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 2 of 7, presented a discussion of imagination as it pertains to the discussion of this series.

Preview of this post.

This post, post number 3 of 7, discusses how man’s imagination allows him to have free will.

III. Implications of Imagination

1. Free Will^[1]

What good is an imagination unless there is a means to exercise it? For this, God gave humans free will: the ability to make a choice and to then act on that choice in an unencumbered manner. As discussed above, imagination is used to form a mental impression of the consequences and outcomes of each choice (Albert Einstein: “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”). Questions are a means for exercising the God-given imagination. Again, quoting Albert Einstein: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” In other words, free will and imagination are intertwined, and one without the other is meaningless. Imagination without free will is meaningless and pointless because we could not act on what we imagined, and free will without imagination is useless because we could not form a mental image of what might happen if a certain action is taken. Free will without imagination is merely instinct, and self-preservation instinct at that – animals have this type of free will. If we only had free will without imagination, we might be no better than the Nephilim. And the Bible tells us that God destroyed the world because of the evil ways of the Nephilim. Chaos would reign if we had free will without imagination because there would be no way to predict consequences associated with actions and actions would be taken without rhyme or reason.

Preview of the next post.

The next post, post number 4 of 7, discusses how man’s imagination allows him to have a memory which is superior to the memory of any other entity created in Genesis.

^[1] See the series “Free Will versus Predetermination” where “free will” is defined as the ability to know and achieve one’s goals and/or course of conduct absent coercion, restraint or constraint; the ability to choose between alternatives available and not be compelled to act as one would not himself choose to act or be prevented from acting as one would otherwise choose to act by the will of another man or state or any other authority.