Interpreting fiction

The power of the imagination

The imagination is the great vehicle of contact with reality.

All of our choices are made by imagining the nature, meaning, and consequences of our actions.

Every action we take answers the question, "Who do you think you are?"

The one who conquers the imagination controls the whole man.

Fiction expresses conviction

• It's not a defense of Dan Brown's works or The Shack to say, "It's just fiction."
  • This is a despicable reduction of the meaning and value of fiction in our lives.
  • Brown's hatred of Catholicism is palpable in his books; so, too, with the movies made by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks.
• The stories reveal and teach a worldview.
• A story need not be true to be true.
• A story need not be non-fiction to be false.

The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter books are fiction. But Tolkien's world is completely consistent with Catholic monotheism and praises the virtues that the Church honors in her saints. Rowling's magical world is divorced from monotheism and advocates a very stunted and inadequate form of conscience.

Fiction portrays characters

There can be no storytelling without characters, conflict, choices, and consequences.

It does not matter whether the stories are about real or imaginary people. The actions taken in the story reveal the qualities of character that the author cares about, whether they are virtues to be imitated or vices to be avoided.

"Poetic license"

The convention of fiction depends on the reader allowing the author to just make things up that are not true and that are, perhaps, incapable of being true.

• From that standpoint, the reader grants an author a license to lie.
• What if animals could talk?
• What if magic spells worked?
• What if some humans possessed powers of ESP or telekinesis?
• What if there is one night a year when the dead walk among the living?
• What if there were a gateway into the realm of death?
• What if there are intelligent aliens secretly visiting the earth?

"Poetic license" also allows authors to express things in non-technical language that, if pressed too far by a literal-minded reader, would not make any sense at all. "Let the dead bury the dead" is nonsense, because, by definition, dead people can't bury other corpses; but a technically accurate expression of Jesus' meaning doesn't have the same effect as the poetic paradox: "Let those who are dead to the call of the King stay home and bury the bodies of the dead."

The uses of fiction in theology

• God is sometimes a character in a piece of theological fiction.
• Good fiction cleanses the mind, lifts the heart, and gives us heroes and heroines to imitate (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, the Inklings). Healing, deepening, strengthening the power of imagination.
• The Scriptures are full of theological fiction: the stories of Creation (Gen 1-2), Noah's Ark (Gen), Jonah, Job, parables, fables, jokes, etc.

The uses of imagination in prayer

Beauty matters. It makes a difference whether the environment around us draws our minds and hearts heavenward or depresses our spirit. In Confucianism, the virtue dedicated to the cultivation of every form of beauty is "wen." One example of wen is sheng-fui which, when stripped of magical, superstitious, or animistic elements, can help produce a beautiful environment within which to live, pray, and work.

• Christians have used every form of art to help teach us the right way to envision reality: architecture, sculpture, painting, sewing, embroidering, weaving, interior decoration, fiction, storytelling, history, music, song, dance, drama, poetry, calligraphy, bookmaking, technology, etc. Catholic liturgy is one of the earliest forms of multimedia, appealing to all the senses with "smells and bells."
  • The Harrowing of Hell.
• St. Ignatius: the use of the imagination in prayer.