Imagination and the Middle Term

This was my latest research project, I would like some feedback regarding this project in other words...please write me

In this research paper I will attempt to describe the process of having our imagination formed by the spirit of God and the power of actualizing this transcendent imagination. The power of imagination lies not within the mind of a particular individual, but its real power lies in truth, it lies within the middle term that is Christ , the mediator of reality , moving individuals and communities from orthodoxy to ortho-praxy and vice versa. I will attempt to show that orthodoxy and ortho-praxy are inextricably connected to one another, but they are not connected by intention, rather the mediator of reality, the middle term, connects them as the truth bound up together toward God. I will speak of imagination as the possibility of the individual and the community existing standing before Christ transparently in order to imagine the world differently and to appeal for the actualization of this imagination through the power of the middle term.
Kierkegaard wrote that, “As a rule, imagination is the medium for the process of infinitizing; it is not a capacity as are the others------if one wishes to speak in those terms, it is the capacity instar omnium [for all capacities]. When all is said and done, whatever of feeling, knowing, and willing a person has depends upon what imagination he has, upon how that person reflects himself---that is, upon imagination.” This imagination is the freedom and meaning that was given back to humanity in the Eucharist , as God created a New Covenant with humanity, giving us back the power to be free not from one another, but to be free for the other and toward the other , likewise this newfound meaning is the power of humanity to bring healing and peace toward one another. This capacity for all capacities is the gateway to the actuality of one becoming truly human, or the capacity for one to exist before God and the world standing transparently before God and the world acting upon the world with the power of Christ.
Imagination that I am speaking about here is the capacity or ability for an individual or a community to re-present something that is not present. In this sense imagination is a sort of second sight; it represents something, which has not been actualized, but which lies in the realm of the possible. Imagination represents what is not seen by way of forming images and concepts of the way the world could be. Thus understood, imagination appears to be something additional to healing in that it makes a way for actuality. The retaliation between imagining and enacting is more complicated, in moving toward what we imagine, when we imagine something, we must understand the situation or the context in which it is imagined in order to find what it is or what it is like and likewise how to bring it about. In order to understand what we are theorizing about imagination is necessary. We can conceive of imagination not as supplementary to sight but as being implied by seeing something and hoping that things could be otherwise. Imagination is not only the aptitude to re-present what is not present, but more specifically it is the capacity to see possibilities in what is seen, that which is not present might be the possibility of what could be actualized. The subjectivity of imagination is intricate: In imagining we convey something, a change that we hope for, by placing it before ourselves, in this way we also relate to ourselves. This presents the possibility of self-mirroring, or standing before God transparently , which in itself is not a straightforward phenomenon: we are ourselves subjected to what we imagine. We are bound to what we imagine for it is the call of God upon our lives, it is the radical inbreaking of God into the world to reclaim and restore the cosmos. It is necessary for God to break into our world as we have so thoroughly locked God out of our world and placed a need for God, that is fundamental to the human condition, into the corners of the cosmos instead of being the center of our cosmos.
The power of the spirit of God in the community of faith is power that is infused when two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, for Christ is physically present truly only in the community. Having ones imagination formed and transformed by the spirit is not a modern concept, Paul wrote in Romans, “Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2) This transformation of our minds takes place as God reclaims our imaginations, which in my opinion, is the transformation from our worldly assumptions to those of orthodoxy. However, this transforming of our minds beckons us to move beyond the transforming of our minds to the transformation of the world no matter how small or large the enacted change is. This is not where the transformation ends, orthodoxy must become ortho-praxy for they are one and the same, for neither is truthful without the other in place.
Ortho-praxy is orthodoxy enacted, but more than this ortho-praxy is the proper form of orthodoxy. In the words of those whom have gone before me, we hold these truths to be self evident, that all those who follow Jesus must do so in word that is inextricably connected to deed. A simple didactic of the words of Jesus is not enough, the transformation of our world into the kingdom of God culminates in contemplative truthful action. There has always existed a dialectical medium between word and deed; however, in this essay I will argue that ortho-praxy is orthodoxy properly understood.
The terms ortho-praxy and orthodoxy are not in opposition to one another, unless they exist in isolation from one another, rather they are in complete equality with one another, if orthodoxy does not lead to ortho-praxy, then the orthodoxy is invalid, regardless of its nearness to the truth, it remains an untruth. It remains an untruth because without ortho-praxy there can be no orthodoxy, orthodoxy without ortho-praxy is the greatest heresy that the kingdom of God can endure, for it is the death of transformation, the death of reclamation, the death of restoration and the death of redemption. The death of transformation leads to the death of orthodoxy for they are inextricably connected, if orthodoxy does not lead to ortho-praxy the prophetic message of the church is silenced and thus becomes inconsequential and further still an untruth. The truth that is inherent within orthodoxy is displaced because the truth is not a concept but a being, Jesus didn’t simply speak about the truth, Jesus was the truth, thus truth cannot be merely conceived of, it must be experienced in order for it to interact with the being of truth.
Truth must be experienced and through this experience it becomes orthodoxy which becomes ortho-praxy, speech must be enacted; truthful speech without action is merely is false hope or an untruth, as the apostle Paul said it is a clanging symbol in a world full of noise. However, enacting truth in a world full of noise silences the world so that it must listen and experience the truth. This silence is brought about by the audacity of hope, the audacity to actualize change in a world, that is constantly in transition, believing that the world will become better through progress. But change, as can be attested to by numerous recollections within the history of the human race, is never easy change is not a process but a movement by humanity toward an illumination of embrace as one stands before God .
The power of ortho-praxy lies in its embrace, the embrace of a world that is different than our own, ortho-praxy is an orthodoxy that is brought out of the realm of mere possibility into the realm of actuality. The power of orthodoxy lies in its responsibility for truthful and contemplative imagination, for the truth leads humanity toward the realization of that imagination. If orthodoxy is properly understood it is not proposed as a set of propositional truths or dogma, but if it is proposed as ortho-praxy, the reach of the soul toward hope, though one may be accused of offering false hope, there has never been anything false about hope, nor about the one who creates ortho-praxy with orthodoxy.
I shall restate that ortho-praxy is orthodoxy properly understood, for if either of then is held in isolation from the other they hold no significance other than their representation of a truth that lacks conviction, which is an untruth. Without the strength of the conviction to enact the imagination their connection with the truth is severed in such a way that recovery is no longer in the realm of the possible. Without orthodoxy, ortho-praxy is simply social justice without truth, and conversely orthodoxy without ortho-praxy is likewise epistemic assurance without truth. Truth must be enacted in order for it to actually become the living incarnate Jesus Christ. Without action there is no cause for hope, nor is there any weight in its truth claims, without cause or weight, the truth, Jesus Christ, is silenced by the very individuals who claim to follow and proclaim him. The truth enacted with cause and weight is the ultimate here and now in the penultimate, thus the kingdom of God is built and in minor and perhaps unnoticed ways the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.
Imagination cannot merely be theoretical, imagination but be brought into the actual world through the power of Christ with us. “Christianity understood, every poet-existence (esthetics, notwithstanding) is sin, the sin of poetizing instead of being, of relating to the good and the true through the imagination instead of being that---that is, existentially striving to be that.” Imagination is akin to love in the way in which the world is structured, as Christians one must come to understand the duty of love that is a duty laid upon an individual by God. This is where God becomes the middle term in human relationships. Kierkegaard wrote, “Worldly wisdom thinks that love is relationship between one person and another; Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: a person—God—A person: that is, God is a middle term.” Here we must mention the glorious mystery of the power of love that binds orthodoxy and ortho-praxy together in synergistic unity. Orthodoxy and ortho-praxy are inextricably connected as I have said before, but they are connected to the Truth, the living incarnate Jesus Christ, by the love of God, again as the middle term in the relationship between thought and deed.
The reason the church needs to imagine the world differently lies within the often-didactic style of humanitarianism that leads to the church allowing the state to continue the progress of the empire with the churches vicarious blessing. The church has in many ways stood silently while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty, divided and plundered its human communities. It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of the empire. It has assumed with the economists that “economic forces” automatically work for the good and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed that “progress” is good, that it is good to be modern and up on the latest fads. It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and evasions. It is not difficult for us to agree with one another that at times the world is a repulsive place. Despite all of the world and all of its power, its institutions and clever programs attempting to mend the world, no empire has ever accomplished this healing; no empire has ever been able to bring peace in the place of oppression. As the Christian community we cannot for the sake of connivance be “in a de facto alliance with Caesar”, when this happens, “Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation.” The church is a community in refusal of the empire, and its power-over system , which bears the image of another lord in its daily life. The church re-imagines the world in the image of the invisible God, this imagination, and its actualization, is the method by which the Kingdom of God breaks into this world, restoring and redeeming the world by the love of God that results in the reclamation of the cosmos. Because this community is a body (soma) subject to a head (kephale) whose lordship overrules Caesar’s, the church replaces the body politic of the empire with Christ as the Lord over and against the lordship of Caesar.
This subversive nature of the church is vital to the churches witness to the world, however, each individual must take care not to be subversive for the sake of being subversive, for then the church is no longer subversive for the sake of the truth but for the sake of the individual’s vanity. To subvert the power-over structures of the world is to show the injustice of the world for what it is, God is categorically opposed to all power and domination in every form that does not come from God. These things are specifically stated to be the enemies of God. God judges political power, calling it the great harlot, we can expect from it neither justice, nor truth, nor any good—only destruction. The power of the church is a transcendent imagination, the ability to re-imagine the world by enacting upon the world what has never been seen, nor what could be enacted by political power, a world that can only be brought about through enacting contextual parables in the power of the spirit. This enactment can only come through the people of God in this world bringing about the coming Kingdom of God as it is in heaven, for it is only among the people of God that the risen Lord is physically present, where two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, He is there amongst them.
Thus we are brought back to Kierkegaard’s middle term, for in this middle term, God, the church enacts contextual parables with the authority and power of God. Without the middle term these enactments do not hold any authority other than those that are derived from the individual self and they are no longer synonymous with the truth but they are enacting an untruth, just as orthodoxy without ortho-praxy is an untruth and vise versa. But the endorsement of the truth by the truth, the freedom and beautiful endowment of the church is that as a people we stand before God in relation to the world and others experiencing the presence of the risen Christ as a physical presence in community as we stand before God together with Christ in community. This privilege is only a privilege by the act of enactment; it is the privilege of existence through the gift of presence, for the church only exists at all when it exists outwardly, or in other words, when it exists for others and for the other.
Imagination as the medium of the conceptual, the orthodoxy, leads individual’s and communities toward the realm of the actual, and all that is ortho-practic, in order that the ultimate and the penultimate are taken up together in the bond of actuality. In a strictly Christian sense, the Kingdom of God breaks into this world, on earth as it is in heaven. This radical inbreaking of God gives the church the unique opportunity to create its own reality. God has given the work of building the Kingdom of God to the people of God, this remnant of individual’s transforms the world through enacting orthodoxy, firstly through the spirit of God, coupled with imagination and ultimately through the middle term being present among us which leads to ortho-praxy. This radical inbreaking of God takes place as the people of God are themselves transformed by standing transparently before God and others, in so doing they throw themselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously not their own suffering, but those of God and the world. This is what it truly means for one to have faith, to live fully in this world embracing the other through the power of the risen incarnate Jesus Christ present in the communion of saints.
In conclusion, as it were it seems that it cannot be. Meaning that, as the church has been many times throughout the nearly two millennia that stand between Christ, and us it can no longer exist, this will not suffice, for the castration of the Gospel for the sake of convince or power converts the church from the truth to an untruth. The church cannot merely seek to uphold the traditions and customs of the past, the church in our present context must imagine the world the way in which Jesus proclaims it and then move through an orthodoxy transformation into ortho-praxy through the spirit with the truth, the incarnate Jesus Christ. In this way only is it possible for the message of the Gospel to remain untainted by the influences of our own time and the times before us, where the church became something else entirely, as it was no longer the vehicle for the radical inbreaking of God into our world. The task ahead is daunting and the road will be long, but there is a fools’ hope that a church will again take up its duty to the world and exist for others at the behest of its narcissistic tendencies. Thought the journey forward will be long, and many will say that we are preaching false hope to the church, and we will respond by saying that in the unlikely story that is Christianity there has never been anything false about hope. I shall end this research paper with a simple statement that may inspire us to not merely form the world, but to transform the world, ‘The rest of those who have gone before us is not enough to steady the unrest of those who follow.’