The Ability to Imagine

In the opening chapter of the Hebrew Bible, we are told that God said "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us...So God created human beings in his own image." (Genesis 1:26-27, NLT) The Hebrew word translated into English as "image" conveys the sense of a likeness or resemblance to the genuine article. Moreover, the context makes clear that in this instance that resemblance implies more than just physical appearance.

In this connection, it is interesting to note that many folks have pointed out the very unique properties of the human mind relative to the brains of other lifeforms which share this planet with us. And, among those properties, perhaps the most unique and important is our ability to imagine things - to picture things that don't actually exist in our minds. Indeed, human imagination has enabled our species to invent and create things (though we are confined to inventing or creating things from the materials which make up the world in which we live). Nevertheless, with that qualification, our history as a species makes plain that humans possess the almost unlimited ability to create or invent new things!

In The Power of Imagination, E.B. Kevin noted that "Imagination is the ability to form mental pictures or ideas in the mind. Everybody has the ability to imagine, but imagination becomes powerful when you turn it into manifestation. Every material thing that was created by humans was first imagined. Creation begins in the mind before it becomes physical." Kevin goes on to point out that "Imagination is the beginning of creation. You can create most of the things you can imagine." In other words, our ability to imagine is the key to this creative ability, and it gives profound meaning to those verses in the first chapter of Genesis. Like our Creator, we have the ability to imagine and bring things into existence which have not existed heretofore - the ability to create!