Imagination, Faith and Knowledge

The Kansas City Star recently asked
Does imagination play a role in faith? Two religious leaders, a Rabbi and a Pastor, gave their answers. Here are a few clips from them:
Rabbi Levin: "Imagination does not simply play a role in faith. We could not have faith without the human imagination."

Rev. Cary: "Imagination does play a role in faith. If you can’t imagine God doing great things, wondrous things, unexpected things, impossible things, then your faith has nothing to build on; it’s limited, and so is God."
The Einstein quote above has always been a favorite.. had a poster with part of it hanging in my corporate cubicle for many years. Yet I have to admit that I have never pondered the connection between faith and imagination. Wonder what many would think if I proclaimed:
Faith is more important than knowledge.
Possibly, since I am not Einstein, people would not emblazon that on a poster with my image. Yet I think that faith, like imagination, is integral to embracing things that are not seen.. things that are yet to be. Here is the way that a spiritual Einstein put it:
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
I wonder if people who envision a universe without God simply suffer from a lack of imagination. Perhaps those who refuse to believe in miracles simply have small imaginations. Perhaps a lack of faith is simply a lack of imagination? Or possibly an imagination that refuses to embrace the unexplainable.. the things we can't know?

2 comments:

  1. makes me wonder their stories...what wounds / scars have bonded their imaginations...hope your holidays are blessed and that 2011 is filled w/Him and you continued blessings to see it. Thanks for your encouragement i would imagine those blessed to be in your physical sphere are continually blessed by it.

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  2. Here is a great Tolstoy quote from Karen on FB:

    "Materialists mistake the limits of what they see as the only thing that exists."

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