Living Forms of the Imagination [Paperback]

This book is essential reading for those interested in the imagination, epistemology, naturalism, and the philosophy of religion. - Charles Taliaferro, Professor of Philosophy, St. Olaf College, Minnesota

The role of imagination in psychology, ethics and aesthetics provides a good analogy for thinking about the imagination in religious belief. in dealing with the inner lives of other human beings, moral values or aesthetic qualities we need to employ the imagination: to suppose, form hypotheses, empathize or imaginatively engage with alien people or worlds in order to understand. Just as we use the imagination to relate to other minds, appreciate beauty and understand goodness, we need imagination to engage with God's action in the world.

Acknowledgements

Prologue

1. Religion, Romanticism and Imagining Modernity

2. The Creative Imagination

3. The Experience of God: Poetry, Enchantment and the Mood of Ecstatic Imagination

4. Religion: Fantasy, or Legitimate Longing?

5. The Problem of Metaphysics

6. Myths, Dreams and Other Stories

7. Inspired Images, Angels and the Imaginal World

8. Social Imaginary

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index of Subjects

Index of Names