Your Imagination Needs a Baptism
Faith and Imagination
I’m working to establish a steady rhythm in my writing. From now on, Wednesday’s essays will focus on Scripture—its meaning, engagement, and practical application.
1 Corinthians 2:9–11 (ESV)
“But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”
Imagination is the human capacity to bring into consciousness things that are not presently observable. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith for the believer: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith and imagination are closely related.
There is an atheistic worldview prevalent today which asserts that only what can be observed in the material universe is real. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, “If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.” Yet in practice, this worldview is inconsistent. No atheist has personally seen billions of years of evolutionary change or the Big Bang itself — they accept these by a kind of faith.
Hebrews 11:3 says, “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.” If I were to rewrite this to match the secular mindset, it might read: “By faith we understand that the universe was created by random chance, so that what is made… came from somewhere, somehow, right?”
Faith and Everyday Imagination
Imagination is our ability to form an internal picture of what we cannot presently see. Sometimes it depicts fictional events. Sometimes it depicts reality, but separated from us by space, time, or dimension.
For example, “by faith” I breathe, and I can picture tiny oxygen molecules mixed with nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and various pollutants entering my lungs. I imagine my lungs filtering out the harmful elements and delivering oxygen to my blood, which carries it to my heart and the rest of my body. I have never personally seen this process inside me, especially not at the microscopic level, yet I believe it — and my imagination fills in the picture.
Faith Confirmed, Yet Still Faith
As a believer, I have seen many things with my own eyes and experienced much that confirms my faith. Yet every word of the Bible is still something I ultimately receive by faith — faith confirmed by experience, philosophy, science, history, and the testimony of saints both near and far.
I am not inventing Scripture when I imagine its scenes. Rather, based on the data of the text, history, and the Spirit’s witness, I construct mental pictures of what I read. This happens subconsciously for most of us. We all imagine when we read. Yet only by the Holy Spirit can we imagine rightly — seeing what is truly there and grasping it as God intended.
Imagining Heaven
In Heaven, Randy Alcorn observes that Christians have often strayed from a biblical view of our eternal home. He argues that a Spirit-baptized imagination allows us to see what God has revealed and believe it.
Alcorn sets parameters for imagining Heaven: if something was part of God’s original creation, and it is not sinful, then we may rightly expect its fulfillment in the renewed creation. That means we can imagine athletics without rivalry, exploration without danger — even the possibility of venturing into the far reaches of space. Only by a faith baptized imagination are these things possible to see. We do not anticipate these beautiful possible gifts to be an ends in of themselves but as a means of glorifying God and praising him.
Jesus and the Power of Short Stories
In today’s publishing world, “flash fiction” refers to stories under 1,000 words. Jesus used something very similar in His parables — short, vivid narratives that stick in the heart and spark the imagination.
He intended His listeners to picture them in their minds, to see the Good Samaritan lifting the beaten man, the sower scattering seed, the prodigal son running into his father’s embrace. He often ended with a call: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15).
Our Imagination in Christ
In Christ, imagination is redeemed. By faith, we now see with spiritual eyes. By faith, we now hear with spiritual ears. By faith, we now imagine with hearts renewed by the Spirit.
We imagine not as idle dreamers, but as those who know that “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined… God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). And by the Spirit, it has been revealed to us.
Conclusion:
Faith and imagination are not enemies — in fact, they are companions. Faith is grounded in God’s Word; imagination enables us to picture His promises. The secular mind may scoff at believing what cannot be seen, yet all of us live by unseen realities every day. The difference for the Christian is that what we imagine is anchored in God’s truth, illuminated by His Spirit, and destined to be fulfilled in His time.