IMAGINING GOD: Theology & the Religious Imagination

 in Koinonia (Journal) [Book Review] [Princeton Theological Seminary, 1992, Fall], 257-60.

                                                                                      Kyoung-Chul Jang

Concern about the imagination is not totally new these days as seen in D. Tracy's Analogical Imagination, and G. Kaufman's Theological Imagination. In proportion as imagination is being used frequently, the term "revelation" seems to become less popular. For example, Kaufman argues that "theology is an activity of human imaginative construction", and rejects a method based on the revelation of God. [Theological Imagination, p. 138] While Kaufman uses imagination as a means to devaluate revelation, G. Green tries to recover "revelation" in terms of imagination.

Green's basic thesis is that the point of contact (the AnknûÎfungspunkt) between divine revelation and human experience is located in the imagination. In developing his thesis, Green locates himself at the impasse between "natural theology" and "positivism of revelation". [cf. the debate in the 1930s between K. Barth and E. Brunner] Green links the Barth's position to reject the AnknûÎfungsfunkt with the antifoundationalism. Barth's refusal to undergird theology with a philosophical foundation is seen as an antifoundational argument that all proposals to "ground" knowledge epistemologically are based on untenable assumptions about the nature of knowledge and should therefore be rejected. [36]

On the other hand, Green does not want theology to fall into an intellectual ghetto, and thus admits the legitimacy of Brunner's insistence on the AnknûÎfungspunkt. Theology cannot avoid saying how the divine revelation becomes humanly effective. Trying to resolve this dilemma of "natural theology" or "positivism of revelation", Green argues that "conceiving the point of contact between divine revelation and human experience in terms of imagination allows us to acknowledge the priority of grace in the divinehuman relationship while at the same time allowing its dynamics to be described in analytical and comparative terms as a human religious phenomenon." [4]

Since the Enlightenment, there has been a sharp dichotomy between science and religion. Such a dichotomy has been based upon the conviction that science deals with empirical facts while religion is related to an inner world of feelings. Green rejects this restrictive view of science and religion, and the corresponding idea that anything requiring imagination must be imaginary. [77] Drawing on the insights of the new philosophy of science and of Gestalt psychology, Green shows that imagination is equally important to science as it is to religion. The central insight is that imagination plays a fundamental role in the origin and development of the natural sciences. Imagination does not have to do just with the subjective side of human experience, but is essential to the objective and factual investigation of natural phenomena as well. [44] Green speaks of significant parallels in the method for science and religion in the sense that both depend on the paradigmatic imagination. Religion and science are held formally to share the same fundamental feature, i.e., paradigmatic imagination. Hence, the modern dichotomy between these two disciplines proves false.

Green regards imagination as "the paradigmatic faculty, the ability of human beings to recognize in accessible exemplars the constitutive organizing patterns of other, less accessible and more complex objects of cognition." [66] Imagination makes accessible what would otherwise be unavailable. Green regards imagination basically as the taking of paradigms to explore the patterns of the larger world. Here Green focuses more on the receptive side rather than on the constructive side of imagination. "The religious imagination does not image God (i.e., construct some kind of picture of God) but imagines God (i.e., thinks of God according to a paradigm)." [93]

On this basis of "paradigmatic imagination", Green examines its theological implications for the Christian notions of revelation, scripture, and theology. Revelation is an act of imagination. Scripture is a work of imagination. Theology is an interpretation of imagination. For Green, the task of theology is to interpret the metaphorical language of religious life and faith, which is grounded in the Bible, its classic or paradigmatic text. [134]

Hence, for Green, theology is better described as hermeneutical than metaphorical. Here Green criticizes McFague's attempt to define theology in terms of metaphor. Green understands metaphor as an authentic use of language which makes accessible something that would otherwise lie beyond our linguistic grasp. The problem with McFague's 'metaphorical theology', argues Green, lies in its misunderstanding of the nature and function of metaphor generally and of the relation of religious language and experience in particular. According to Green, religious language is not the expression of prelinguistic religious experience, but arises out of commitment to specific religious paradigms. What is given is not a foundational experience, but a religious paradigm. The mistake of metaphorical theology, Green argues, is that it makes experience the criterion for revelation rather than the other way around.

When Green makes use of Kuhn's notion of paradigms, he knows well that his proposal could be viewed as fideistic and arbitrary. How could one adjudicate the truth claims of each paradigm? Is there a kind of 'Wittgensteinian fideism' to immunize theological assertions by treating the assertions as aspects of self-referential language games? Green argues that his proposal does not fall into fideism to assume that choices among the language games are arbitrary. Though Green defends his position by contending that paradigm changes are not arbitrary, his argument is not convincing.

The issue of fideism is closely related to the problem of rationality in theological assertions, and the epistemological criteria for it. Of course, rationality should no longer be understood in the positivistic sense of impersonal, universal validity. In theology, as in human sciences, rationality is determined contextually, has a relational character, and is paradigm-specific. [cf. Huyssteen, Theology and the Justification of Faith, xii, xv] As Green rightly says, it would be naive to expect that neutral criteria can be adduced by which to establish the reasonableness of a religious conviction. [79] But is the concept of rationality exhausted by its contextuality or paradigm-specificity? Aren't there certain criteria of rationality which are valid inter-contextually or inter-paradigmatically? Can Green show his biblically informed 'faithful imagination' to be rationally credible ways of understanding?

My second question is related to Green's understanding of imagination. Unlike Kaufman who treats the imagination as primarily constructive, Green mainly stresses its receptive dimension. I wonder whether Green has given due emphasis on its constructive power. Green treats the imagination almost exclusively as a power which takes over paradigms from other sources. Is imagination just the receptive power? Isn't there any constructing and reconstructing in the operation of imagination?

My final question is about the relationship between religious language and experience, Marshalling G. Lindbeck's cultural-linguistic insights, Green rightly criticizes several attempts to reduce religion into a prelinguistic experience. But sometimes new experiences have the ability to surprise us by contradicting our expectations, and experience is not wholly shaped by our culture and language. Isn't it healthier then to have a more dialectical understanding of the interaction between language and experience?

These questions do not mean that the reviewer finds little of value in this book. Quite the contrary. Green's book is valuable in providing us with lots of thought-provoking insights and questions. I believe that no one in systematic theology cannot afford to ignore Green's Imagining God.