John Coulson: Religion and Imagination ‘in aid of a grammar of assent’

Abstract

An image of the emperor is set up to be venerated in his absence, (Summa Theologiae 3a, 73, 5 responsio)Dr Coulson proffers a thesis which relates belief to imagination by referring both to assent. If he is to make a real assent to the objects of faith, the theologian must “use his imagination”, which means undertaking the intolerable wrestle with meaning, since what he seeks to renew “lies hid in language”, (p 168). Dr Coulson’s thesis is evidently to be substantiated by reference to the languages of T S Eliot and J H Newman. Dr Coulson argues that ‘Eliot’s method as a poet, and its theological implications’, (p 169), are anticipated by Newman in the Grammar of Assent. ‘Eliot’s poetry exemplifies what Newman’s theology explains’ (pp 5 and 169). Newman is presented to us as a guide in the uses of imagination for our present situation.Dr Coulson has a gift for civilised conversation. Here he deals familiarly with the great matters, with religion and art, if not with sexuality; he deploys the hint, the echo, the overlap, catching at connections that do not have to be fully expressed; he is not all that anxious to avoid repetitions, and more than content to return some several times to a favourite quotation. He would have us share his enthusiasm for some favourite author, not for Newman and Eliot only, but for Coleridge and several Coleridgeans. He is himself at least like Coleridge in his method which is, as he says of that of the great man, ‘the very reverse of the system-building required for a magnum opus’, (p 13). And Dr Coulson’s beginning is the common one of conversation.