ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some ways that divine revelation and its denial have been imagined by theological realists and non-realists in our times. The enduring interests in language, hermeneutics, rhetoric, and cultural studies in modern and late modern thought have brought imagination into the foreground of philosophic and theological method. There is a viable consensus among many theologians, religionists, and philosophers of religion that the human capacity for imagination is crucial for indwelling the world religiously. Whereas talk of and debate around the topic of revelation dominated Euro-American theology for more than a century, talk of imagination drives theology today. A mature spirituality today takes responsibility for constructing the sacred ideals for oneself, rather than ascribing them to a God behind, above, or below our agency. Reality is bracketed by our natural, scientific models of the cosmos, and even these models are our social constructions that can change over time as our knowledge of the cosmos changes.
