Centrality of Imagination in Election within Spiritual Exercises

Abstract

This research makes initial endeavor to elucidate the intrinsic and essential relationship between election and imagination within Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. Election is investigated as the primary goal of the whole progress of spiritual exercise as well as a section of the Second Week. It discovered through this investigation the significance of imagination, which includes meditation and contemplation. It delineates that authentic election inevitably entails imaginative contemplation. An analysis of imagination is presented for two of Ignatius's works. That is, Ignatius's encounter with the divine image and visions portrayed in his autobiography is described with imaginative languages, which considerably influenced Ignatius's core idea in the Spiritual Exercises. Deliberate analysis of the historical text suggests that imagination is considered as the most essential human faculty not only for experiencing God. But it also fosters the desires and indifference for seeking the will of God, which is the critical process known as Election. The last section attempts to demonstrate the way in which those two crucial components have the vital dynamic and interdependent relationship with other constitutive components in spiritual exercises: indifference and desire. This examination uncovers that imaginative contemplation is the formative and essential means for election, which is the goal of the Spiritual Exercises, and further applicable for most spiritual practices in Christian tradition.