Book Review: Seeing is Believing by Gregory Boyd
In Boyd’s introduction, he introduces the idea that what one intellectually understands does not impact her nearly as much as what she experiences. Boyd believes that imagination is the believer’s key to unlocking a deeply impactful experience of God that can transcend any relationship that is strictly limited to intellectual understanding alone. According to Boyd, Holy Spirit can and does use the imagination to connect one to the spiritual world.
The book is split into three parts, and in part one Boyd continues to explain why it is important that one rest in God’s presence and allow the imagination to be the gateway to experience God. Christians in the West has been convinced by their culture that to experience God they must “try harder.” Focus more. Pray more. Study more. Boyd believes that “try harder” attitude is counterproductive to how Holy Spirit works with the Christian to overcome the bondage of flesh. Holy Spirit leads the Christian to experience God through imagination, and the Christian positions herself to best receive Holy Spirits lead when she rests.
In part two, Boyd moves on from just explaining the theology of experiencing God through imagination and actually begins to lead readers to experience it themselves. He deconstructs the western idea that imagination is not real. One’s imagination is used to help access reality. This is also true in spirituality. Boyd demonstrates how Holy Spirit has always used imagination to help spiritual realities become real and experienced by believers.
Boyd helps his readers learn to experience imaginative prayer for themselves. First, he explains that it is very helpful to have a vivid picture of what one is praying about. He explains how this application of cataphatic spirituality can help with the renewal of one’s mind, worship, prayer, and Bible reading. Boyd then guides readers to develop an inner sanctuary, a place they can truly encounter and rest with God safely in their imaginations. Then, in the inner sanctuary, the believer can encounter Jesus. The physical traits of Jesus are not that important, but the character of Jesus should be familiar. Boyd reminds and encouragers believers that they are not looking to encounter their mind’s idea of Jesus, but through power of Holy Spirit they are looking to encounter Jesus himself.
Once one becomes accustomed to encountering Jesus this way and resting in his truth, Boyd explains that a further step is to journey with Jesus into past memories that may need Jesus’ touch. One’s imagination makes memories still a very real experience, even if they are long past. That same imagination, however, can be a powerful vehicle that Holy Spirit can use to heal past trauma.
The last chapter in this section addresses concerns or obstacles that frequently plague those who are curious about experimenting with imaginative prayer. These include the western scientific worldview, the new age movement, and potential idolatry.
The final section of the book is where Boyd uses three case studies to demonstrate how imaginative prayer helped others develop fruits of love, joy, and peace. He gives detailed accounts of how these believers experienced God in rest, and how Holy Spirit countered the flesh. Boyd’s goal in this final section is to demonstrate how this exercise works differently for different people, and to give the reader some idea of what it might look like to actually practice what they have read about thus far.
It is also worth mentioning the appendix of this book. It is full of frequently asked questions in regard to imaginative prayer. Boyd answers each of these questions in a succinct way.
I appreciated Boyd’s book. As someone who thinks in pictures and has been experiencing this type of prayer more and more, it made a lot of sense to me. I still have concerns and questions about what to trust, but Boyd would say that is my western mind that needs to be retrained. I am also unsure about Boyd’s cataphatic spirituality advise. It sounds a lot like “name it and claim it.” I will have to think about that some more. All in all, this book is defiantly worth the pickup, even if all you read is the introduction, part two, and the appendix.