Image
- related to reality (sight, space)
Word
- related to truth (hearing, time)
*note: Ellul values the spoken word over
the written
An
image can be accurate or inaccurate but not true or false.
Only
words can be true or false.
...sight
and language determine two different kinds of thinking.
Language,
which is written, involves a long, careful process. My eyes follow the words one after the other, and thus a sequence
of understandings are connected to each other. Thought develops according to the axis
of this sequence of words. I
receive knowledge progressively as the elements of what I am trying to understand
link up in succession. Ideas
are gradually laid bare as I follow the sentence. The sentence unfolds within a given time
span, so that my knowledge necessarily takes the form of step-by-step reasoning.
My knowledge progresses by following the curves of this language, assuming
a certain continuity in the sentence and rationality in the relationship between
words.
...images
link themselves up to each other in a manner that is neither logical nor reasonable.
We proceed by association of images and their successive changes. The aspects of an image that change in this process have to
do exclusively with the spectacle in its present moment. They are never a logical sequence. ...it
is not the characteristics of electronic signals which have made the difference,
but the manner in which images follow each other. When we think by means of images... each
image is a totality, and the sequence progresses by fits and starts.
We
run into trouble when we confuse image with truth.
The
word (spoken) is primary, it instructs us about the image.
"When photography was first invented, its overwhelming power came from the fact that it recorded nature more realistically than any other art form had ever done before. Because of this, people trusted it and believed it portrayed 'reality' and 'truth." (Jerry Lodriguss, The Ethics of Digital Manipulation)
John
20:29-31 Jesus said to him, "Because
you have seen Me, have you believed?
Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.
Therefore many other signs Jesus performed in the presence of the disciples,
which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you
may have life in His name." (NASB)
Our
society puts the image first (or believes that words only speak of reality
and not truth).
In
the Garden, reality and truth were united.
Ex. Genesis 1:3-4
Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
When
sin entered the world, truth and reality were separated.
Humanity
submitted to reality and separated from truth.
This
rupture is called sin.
Eventually,
truth and reality will be rejoined.
(All
things will be summed up in Christ - Eph. 1:10)
A
key question for us - as media becomes more image oriented, what are the implications?
The entertainment media has transformed the ways in which we believe and are capable of believing. An absolute kind of belief, as wall as a belief in absolutes, becomes increasingly difficult as the entertainment milieu trains people to believe tentatively and with elasticity... The very concept of belief - to believe in that which you cannot see and cannot understand - comes with difficulty to a generation that has depended, as perhaps no generation before, on its senses. William Kuhns - The Electronic Gospel
Our eyes' function has been extraordinarily expanded. Our brain is constantly receiving the impact of imaginary sights and no longer of reality. Today we can no longer live without the reference and diversion provided by images. For a large proportion of our lives we live as mere spectators. Until the present time our perceptions of reality through sight incited us to action. But now the superficial spectacle imposes itself on us all day long, turning us into passive recorders of images. Ellul