IMAGINATION

                                                                        Imagination

Imagination

Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God from 1078 runs something like, ‘God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.’ However, before our imagination starts working overtime, God Himself tells us not to have any gods before Him and not to make any images of Him ((Exo. 20:3-6). These are, of course, the first two of God’s Ten Commandments. Among the sins forbidden in the 2^nd Commandment are ‘the making any representation of God, of all or any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly…’ Westminster Larger Catechism 109. So, ‘the flying spaghetti monster’ and all other such unimaginative monstrosities blaspheming God, along with ‘Atheism, in denying or not having a God’ are barred by God. But back to Anselm. He was arguing that if the greatest possible being can exist in your mind, then it can and must therefore exist in reality. I find these kinds of arguments for God’s existence a little hard to follow. Maybe I just don’t have a good enough imagination!

God simplifies the argument for His existence by telling us that we already know that He exists. ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse’ (Rom. 1:18-20). Thus, according to God’s Word, the truth of His existence is both subjective and objective. We innately know of God in our own minds, and what we know about Him in our own minds is confirmed by the things He has made, including us. The bad news is that all of us tamp down this knowledge. We try our hardest to keep a lid on it. We do this through letting our imagination run riot either by ignoring and denying God’s existence or forging gods of our own imagination. We do this because our human nature is fallen. ‘Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols’ (Calvin).

King Nebuchadnezzar had a 27.5 metre (90 ft) tall golden idol made and commanded that everyone bow down and worship it (Dan. 3:1-12). The text doesn’t say, but some suggest that it was an image of himself. This, of course, would fit well with the Latin verb imaginari (‘to picture oneself’), from which we get the word imagination. We use our imagination to form gods in our own image and likeness. In both Old and New Testaments, the word ‘imagination’ is used to translate Hebrew and Greek words having to do with forming, moulding, weaving, framing, as in picturing thoughts.

Sometimes it is asked if God broke His own Commandments by forming humanity in His own image and likeness (Gen. 1:27). Well, first off, the 2^nd Commandment begins, ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them’ (Exo. 20:4-5a). Thus, neither God nor us (nor Nebuchadnezzar!) are to make for ourselves images to bow down and to and serve. We are to bow down to (i.e., worship) and serve only God (Matt. 4:10).

All images begin in the imagination. For the mind is where they are first made. And because God is that being than which none greater can be imagined, therefore, ‘Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves’ (Psa. 100:3a).