Imagination
The Call: Prayer Impressions — Cheryl
In his introduction to Beauty Will Save the World, Gregory Wolfe shares his thoughts on a book written by John W. O’Malley, SJ, called The Four Cultures of the West:
O’Malley rightly stresses that the differences and clashes between the four cultures are not always about content. They are in many ways about style, about forms of thought and discourse. The classic example he uses is the debate between Erasmus and Luther on free will. The two men shared many ideas, including a passion for reforming the church, and yet the clash between them was not merely ideas. Luther spoke in the language of prophetic absolutes, while Erasmus the humanist preferred caution, nuance, and ambiguity—the accumulation of many small truths, rendered beautiful by art, to the monolithically proclaimed truth (p. xii).
Doctrine has its place, but beauty is more likely to touch the heart and soul, and that’s where imagination comes into play.