In the
previous segment, we concluded with the imagination and its use in declaring and
defending the Christian faith. As we will see in Tolkien’s writings, it is his
adept ability at combining imagination with Sub-Creation to give his fictional
world of Middle-Earth that ‘inner consistence of reality’ reality’ which points
to the truth of the Gospel, the greatest story ever told. But before we can
learn the benefit of and positive use of the imagination in Christian
apologetics we must first ask a very important question. What do we mean by
imagination?
I've always
appreciated Tolkien’s definition of imagination in his essay On Fairy Stories.
The mental power of image-making is
one thing, or aspect; and it should appropriately be called Imagination. The
perception of the image, the grasp of its implications, and the control, which
are necessary to a successful expression, may vary in vividness and strength:
but this is a difference of degree in Imagination, not a difference in kind.
The achievement of the expression, which gives (or seems to give) the ‘inner
consistency of reality’, is indeed another thing, or aspect, needing another
name: Art, the operative link between Imagination and the final result,
Sub-Creation.[1]
According to Tolkien, we work with the
tools and resources that are found in the Primary World. The writer uses words
and images. The musician uses instruments and notation. The Sculptor uses clay
or another medium. The painter uses brushes and various paints. And so on. As a
Sub-Creator, Tolkien was able to capture and captivate both the imagination and
art within the particular genre he is most noted for, that of fantasy. This is
due, at least in part, to the fact that Tolkien was a philologist who lived up
to the title. He aptly fit his own description of a Sub-Creator. “Fantasy is
made out of the Primary World, but a good craftsman loves his material, and has
a knowledge and feeling for clay, stone and wood which only the art of making
can give.”[2]
So, then, Sub-Creation, captures and releases both the imagination and art.
For Tolkien,
image and imagination were two essential ingredients in a well-told fairy
story, or fantasy, genres he uses interchangeably at times in his writing. The
process for Tolkien went like this: Imagination leads to Art; Art leads to
Sub-Creation; Sub-Creation reflect or points to the Primary World, or Primary
Art. It has, that ‘inner consistence of reality’. Imagination, then, forms the images
that later become words and develop into a full-fledged story. And it is within
the context of the story telling where the imagination can point us toward the
Christian faith.
One of the primary reasons Lewis’s and
Tolkien’s writing was, and continues to be, so magnetic was their sublime
ability for making enchanting, magical, and mythical (in the best sense of the
word) secondary worlds reflect the Primary World. They were able to write
fantasy which accurately and evocatively depicted reality. This was
intentional. Tolkien wanted his stories to be told in a land and geography
where ‘miles are miles’. Good fantasy, Tolkien says, is based upon reality and
points back to it.
For creative Fantasy is founded upon the
hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun;
on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it…If men really could not
distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frog-kings would not
have arisen.[3]
In a similar vein, Lewis repeatedly said
that fantasy does not teach us to escape reality, but rather it sheds light
upon reality. We see the world better having read good literature. Storytelling
awakens us to the beauty of ordinary life around us, and opens our eyes to the
enchantment of the everyday world we live in. Rather than dull the senses, it
accentuates them.
It would be much truer to say that fairy
land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his
life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach, and far
from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth.
He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the
reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.[4]
In the final
segment we’ll take all the pieces we’ve unpackaged and put them together in our
ongoing discussion of imagination, art, and sub-creation in service of
apologetics.
[1]
J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and Leaf. London: Harper Collins
Publishers, 2001. p. 47.
[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and
Leaf. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001. p.61.
[3]
J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and Leaf. London: Harper Collins
Publishers, 2001. p.55.
[4]
C.S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for
Children, in Of Other Worlds: Essays
and Stories. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc.
p. 29-31.
[5]
J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, in Tree and Leaf. London: Harper Collins
Publishers, 2001. p.71-73.
[6]
C.S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for
Children, in Of Other Worlds: Essays
and Stories. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc.
p. 25
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