Fantastical Faith: John Bunyan and the Sanctification of Fancy

Like many English Puritans and Dissenters, Bunyan consistently links the exercise of "fancy," or imagination, to delusion, falsehood, and faithlessness in his sermons, theological treatises, and tracts. However, in Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan suggests that "fancies" such as his allegory can empower religious instruction. In Part II, Bunyan undertakes an even more complex defense of the imagination. Through the figure of Christiana, Bunyan demonstrates how fancy can play a key role in sanctification. However, by rooting the fancy's redemption in the presence of the Holy Spirit and the communion of saints on earth, Bunyan frustrates the secularization and subjectivism that accompany the later elevation of the human imagination. For Bunyan, the Holy Spirit redeems fancy not by enabling pilgrims to apprehend truth on their own but by gathering them into earthly companies that sustain the witness of the primitive church. By bestowing dreams, enabling interpretation, and sustaining love among Christians, the imagination can guide "Fantastical Fools" to their home in the Celestial City.