Abstract
In my contribution to this special issue (under the title “Religions and Languages: A Polyphony of Faiths”), I draw attention to the topic of the imagination at the interface of modern science and Christian theology. The paper entertains in critical perspective the notion that language (understood broadly as any type of formalized assertive expression) divides, while the imagination (defined here broadly as inventive re-enactment of the world in a human mind) unites. While the paper is intended to be explorative, a clear thesis emerges: in its commitment to consilience, Christian theology is directed to the imagination under the pressure of the pluralizing effects of a reason that is constrained by language.
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Notes
I thank Menachem Fisch for a most fruitful exchange on this matter.
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Acknowledgements
I certainly feel thankful for the invitation by Andrea Vestrucci to contribute to this special issue of Sophia (under the title “Religions and Languages: A Polyphony of Faiths”). I am also extremely grateful for comments on an earlier version of this paper that I received from two anonymous referees, and Tom McLeish, whose work I am using in this paper to facilitate some of my discussion. Andrea Vestrucci had solicited a response from Tom McLeish to my initial submission, and received permission to share it with me. In that response, McLeish makes it unequivocally clear that—while feeling honored to find his work discussed alongside Bronowski’s—he is unhappy that I am ascribing to him the view that the imagination has the potential to counteract diversity that arises at the level of ‘language’ in relation to the interaction of modern science and Christian theology. I have benefitted greatly from McLeish’s feedback, and I am extremely grateful that he took the time to respond. It provided me with the opportunity to clarify my reasoning in the “The Imagination and Wisdom” section of this paper. In short, I guess I am at a loss how McLeish can uphold his ambitious project of a natural philosophy that connects past, present, and future of science and theology within a Christian framework, and yet resist my suggestion that the imagination is a locus of unification in his work. Of course, it is entirely possible that I misunderstand McLeish, but his response has not persuaded me that I do. Still, McLeish’s feedback has guided me to make many substantial changes that I hope have improved the paper as much as the revisions that I undertook in consideration of the extremely helpful comments by the two anonymous reviewers.
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Fehige, Y. Divided by Language, but United in the Imagination?. SOPHIA 61, 61–77 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-021-00897-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-021-00897-7