Imagination and the Moral Life

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You may have never considered how important the imagination is in growing closer to Jesus.

To get the most out of this great power of the imagination let me remind you how the soul was designed to work. The intellect becomes aware of reality through the five senses, the imagination, or the memory. The intellect then presents its perception of reality to the feelings as either “this is right and good for me” or “this is wrong and bad for me." The feelings respond with either, “I like this,” prompting the will to choose it or “I dislike that,” prompting the will to avoid it. The will chooses the apparent good; and avoids the evil.

In this process the feelings are supposed to push you towards what is good, not away from it. The first step in that process is resolving to do what is right – regardless of how you feel about it – we meditated on this yesterday - This is called “checking” the passions, resisting the wrong feelings - and if you do it often enough, your passions will begin to fall in line – because, at the end of the day, your feelings are designed to respond, however slowly, to your repeated free decisions.

So you can retrain your feelings through action but that’s not all. You can also work at cultivating the right feelings through imagination. This is called “commanding” the passions.

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Imagination and Command

As we said, we can change how we feel about things and get control of disordered feelings by resisting the wrong feeling and doing the right action. The other way to change how we feel is by using “sense images,” using our imagination to form mental images.

Our feelings are especially responsive to our senses so if we can provide the right mental picture as a stimulus, it will help generate the appropriate feeling, the right emotional response. That’s why imagination, which is our power for forming sense-images, is so important. An image can stimulate a feeling; a feeling pushes us towards an action; an action shapes our character; and our character determines our ultimate destiny as sons and daughters of God in Heaven or as demons in Hell. So imagination is an incredibly important power.

The kinds of images we let in our heads, and the kinds of images we discipline ourselves to consider, is going to be part of what determines where we spend eternity. If we watch images that are sexually explicit or violent or promoting greed or gluttony or pride – they will cause our feelings to like those things which push our will to choose them – making us vicious.

On the other hand, if we read and think about the lives of the saints, we form images that cause us to like virtue which push our will to choose goodness – making us saints.

So what images are you taking in all day? And where are they leading you?

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Eliciting desire for the good

Often we don’t start out liking, desiring what is good. Let’s take an example: Young people today are choosing not to have kids. A recent secular study revealed the reason that is no surprise: having kids will change your lifestyle and it is hard because it requires a lot of self-sacrifice – it requires a lot of love – love and sacrifice are the same thing. So young people don’t see children as a good thing to desire. That bad desire may prompt them to live selfish lonely lives and living selfishly is precisely what leads a person to hell. If a person feels that way, what should they do?

That’s when the imagination should come into play. For instance, you can imagine…the great joy of sitting around the Christmas tree with little ecstatic kids opening presents; or teaching them how to ride a bike or play catch; you can imagine how amazing it is as they grow as teenagers and young adults as your friendship with them grows and you share all kinds of experience; you can imagine how wonderful it is to see your kids reach all of their potential as persons and then start their own vocations. Then imagine having your adult children fighting over who gets to care for you when you’re old.

Those are the kinds of appropriate images that can get you motivated to have and raise lots of children the way you ought to.

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Eliciting repulsion for evil

Our imagination can also be used to stimulate a repulsion for evil.

Temptation towards evil is borne of liking an immoral act. So it’s our responsibility to cultivate an appropriate horror for sin by focusing on a mental image that expresses the true repulsiveness of sin – an image that causes us to dislike some sin. Let’s take the example of lust. Lust comes from a particular kind of image – but not the good kind. The right image to focus on when you’re tempted to lust is to imagine all the consequences of lust. Babies being aborted in the womb. Families torn apart. Your sons looking away from you; your wife and your daughters crying. The inevitable decline of perverted taste as the law of diminishing returns takes you to sick places you could have never imagined yourself going. The restlessness of your days and nights, the inability to know beauty, achievement, self-respect, or another peaceful thought.

Just take a moment to truly imagine what it would be like to go to hell. Think about those images. They’ll help give you a horror of the images you might have thought you wanted.

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The Ultimate Images: Christ’s Sufferings and the Glory of Heaven

Our imagination was given us to form images that will draw us towards virtue and away from sin. Now, that image which should, more than any other, cause us to draw back from sin, is the image of our Crucified Christ. Look at him, bleeding, gasping, every breath forcing Him to rub the bones and nerves of his wrists against the coarse metal of the nail. You did that. You made that happen. And if you sin – well, if you keep sinning it means that for every extra sin Christ will have had to suffer more. God is outside of time. Your sin now will determine how much He had to suffer then. So look at Him there – don’t make it worse.

And the image which should excite your desire for virtue and holiness more than any other is the Glory of Heaven.

To see God Himself, the creator of the Universe, and hear Him say, “Well done.” To walk into a room filled with saints, and have them smile, call you by name, and wave you in. To experience, in the company of everyone you love, the rest and the exhilaration that God Himself enjoys, for ever and ever. That’s worth working for. That’s worth striving to be virtuous for. That’s the goal to keep at the forefront of our minds. That’s the goal to imagine, to desire, and to attain.