From Religion and Imagination ‘in aid of a grammar of assent’ by John Coulson.
When the vital connection between religion and imagination is either overlooked or denied, it is not merely theology or the theologian that suffers. The very life of religion ebbs and becomes infertile. (p. 3)
To what extent can a belief be said to be established as true, if it has failed to convince or to be successfully brought alive and made real? (p. 4)
It is literature which shows us that we cannot rest in a purely negative conception of imagination. It does more than suspend our disbelief. It predisposes us to believe in what it has realized. (p. 7)
When we “use imagination,” we begin to see our world differently. Our standpoint or focus changes, but this act of imagination remains incomplete until spontaneously and creatively we gain an enlarged sense of reality. But our powers of perception are more than merely enlarged. They are reordered. (p. 8)