Between the Image and the Word ─ Theological Engagements With Imagination, Language and Literature

The central contention of Christian faith is that in the incarnation the eternal Word or Logos of God himself has taken flesh, so becoming for us the image of the invisible God. Our humanity itself is lived out in a constant to-ing and fro-ing between materiality and immateriality. Imagination, language and literature each have a vital part to play in brokering this hypostatic union of matter and meaning within the human creature. Approaching different aspects of two distinct movements between the image and the word, in the incarnation and in the dynamics of human existence itself, Trevor Hart presents a clearer understanding of each and explores the juxtapositions with the other. Hart concludes that within the Trinitarian economy of creation and redemption these two occasions of a€?flesh-takinga€? are inseparable and indivisible.

Trevor Hart is Professor of Divinity and (since 2000) Director of the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts in the University of St Andrews. Formerly Lecturer in Systematic Theology in the University of Aberdeen, he is the author and editor of numerous publications including Faith Thinking (SPCK, 2000), Regarding Karl Barth (Paternoster, 1999), Hope Against Hope (Eerdmans,1999), Tolkien, Literature and Theology (Baylor, 2007), Faithful Performances (Ashgate, 2007), and Patterns of Promise (Ashgate, 2012).