From Mr. Schaeffer's book He is There and He is Not Silent:
"I live in a thought world which is filled with creativity; inside my head there is creative imagination. Why? Because God, who is the Creator, has made me in His own image, [and] I can go out in imagination beyond the stars. This is true not only for the Christian, but for every person. Every person is made in the image of God; therefore, no person in his or her imagination is confined to his or her own body. Going out in our imagination, we can change something of the form of the universe as a result of our thought world--in our painting, in our poetry, or as an engineer, or a gardener. Is that not wonderful? I am there, and I am able to impose the results of my imagination on the external world.
"But notice this: Being a Christian and knowing [that] God has made the external world, I know that there is an objective external reality and that there is that which is imaginary. I am not uncertain that there is an external reality which is distinct from my imagination. The Christian is free; free to fly, because he has a base upon which he need not be confused between his fantasy and the reality which God has made. We are free to say, 'This is imagination.' [...] As a Christian I have the epistemology that enables me not to get confused between what I think and what is objectively real. The modern generation does not have this, and this is the reason why some young people are all torn up in these areas. But Christians should not be torn up here.
"Thus the Christian may have fantasy and imagination without being threatened. Modern man cannot have daydreams and fantasy without being threatened. The Christian should be the person who is alive, whose imagination absolutely boils, which moves, which produces something a bit different from God's world because God made us to be creative."
"I live in a thought world which is filled with creativity; inside my head there is creative imagination. Why? Because God, who is the Creator, has made me in His own image, [and] I can go out in imagination beyond the stars. This is true not only for the Christian, but for every person. Every person is made in the image of God; therefore, no person in his or her imagination is confined to his or her own body. Going out in our imagination, we can change something of the form of the universe as a result of our thought world--in our painting, in our poetry, or as an engineer, or a gardener. Is that not wonderful? I am there, and I am able to impose the results of my imagination on the external world.
"But notice this: Being a Christian and knowing [that] God has made the external world, I know that there is an objective external reality and that there is that which is imaginary. I am not uncertain that there is an external reality which is distinct from my imagination. The Christian is free; free to fly, because he has a base upon which he need not be confused between his fantasy and the reality which God has made. We are free to say, 'This is imagination.' [...] As a Christian I have the epistemology that enables me not to get confused between what I think and what is objectively real. The modern generation does not have this, and this is the reason why some young people are all torn up in these areas. But Christians should not be torn up here.
"Thus the Christian may have fantasy and imagination without being threatened. Modern man cannot have daydreams and fantasy without being threatened. The Christian should be the person who is alive, whose imagination absolutely boils, which moves, which produces something a bit different from God's world because God made us to be creative."
1 comment:
I love this! Sometimes Schaeffer annoys me, but I think he's dead on here. Christians should have even more imagination than anyone else, because we are truly able to see the beauty in the world.
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