Thomas Aquinas
Father
Tony’s Midweek Message
Intuition
and Imagination
January
6, 2016
“Oh,
that’s just your imagination!” is a way we often hear people telling us to face
facts and not worry about our interior projections about things. “Just the facts, Ma’am,” is the way Sgt.
Joe Friday of the LAPD of the 1960s television program “Dragnet” used to cut
through the irrelevancies of witnesses’ testimony. We sometimes tell ourselves these things as a
way of applying the discipline of fact-based reason to our thinking and ways of
feeling.
But
this was not the view of Aristotle, or of his Christian theologian followers
like Thomas Aquinas or Ignatius Loyola.
For Aristotle, the imagination is an active sense through which we can
perceive reality and truth otherwise not seen.
Like all the senses, it might on occasion be skewed and unreliable. But abuse does not take away legitimate
use. Using the imagination is a key
element of scientific inquiry and philosophical reflection for Aristotle. And imagination’s proper and trained use is a
key element in Christian spiritual life and growth. Aquinas says it is through imagination that
we perceive such things as the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. And Ignatian spirituality is grounded in
trained use of the imagination in the Spiritual Exercises (imagining yourself
vividly in a series of scriptural scenes and stories) and the Examen (reflection
on one’s day and conscience).
This
new year, I invite all to make more frequent and vivid use of your
imaginations—not to project fears and transferred affect, but rather to see
more clearly God’s hand at work in the world about us, including our community
and relationships. Grace and Peace,
Fr.
Tony+
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