| March 15, 2009 | Reason and Imagination: Essential Elements in Life Reverend Jane Bramadat |
Meditation
"After a passage of time, he thinks, I am sorry, but I wish you would just explain and stop speaking in riddles.
On your planet you have an animal called a bear. It is a large animal, sometimes larger than you, and it is clever and has ingenuity, and it has a brain as large as yours. But the bear differs from you in one important way. It cannot perform the activity you call imagining. It cannot make mental images of how reality might be. It cannot envision what you call the past and what you call the future. This special ability of imagination is what has made your species as great as it is. Nothing else. It is not your ape nature, not your tool-using nature, or your social groupings. It is none of these things, which are all found in other animals. Your greatness lies in imagination.
The ability to imagine is the largest part of what you call intelligence. You think the ability to imagine is merely a useful step on the way to solving a problem or making something happen. But imagining is what makes it happen.
This is the gift of your species and this is the danger, because you do not choose to control your imaginings. You imagine wonderful things and you imagine terrible things, and you take no responsibility for the choice. You say you have inside [of] you both the power of good and the power of evil, the angel and the devil, but in truth you have just one thing inside you - the ability to imagine.
I hope you enjoyed this speech, which I plan to give at the next meeting of the American Association of Psychologists and Social Workers which is meeting in Houston in March. I feel it will be quite well received..
What? he thinks, startled.
Who did you think you were talking to? God?
Who is this? he thinks.
You, of course."
( from a Michael Crichton book.. “Sphere” )
Sermon
This morning I want to share some thoughts with you about two stalwart religious friends of ours - reason and imagination - friends of all who find challenge and support on the path of liberal religion. It is quite possible that they are also friends to a wider circle than liberal religion, but I leave it to someone else to deal with that topic. I also intend, this morning, to show some ways in which reason and imagination are linked--that they are twin stars shining with equal force and both are illuminated by the mind.
Where would we be without reason, without thinking logically? It is the very center of our faith...in fact we could very well say that for us, without reason there can be no faith. One of our 19th Century theologians William Ellery Channing called reason "that divine germ" and commented that "reason cannot satisfy itself with observing what exists, but seeks to explore its origin." We must understand as much as possible, we religious liberals. Now, I must admit to being somewhat uncomfortable with thinking of reason as a 'germ' whether divine or not. But I guess germs are an inevitable part of human existence and if you've got to have them, I'd rather keep a lot of the 'reason' germs on the hypothesis that there may not be room for other kinds of less attractive possibilities like the 'fear' germ or the 'closed mind' germ.
Now while my intention is to praise both reason and imagination as sentinels for religious liberals, we need to be aware of the pitfalls of putting all our reliance on any or life’s characteristics.
For example, from an essay on 'reason and authority in liberal religion' the Reverend Sarah Moores Campbell says:
"An important aspect of our liberal heritage is the application of [the] scientific method to our inquiries regarding what claims ultimate reality and ultimate value for us. Employing 'the primacy of thought over feeling,' liberals rely chiefly upon reason to arrive at 'objective truth.' ...
...The primacy of intellect or of reason characterizes liberal religion. Without this attention of the value of questioning the claims of revelation, inspiration, and tradition, we would not be able to call ourselves liberal. Historically this has meant that inspiration and revelation must be tried by reason to elicit truth. What has developed among liberals however, particularly during the past century, is a reliance upon reason, not only as a mechanism for evaluation and inspiration...but also as the instrument of scientific method which has, in its reductionist division of evidence into subjective and objective categories, somehow related all non-rational and unverifiable phenomena such as revelation, spiritual wisdom, and intuitive experience into the pejorative realm of the unreal. Thus, in the hands of science reason becomes ... an instrument for determining an objective reality based exclusively upon sensory evidence ... The primacy of reason has degenerated into the employment of intellect as the only human faculty authoritative in matters of truth [my underlining-jmrb], as what is true becomes reduced to what is 'real' and what is real becomes reduced to what is objectively verifiable."
So, let us be careful about leaning too heavily on that which is simply or perhaps even simplistically 'objectively verifiable,' but let us also not throw out reason as a major part of our religious centrepiece. Many of us found our way to the Unitarian Universalist faith stance because previously our intellects had been insulted by the insistence of different religious traditions that being in two or three places at the same time, virgin births, walking on or parting the waters, or attaining heaven by the commitment of acts of violence and brutality were all factual realities. These events or acts were to be believed at the level of objective truth if our souls (and the hint was strong - our bodies as well) were to be saved.
Even though we did accord power and empowerment to myths and legends and creative metaphors, we felt certain for a long time that this was not the same as (nor as good as) any kind of objective truth.
But eventually, we finally came to understand that it was possible not to abandon reason and logic and yet still be able to celebrate the manifold mysteries that life presents to us in many forms.
Using reason enables us to think sensibly and in an orderly fashion; it encourages us to differentiate between a variety of words, thoughts and actions; it helps us to live up to our commitments and our ideals. It is a method we use to sort out workable ideas and concepts from other ideas and concepts; it is like a valve that controls how much blood will course through our bodies - it checks up on systems and works to keep them in safe and appropriate running order.
Immanuel Kant is one of the major philosophers who gave reason its big billing. He posited three types of reason: theoretical, speculative and practical. Theoretical and speculative reason were 'pure' reason and could not know matters of eternal truth - matters like God and immortality. They could only draw up theories and speculate as to what those theories could mean. Practical reason on the other hand must at least attempt to understand such things because it has the task of determining the legitimacy of one's acts and words - that is, do our acts and words mean anything? Kant went even further and said that reason is the 'highest good on earth.'
I guess it depends on what kind of reason one is discussing. If it is “brittle rationalism of classical religious humanism.....[which] no longer has the power to move the human heart” as one of my colleagues puts it, David Bumbaugh..The Heart of a Faith for the Twenty-First Century) then it won’t do.
If it is the reason that 'arrives at objective truth, through the scientific method becoming an instrument for determining an objective reality based exclusively on sensory evidence' (in Sara Campbell's terms) ...if it is that kind of reason (what Kant would call Practical Reason), I think we need it, but it is not (for me) the highest good on earth.
Kant, of course, was not only talking about that sort of reason. Part of what Kant saw as reason was what he called the active, creative, constructive power of the knowing mind, a power that acts upon the senses in a way that organises perception, unifies and creates the categories of interpretation; a part that was the free composing activity of the mind, essential to all perception and to the power of the mind to hypothesize. This part of reason Kant called imagination.
But even though Kant had given imagination a place of much importance, in his constellation of reason he still did not allow it to have a central role in practical reason - and that's the part of reason that deals with moral choice and action, the part that tries to figure out life's meanings. And I believe this to be an essential part.
So, it is also a good feeling to be able to move beyond Kant in this discussion and to do it in the company of a one-time Unitarian minister. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was much taken with Kant's identification of imagination as the composing activity of the mind. But he was not satisfied to leave it there. For Coleridge, imagination is the highest power of Reason. It is the power within reason by which the contradictions of understanding are transcended and the oneness of reason is accomplished.
For Coleridge, Reason was powerless without the completing, unifying, transcending activity brought about by the imagination - the power of shaping our thoughts, our intuition into one - into a wholeness.
It seems to me that one of the important life tasks we are each given is to move toward wholeness. To do this we need to make use of all aspects of our mental faculties. Imagination I would see as being the creative faculty of the mind, that mental activity by which we envision improvements on what presently is. Perhaps it is even what Michael Crichton's character calls the quality that most defines us as human and gives such great potential for both good and evil to our species. These images are not controlled or contained by what is known through the five senses - rather they are free to embroider on empirical reality or even start from a different reality altogether.
Some of you may be familiar with the historical series that has been tracing humankind's early steps on earth - Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear and Valley of the Horses. While there is solid research behind the books, for the most part they are the author's imaginings of what could have been. They push at the edges of our scanty factual knowledge and paint a picture of 'perhaps.'
Even when we have full factual knowledge and a good dollop of objective truth, imagination can be used to re-arrange the information; creating different directions in which the existing knowledge can expand. Many of today's technological advances happened because someone sat down and let his or her imagination flow ... what would it be like if .......
We fall into a trap of our own devising, it seems to me, if we think that imagination is not powerful. If, for example, we think of imagination as just producing silly stories or dreams or metaphors. ...If we think it isn't real like a number or a cow or the sound of someone coughing. It is sad when we trap ourselves this way, because stories and dreams and metaphors are as real as numbers, cows or coughing . They speak of hopes and fears and needs and separation and fulfillment. They produce images in our mind's eye that become part of our motivations and our yearnings.... they help us to have the courage to try again, to reach out past what our five senses experience.
Here is a delightful children's poem that expresses the frustration that one child has with others who do not use their imagination.
One Day When We Went Walking
One day when we went walking
I found a dragon's tooth,
A dreadful dragon's tooth.
"A locust thorn," said Ruth.
One day when we went walking,
I found a Brownie's shoe,
A brownie's button shoe
"An old pea pod," said Sue.
One day when we went walking
I found a mermaid's fan,
a merry mermaid's fan.
"A scallop shell," said Dan.
One day when we went walking
I found a fairy's dress,
A fairy's flannel dress.
"A mullein leaf," said Bess.
Next time that I go walking
Unless I meet an elf,
A funny, friendly elf,
I'm going by myself.
by Valine Hobbs (1947) found in a REACH packet (1988)
How sad it is if we make the mistake of thinking that being adult and mature means having to give up your imagination. Imagination pictures the past, present and future in technicolour instead of the black and while our reason allows. Imagination is the 'play' of the mind without which Jack and Jane become dull, one-dimensional creatures. Imagination becomes the faith that can move mountains.
My words may have suggested to you that I think reason, as an analytical tool, is useless, that we should all sit around just 'imagining' a better job, better relationships, a better religious community, a better web of existence. Of course not - just imagine what would happen if a bank decided to 'imagine’ what figures represented the bank's correct assets [or those in our own personal account], or an engineer to 'imagine' how many supports were needed to correctly counter a bridge's stress points. I don’t think so....
No, there is use and need for both imagination and reason. But we need a better balance so that both reason and imagination are nourished and appreciated. UU minister Joe Barth once said, "a saw can be used as a hammer and a hammer as a saw, but we make better furniture when each tool is used correctly." Without reason we have chaos and confusion, without imagination we have uncaring, regimented survival.
Because we Unitarian Universalists have worked so hard to establish analytical reason as part of the centerpiece of our religious faith, we will need determination and even stubbornness to coax imagination to find a permanent place amongst us. Perhaps we can bear in mind that last line of Wordsworth's poem, "The Glory of Imagination" in which he is acknowledging the need for both reason and imagination...."The eye distinguishes, the soul creates." We must see clearly with the mind and also hear clearly the music of the world waiting to be sung by our souls into creation.
I ask you now to think clearly during this next week about how often you use reason; and how often , imagination. Is it an effort or a celebration for you?
These two stalwart and equal-value friends of our liberal religion are found within each of us and so they are accessible to everyone at every minute of every day. May their friendship enliven your journey, may their presence be a source of both challenge and comfort to you.
What is left that needs to be said? It seems to me it is now reasonable for you to expect this sermon to be over...so just imagine this sermon finished...and so it shall be.
Closing Words
May reason and imagination always be used to move us beyond the contradictions of understanding and on to a place where analysis and synthesis, love and courage are all part of an indivisible whole.
May it follow that what our eyes do distinguish, our souls will create.
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