Imagination and the Playfulness of God

The Theological Implications of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Definition of the Human Imagination

Stockitt

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781498271165
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The human imagination is a reflection of and a participation in the divine imagination; so mused the romantic poet, philosopher and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His thinking was intuitive, dense, obscure, brilliant, and deeply influenced by German philosophy. This book explores the development of his philosophical theology with particular reference to the imagination, examining the diverse streams that contributed to the originality of his thought. The second section of this book extrapolates his thinking into areas into which Coleridge did not venture. If God is intrinsically imaginative, then how is this manifested? Can we articulate a theology of the ontology of God that is framed in imaginative and creative terms? Drawing on the groundbreaking work of Huizinga on 'play,' this study seeks to develop a theological understanding of God's playfulness.

Part 1

Coleridge and the Human Imagination

chapter 1

Introduction

Why theologize about the imagination? Why take something as beautiful, mysterious, creative, and wild as the human imagination and subject it to intellectual scrutiny? Surely its very essence resists taming; it needs the freedom to roam our mental and spiritual spaces where it can dream, pretend, play, and create, unchecked by rules or convention? Are we not in danger of the very interference, against which William Wordsworth warned in his poem “The Tables Turned ”?1

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:

We murder to dissect.

My hope is that this book will not murder this precious gift of God—for that is what the imagination is—but rather it will seek to understand and appreciate its power, significance, and function more fully. I begin therefore with the familiar account of the meeting between the prophet Nathan and King David,2 occasioned by the act of adultery that David had committed with Bathsheba. Here is a cameo portrait of the imagination in action, par excellence. In order to facilitate a genuine act of repentance Nathan visits the king and recounts a tale.

The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”

Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.”

I begin with this extraordinary narrative for it opens up a number of significant questions concerning the nature and function of the imagination in the divine human encounter.

The approach adopted by Nathan in order to expedite David’s repentance is an oblique one. He does not confront David head-on with his misdeeds, but adopts a narrative style that, by its very nature, demands much of both the speaker and the listener. Nathan is highly imaginative in his storytelling skills for he is required to perfect his art in such a way that the imagination of the listener is fully engaged. As the story is told, David, the listener, is required to enter into the story imaginatively as a passive observer of the protagonists. Yet as the tale unfolds this passive observation gradually metamorphoses into a far more active engagement. David’s participation becomes so intense that in his furious reaction to the tale, he appears to be barely able to distinguish fiction from reality. “David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!’” This “entering in” on the part of David is crucial for the success of Nathan’s venture. Without David’s complicit participation in the act of storytelling the narrative intention would fail, for his participation is dependent upon his capacity both to imagine and truly inhabit the story. David listens with intense interest but is unable on his own to configure the meaning of the tale. His indignation is aroused but Nathan’s work is not yet done. His concluding task is to reconfigure the parable enabling David to connect the narrative of the two sheep farmers with the narrative of his own life. A synthesis occurs and it is at this very moment of synthesis that a new paradigm of perception is reached. David is enabled, through the prophetic skill of Nathan, to align the story of the two farmers with his own autobiography. It is a short step from there to a place of genuine repentance.

This mutual giving and receiving within the imaginative realm is suggestive perhaps of a broader principle, namely, that the way in which humankind receives any kind of divine revelation rests upon the usage of imaginative paradigms of perceptual reception. David arrived at a new understanding of truth, albeit the truth about himself and his relationship to God, through the process of imaginative encounter. Far from being drawn towards a fictional reality, his sudden sense of conviction about the true nature of his own condition stemmed entirely from his ability to inhabit the story that was being recounted to him. This points to the possibility that the imagination can be construed as the Anknupfungspunkt—the point of contact—of divine human interaction.

But the narrative from 2 Sam 12 quoted above raises further questions about the very ontology of God. Nathan comes to David in his capacity as a prophet of the Lord and dares to speak the word of the Lord to David. The form of this divine human communication, couched in a highly imaginative narrative, can legitimately be described as “playful.” Nathan effectively entices David into the story, much as a fisherman entices fish to a hook. Once David has accepted the bait, he feels the full impact of the prophetic word. Nathan in effect “plays” with David, but with a highly serious intent, namely to bring about the repentance of the King. In so doing, he embarks on a risky venture for he cannot be sure of the outcome and potentially puts his own life in danger.

If Nathan is communicating something of the mind and character of God during this encounter, t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Part One: Coleridge and the Human Imagination
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Formative Influences on Coleridge’s Views Concerning the Imagination
• Chapter 3: Coleridge’s Definition of the Imagination
• Chapter 4: Key Features of Coleridge’s View of the Imagination
• Part Two: Imagination and the Playfulness of God
• Chapter 5: Imagination and the Ontology of God
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography