Imagination and the Playfulness of God: The Theological Implications of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Definition of the Human Imagination

By Robin Stockitt and Christoph Schwöbel

The human imagination is a reflection of and a participation in the divine imagination; so mused the romantic poet, philosopher and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His thinking was intuitive, dense, obscure, brilliant, and deeply influenced by German philosophy. This book explores the development of his philosophical theology with particular reference to the imagination, examining the diverse streams that contributed to the originality of his thought. The second section of this book extrapolates his thinking into areas into which Coleridge did not venture. If God is intrinsically imaginative, then how is this manifested? Can we articulate a theology of the ontology of God that is framed in imaginative and creative terms? Drawing on the groundbreaking work of Huizinga on 'play,' this study seeks to develop a theological understanding of God's playfulness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: May 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781498271165

Robin Stockitt

Robin Stockitt is the minister of the Anglican Church in Freiburg, Germany. He is the author of Open to the Spirit: Ignatius of Loyola and John Wimber in Dialogue (2000) and Imagination and the Playfulness of God: The Theological Implications of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Definition of the Human Imagination (2011).

Book preview

Imagination and the Playfulness of God

The Theological Implications of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Definition of the Human Imagination

Robin Stockitt

49268.png

IMAGINATION AND THE PLAYFULNESS OF GOD

The Theological Implications of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Definition of the Human Imagination

Distinguished Dissertations in Christian Theology 6

Copyright © 2011 Robin Stockitt. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Pickwick Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

isbn 13: 978-1-61097-347-2

eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-7116-5

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Stockitt, Robin.

Imagination and the playfulness of God : the theological implications of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s definition of the human imagination / Robin Stockitt, with a foreword by Christoph Schwöbel.

Distinguished Dissertations in Christian Theology 6

xiv + 186 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references.

isbn 13: 978-1-61097-347-2

1. Imagination—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Imagination. 3. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772–1834—Criticism and interpretation. 4. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772–1834—Religion. 5. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772–1834—Philosophy. 6. God (Christianity)—Attributes. I. Schwöbel, Christoph. II. Title. III. Series.

BR115.16 S70 2011

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Distinguished Dissertations in Christian Theology

¶

Series Foreword

We are living in a vibrant season for academic Christian theology. After a hiatus of some decades, a real flowering of excellent systematic and moral theology has emerged. This situation calls for a series that showcases the contributions of newcomers to this ongoing and lively conversation. The journal Word & World: Theology for Christian Ministry and the academic society Christian Theological Research Fellowship (CTRF) are happy to cosponsor this series together with our publisher Pickwick Publications (an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers). Both the CTRF and Word & World are interested in excellence in academics but also in scholarship oriented toward Christ and the Church. The volumes in this series are distinguished for their combination of academic excellence with sensitivity to the primary context of Christian learning. We are happy to present the work of these young scholars to the wider world and are grateful to Luther Seminary for the support that helped make it possible.

Alan G. Padgett

Professor of Systematic Theology

Luther Seminary

Beth Felker Jones

Assistant Professor of Theology

Wheaton College

www.ctrf.info

www.luthersem.edu/word&world

For

Joni, Anna, Jonny, and Caz

Foreword

Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 1772 – 1834 ), poet, philosopher, translator, literary critic, opium addict, and amateur theologian, is one of the most enigmatic and fascinating figures in the history of Christian thought. A genius of receptivity, he could appropriate ideas from a seemingly unlimited diversity of sources, process them through the labyrinthine capacities of his mind, adapt them relentlessly to the self-reflective dynamics of his personal experience, and reproduce them in novel and imaginative combinations in a sprit of creative spontaneity. The world of his thought and writing is at the same time characterised by a bewildering multi-layered complexity, often prima facie contradictory, and an unstoppable desire for unity and dynamic harmony, relating the One and the Many in novel and surprising schemes of polyphonic integration. Eclectic to the point of outright plagiarism, Coleridge’s recombination of appropriated sources reveals an astonishing originality. While in his poetry the sheer abundance of ideas and images could be tamed by poetic form and a unique atmospheric density, in his prose writings the reader must be prepared to follow his aids to reflection along the circuitous route of tiresome detours and surprising short cuts, often ending in intellectual cul des sacs, only to be surprised by liberating escape routes from the maze—true occasions of the ekstasis of the mind. A nightmare for an orderly associationist like David Hartley, whose philosophy and psychology Coleridge at one period embraced, his writings can offer disclosure experiences for those who are prepared to follows Coleridge’s uncompromisingly inquiring spirit until one can discern systematic patterns in the consistently unsystematic modes of reflection.

If one looks at the sources he appropriated, Coleridge’s philosophy appears at first as a remarkably random collection of ideas, freely combining classical Neo-Platonism with theses from empiricist philosophy and various forms of transcendental idealism, gleaned from Kant and the German Idealists. If one turns one’s view to the logic of development in the writings themselves as well as in the overall route of Coleridge’s philosophical thinking, and attempts not to grasp his thought but to follow the meandering route of his thinking, patterns emerge and insights can be gained. Like its often-chaotic inception, the reception of Coleridge’s thought has been ambiguous. What appears to some as the random imaginings of a mind befuddled by opium, reveals itself to others as an imaginatively ordered cosmos in the dynamics of Coleridge’s intellectual and spiritual development.

Coleridge’s theology is equally perplexing. Born as the son of the vicar of Ottery St. Mary, educated at Christ’s Hospital in Greyfriars, London, and Jesus College, Cambridge, Coleridge was for a time attracted to Unitarianism, even standing in for the Rev. Joshua Toulmin in taking services at Mary Street Unitarian Chapel at Taunton. Deeper reflection led him to a staunch defence of orthodox trinitarian doctrine, however, often by rather unorthodox routes. Similarly, Coleridge could argue for a strong view of the authority of the Scripture, while approaching it with an equally strong free approach to its interpretation, warranted, for him, so its seems, by the content of Scripture itself. The outcome is what could be termed imaginative orthodoxy, often moving in its spiritual depth and demanding in its high-flying speculative elaboration.

With this book Robin Stockitt offers a Guide for the Perplexed to the perplexing world of Coleridge’s theological thinking. Choosing as his approach the central notion of the imagination, he traces this trajectory through the development of Coleridge’s thinking, underlining the links by which the imagination is related to the other elements in the rampantly fertile forest of Coleridge’s world of ideas. Submitted and accepted as a doctoral dissertation for the degree of Dr. theol. in the Faculty of Protestant Theology at Tübingen University, the book unearths the different strata of influences on Coleridge’s view of the imagination, notably the influence of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Schiller, whose drama Wallenstein he also translated. The German influence is compared and contrasted to the influence of Hartley and Plotinus, thereby emphasising many connections between Neo-Platonism and German Idealism which have been a prominent feature both of the history of reception of neo-platonic thought and of the presuppositions of idealist systems in recent research.

This provides the backdrop for a skilful and economic presentation of Coleridge’s views on the dynamics of imagination, relating it to the rationalist strand of reflection on reason and to the empiricist engagement with perception and experience, overcoming the shortcomings of both traditions. Stockitt offers a clear and sympathetic account of Coleridge’s view of the imagination which he describes fittingly as God’s co-worker on earth, both mirroring and sharing in the activity of the Divine, providing the ground for Coleridge’s thesis of the consubstantiality of the symbol with the divine reality it conveys in symbolic form. This presentation of Coleridge’s views on the imagination is a rare achievement in the interpretation of a writer whose thought becomes lucid only by grappling with the apparent obscurities of its expression.

Yet, this is not just another study in critical intellectual history but also an exercise in constructive systematic theology. What, Stockitt asks, might happen if one approached conventional theological questions concerning the nature of the being of God through the lens of the imagination? How would the ontology of God have to be conceived if the imagination in the created realm is the mirror of God’s own imagination expressed in the creative agency of God. How does the imaginative playfulness of God, displayed in the free response to the events in a contingent creation, relate to the inner Being of God which Coleridge understood as the Trinity, conceived as the Idea Idearum, the dynamic enactment of the One and the Many in the perichoretic relationships of the three persons? Is the Trinity thus the root of the dynamic interplay between the three persons in their immanent relations and in the imaginative engagement with creation in the economic relations?

Robin Stockitt explores the theological inspirations offered by Coleridge constructively and suggestively, offering an account of the playfulness of God which seeks firm scriptural foundation and, at the same time, employs the wealth of scriptural images to develop an understanding of God who in his trinitarian being and in his interrelations with the world is not merely good for something but beautiful in himself, a God who is not in need of rational justification because he is his own purpose, true to himself as the Eternal Self-Affirmant (OM Lxxiv). To engage with the imaginative engagement of this God with his creation requires creaturely imagination, which Coleridge defined as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM (BL, 202). Following the route of theological imagination one can understand creation as the imaginative letting be of creatures other than God, capable of responding to him. Even in the Incarnation and in the cross and resurrection of Christ one can detect the element of divine playfulness, misleading and overcoming the powers of evil in the liberation of the Son of God from death through the actualisation of new life freely granted by the eternal I AM. The victory of the playfulness of God over the deadly serious and seriously deadly powers of evil is celebrated by the risus paschalis, the laughter of the Christian church at Easter, joyfully echoing God’s victory over death, the ultimate enemy. This victory opens up new vistas into the life of the kingdom of God, the consummated community of God with his liberated creation when playful enjoyment and joyful celebration will take the place of strenuous work, pain and tears.

Theologically daring, as Robin Stockitt’s exploration appears at times, it is always conducted in a spirit of responsibility to the subject-matter of theological reflection and to the believing community whose life is enriched by the vision of a God who freely invites his human images to join in the play of divine goodness, truth, and beauty, overcoming the captivity of finite minds in the ugly and self-seeking addiction of self-deception in estrangement from God. The style of writing reflects Robin Stockitt’s background in missionary work, in the world of education, and in the pastoral ministry. The result is a very readable book, inviting its readers to follow Coleridge’s own invitation to explore faithfully and playfully the vision of an imaginative trinitarian God.

Christoph Schwöbel

Tübingen, Palm Sunday 2011

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the following people:

Professor Christoph Schwöbel for being so willing to become my Doktorvater and offering me encouragement in pursuing this project; Professor Jeremy Begbie for being my door-opener so often; George Norwood for his patience in helping me with Hebrew and Greek; Martin Hermann for helping me to put the manuscript in some kind of order; Dr. Martin Wendte for guiding me through the mysteries of Tübingen University; Dr. Nick Zair for coaching me in Latin; Professor Trevor Hart for unwittingly inspiring me to take an interest in the imagination; Sheila Scheer for help with German translations; my family for believing in me; and the wonderful community at the Anglican Church in Freiburg for patiently and enthusiastically listening to me, as many of the ideas contained in this book were first offered to them.

Robin Stockitt

Abbreviations

Works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

AR Aids to Reflection

BL Biographia Literaria, Vols. 1 and 2

CL Collected Letters

CN The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

CIS Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

LL Lectures on Literature 1808–1819

LS Lay Sermons

OM Opus Maximum

PL The Philosophical Lectures

PW The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

SM The Statesman’s Manual

TF The Friend

TT Table Talk

Part 1

Coleridge and the Human Imagination

chapter 1

Introduction

Why theologize about the imagination? Why take something as beautiful, mysterious, creative, and wild as the human imagination and subject it to intellectual scrutiny? Surely its very essence resists taming; it needs the freedom to roam our mental and spiritual spaces where it can dream, pretend, play, and create, unchecked by rules or convention? Are we not in danger of the very interference, against which William Wordsworth warned in his poem " The Tables Turned "? ¹

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:

We murder to dissect.

My hope is that this book will not murder this precious gift of God—for that is what the imagination is—but rather it will seek to understand and appreciate its power, significance, and function more fully. I begin therefore with the familiar account of the meeting between the prophet Nathan and King David,² occasioned by the act of adultery that David had committed with Bathsheba. Here is a cameo portrait of the imagination in action, par excellence. In order to facilitate a genuine act of repentance Nathan visits the king and recounts a tale.

The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.

Then Nathan said to David, You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’

Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD.

Nathan replied, The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.

I begin with this extraordinary narrative for it opens up a number of significant questions concerning the nature and function of the imagination in the divine human encounter.

The approach adopted by Nathan in order to expedite David’s repentance is an oblique one. He does not confront David head-on with his misdeeds, but adopts a narrative style that, by its very nature, demands much of both the speaker and the listener. Nathan is highly imaginative in his storytelling skills for he is required to perfect his art in such a way that the imagination of the listener is fully engaged. As the story is told, David, the listener, is required to enter into the story imaginatively as a passive observer of the protagonists. Yet as the tale unfolds this passive observation gradually metamorphoses into a far more active engagement. David’s participation becomes so intense that in his furious reaction to the tale, he appears to be barely able to distinguish fiction from reality. David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!’ This entering in on the part of David is crucial for the success of Nathan’s venture. Without David’s complicit participation in the act of storytelling the narrative intention would fail, for his participation is dependent upon his capacity both to imagine and truly inhabit the story. David listens with intense interest but is unable on his own to configure the meaning of the tale. His indignation is aroused but Nathan’s work is not yet done. His concluding task is to reconfigure the parable enabling David to connect the narrative of the two sheep farmers with the narrative of his own life. A synthesis occurs and it is at this very moment of synthesis that a new paradigm of perception is reached. David is enabled, through the prophetic skill of Nathan, to align the story of the two farmers with his own autobiography. It is a short step from there to a place of genuine repentance.

This mutual giving and receiving within the imaginative realm is suggestive perhaps of a broader principle, namely, that the way in which humankind receives any kind of divine revelation rests upon the usage of imaginative paradigms of perceptual reception. David arrived at a new understanding of truth, albeit the truth about himself and his relationship to God, through the process of imaginative encounter. Far from being drawn towards a fictional reality, his sudden sense of conviction about the true nature of his own condition stemmed entirely from his ability to inhabit the story that was being recounted to him. This points to the possibility that the imagination can be construed as the Anknupfungspunkt—the point of contact—of divine human interaction.

But the narrative from 2 Sam 12 quoted above raises further questions about the very ontology of God. Nathan comes to David in his capacity as a prophet of the Lord and dares to speak the word of the Lord to David. The form of this divine human communication, couched in a highly imaginative narrative, can legitimately be described as playful. Nathan effectively entices David into the story, much as a fisherman entices fish to a hook. Once David has accepted the bait, he feels the full impact of the prophetic word. Nathan in effect plays with David, but with a highly serious intent, namely to bring about the repentance of the King. In so doing, he embarks on a risky venture for he cannot be sure of the outcome and potentially puts his own life in danger.

If Nathan is communicating something of the mind and character of God during this encounter, then one is compelled to consider; who is this God who engages with his creation in this manner? God is who he is in the act of his revelation, states Barth in Die Kirchliche Dogmatik.³ If God accommodates himself to the culture of David’s time and to the particular psychological constitution of David, then this posits an imaginative empathy on God’s behalf. Can we claim therefore that God is intrinsically imaginative, that imagination is one of his core attributes? And can we go further and claim that this imaginative attribute of God issues forth in a playfulness with which he engages with creation? Moltmann has proposed such a depiction of God in his book Die Ersten Freigelassenen der Schöpfung,⁴ where he asserts that God plays with his own possibilities. Such an imaginative and playful depiction of God raises further questions about the extent to which God’s actions in relation to the world bear the hallmark of improvisation; a dynamic and open-ended interchange between God and humankind that may have a clear intentionality but not necessarily a clear path to achieve that purpose. Can we therefore liken God to a jazz musician who plays within a clearly defined musical structure, yet improvises within that framework?

The Scope of the Project

This book will attempt to address these questions by placing them within a theological framework. MacIntyre addresses the theological role of the imagination in his book entitled Faith, Theology and the Imagination where he quotes Baillie: I have long been of the opinion that the part played by the imagination in the soul’s dealings with God, though it has always been understood by those skilled in the practice of the Christian cure of souls, has never been given proper place in Christian theology, which has been too much ruled by intellectualist pre-conceptions.⁵

Baillie asserts that apprehension of transcendent reality can legitimately be achieved indirectly, almost obliquely, through an appeal to the variant forms of the imagination. It is through this inner eye that we, as finite beings, may perceive the Divine. Baillie asserts that there is a form of knowing about God that is experienced through prayer and spiritual direction. This is what Jenson⁶ would describe as a first order experience. The task of theology, a secondary task, is to provide the grammar for the interpretation of such experiences. If Baillie’s claim is to carry any weight then it behooves us to consider the biblical evidence for such an assertion.

When one looks at the biblical corpus however, it appears at first sight that we have a very slender foundation on which to build. In the King James translation of the Bible there are three Hebrew words used which are translated as imagination. These are:

(a) "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination (yetser) of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen 6:5).

(b) "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination (sherirut) of their evil heart" (Jer 3:17).

(c) "An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations (machshevot) feet that be swift in running to mischief" (Prov 6.18).

When we turn to the New Testament there are three further Greek words that are also translated in a similar way. These are:

(a) "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, (dialogismois) and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom 1: 21).

(b) "He hath shewed strength with his arm; he