Imagination and the Mind of Man

This series of posts explores how imagination is connected to the development of man’s mind and how imagination has provided man’s mind with capabilities that exceed the capabilities of the minds of other entities created in Genesis thereby enabling man to “master the earth” (Gen 1:28) and be master over the other entities created in Genesis.

Review of the previous post.

The previous post, post number 1 of 7, introduced the study.

Preview of the post.

This is post number 2 of 7 and presents a discussion of “imagination” as it pertains to the instant discussion.

1. Discussion of Imagination

We can only know what our senses tell us, anything else requires imagination: imagination begins where the senses end^[1]. Acting on imagined events can be related to the probability of those events occurring. Merely because we cannot sense something directly does not, per se, mean we cannot imagine it to a probability that is high enough for us to accept and use the imagined event or object as though it were an actual event or object. For example, while we cannot know that man existed on earth thousands of years ago because we cannot sense this long-ago event with our senses; however, we see evidence of such existence that is sufficient to place the probability of man’s existence thousands of years ago high enough for us to accept it.

However, we must not confuse observations of results associated with an event with the event itself and we should not believe that our observations of the results are the required observations of the actual event or object. An example of this is the creation of our universe^[2]. We know the universe started – we are here. Both science and religion agree that the universe started. Where science and religion disagree is what happened before the start and what engendered the start. Another area of disagreement between science and religion is centered on this event as well. Science believes that we have sufficient data to use our imagination to determine what happened at and after that event and such data is sufficient for our needs so what occurred before that event is only necessary as it pertains to and affects our present needs and understanding; whereas, religion believes that we do not have sufficient data to imagine what happened at, and especially before, the event and thus must use faith, and what happened before that event is worth considering on its own merits.

If we attempt to imagine what occurred before the creation of the universe, we may be attempting, at least from the viewpoint of religion, to imagine God. A mental impression of God must be gained either through imagination or through faith. God cannot be imagined through use of our senses, nor do we have any objective basis from which to build such an imagined impression. Certainly, the Hebrew Bible forbids trying to form a mental impression of God as do many other religions. However, even further than a flat prohibition from the Bible, there are reasons for not doing this. If we could sense God, it could be argued that that would diminish Him to our level. While He might be viewed as some sort of superhuman with superhuman powers, that would merely make the difference between God and man a quantitative difference, and not a qualitative difference. The skills of Leontyne Price, Itzhak Perlman, and Pablo Picasso are all quantitatively different from the rest of us and might be the result of evolution. God simply cannot be placed in this category. Furthermore, if we could sense God, we might be able to know God. It might be extrapolated that if we were able to know God, eventually we would learn enough to be equal to God, and our evolution would stop.

Imagination is what set and sets, man apart from all the other creations of Genesis. As stated by Albert Einstein: ““Genius is 99% imagination, 1% intelligence”; “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination”.

Preview of the next post

The next post, post number 3 of 7, presents a discussion of how man’s imagination allows him to have free will.

^[1] And, it might be argued, faith begins where imagination ends.

^[2] This is further discussed below and in other series see for example, the series on God.