E. DuBose Post 15: Choice Topic 4

12MAR12

Myth Became Fact

For Lewis Christianity is a mixture of myth and fact with the core of Christianity being Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact represented in heaven and earth.  God's nature is the symbolic representation of myth and fact. When looking at the Bible and the history within, it is so easy to see how what once was fact became myth.  That is why Christianity is Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact -- it really happened and the myth only elaborates on that.  Christians and philosophers and story tellers should reclaim the word myth in its truest sense and Christians, as Lewis says, need to embrace the myth in our theology.  All myth is, is reality based on facts of the past that apply to now and the future.  Culture changes but the foundations of humanity and our human condition does not.  This is why myth and the Bible are always applicable and why myth is fact.  Myth is always relevant and timeless.  A true miracle of Christianity is that "by becoming fact it does not cease to be myth" (Lewis).  Myth frames reality and allows us to see the world through a perspective that shines light on the primary world.  Christianity gives us a deeper understanding of this through its myth -- through God as embodying Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact.  Myth shows what it is to "be".  Myth encapsulates all that we wish to obtain.  It holds our fantasies and our longings.  It shows our inherent and universal sense of right and wrong.  Myth breathes life into our own existence and into the existence of God.  It explains and reveals the beauty of Nature and allows us to be as close as we can, while on earth, to the mystical and divine.  The point of myth goes beyond cultural norms and regulations and instead shows human existence and human needs on an understandable and transferable level.  Myth exposes our deepest desires and longings and shows the true nature of God and the world we live in.  Lewis notes in On Stories that belief in a myth restores our knowledge as "the rich significance which has been hidden by the 'veil of familiarity'".  Reality is felt in experiences.  I think that is why so many people get addicted to experiencing reality through extreme sports.  There is no greater knowledge of your existence and the reality of your mortal life than when you are faced with death.  Like Lewis says, when one thinks about reality, one stops experiencing it.  For some reason this idea was just so profound to me because I never thought about it in that way and it is so true.  I only know pain when I'm experiencing it -- I can remember it but even if I cause pain to myself again, that experience of pain blocks me from actually thinking about it.  Thinking and experiencing are separate, a better example would probably be in love making but I don't think I'll go there today.  In other words,  you just can't be in the reality of experiencing pleasure while also analyzing it because once you start to analyze you no longer experience and then loose the "mood."