered fantasy.

The misuse of imagination has sobering examples in Scripture. Ezekiel pictures the elders in a hidden room of the temple, surrounded by images of corruption and idolatry (Ezekiel 8:7-12). Their secret inner world was contaminated. What they harbored privately was a deeper spiritual disorder, a rot in their psyche (soul). It reminds us that what we permit to live in the imagination can become a contemptible hidden altar.

There is the danger, too, of building castles in the air in our chambers of imagery. Imagination is escapism when it replaces obedience, wisdom, work, truth, discipline, responsibility, or repentance. These are the foundations upon which one builds success, relationships, and spirituality. So imagination can build a false world that prevents us from living faithfully in the real world.

But imagination can be holy as well. The believer can imagine reconciliation before peace. A teacher can watch in her mind's eye a struggling student succeed. A missionary can see a transformed community through the eye of faith. A parent can anticipate a child’s future and pray for it. A Christian can imagine what heaven will be like and can visualize himself sitting under the tree of life with twelve fruits for the healing of the nations, on the bank of a crystal river flowing from the throne of God, watching it empty into the celestial sea. Faith itself often sees the possibilities that are yet not visible, but submits those hopes to God’s will.

The question is not "Do I imagine?" but rather "What am I doing with my imagination?" Is it helping me love God and my neighbor, or is it training my heart to envy, lust, pride, fear, or deceit? Is it inspiring a response of faith, or fantasy without obedience?

Imagination is not in itself evil. It is a workshop of the soul. In that workshop, we can build idols, or excuses, or delusions, or we can build prayers, plans, art, compassion, or acts of faith. The Christian's task is not to destroy imagination but to bring it under the lordship of Christ. Careful interpretation is important because eisegesis can distort a partial verse into an overgeneralized doctrine that can unnecessarily burden believers and hide the fuller wisdom of Scripture.

I would love to hear your response.