The Monomyth: Why Campbell has never been entirely satisfying

[Sunny C.]

We can look at myths with just our intellect and know of God, or we can enter into them and know God. The myth, the religion, is the vehicle, not the destination.

Hi lunamoth.

I think that we are constantly engaged in an effort to create the personal mythology of our selves. It's a kind of heroic poetry of the self that's also a set of mnemonic devices to remind ourselves of important, intangible, archetypal connections with processes larger than ourselves and our short lifespans.

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by Sunny C.

Hi lunamoth.

I think that we are constantly engaged in an effort to create the personal mythology of our selves. It's a kind of heroic poetry of the self that's also a set of mnemonic devices to remind ourselves of important, intangible, archetypal connections with processes larger than ourselves and our short lifespans.

Hi Sunny C.

Yes, I think you are right about that. I think it's more than connecting with just archetypal themes and a quest for immortality, though. I think it's also very much about connecting with one another, and with God, in the here and now.

Welcome to CR, BTW.

[Prober]

Of what shape is G-d's religion?

[dauer]

Round.

[Prober]

Ha! Good answer.

[Thomas]

Hi Lunamoth –

I think you've touched on an important element that's been 'skated across', as it were, but is fundamental to the discussion of myth as a literary form deployed within the context of a sacra doctrina that employs a number of literary forms.

Originally Posted by lunamoth

First, many people get very offended when you suggest that their religion is myth because they equate that with a lie (fall out from the Enlightenment). But a myth is not a lie and it is not false. It points to the truth.

This is a misconception of myth, as you rightly point out. I would say myth 'conveys' a truth that is otherwise inaccessible. Genesis is a 'myth' in the sense that there were no witnesses to the events in Paradise, so it's a story ... but the wisdom it conveys, utilising myth, is transmitted in the most succinct and accessible fashion.

Originally Posted by lunamoth

Second, you might accept religion as myth and be tempted to conclude that there is nothing 'More' there, as it points to truth but that truth is limited and not Divine. But, I think, it is possible to come to the place where you describe, that the myth points to God but does not limit God.

Here we run into trouble. Bultmann, for example, drew the conclusion that because the gospels tell a story that shares many elements with the mythologies of antiquity ... a meeting with the gods, miracles, prophecy, wisdom ... then the gospels are a myth constructed by the early communities ... there were no miracles, no Baptism, no Transfiguration, no Eucharist, definitely no Resurrection, no Ascension ... he went so far as to suggest that the Person of Jesus Christ himself is a myth ...

Originally Posted by lunamoth

We can look at myths with just our intellect and know of God, or we can enter into them and know God. The myth, the religion, is the vehicle, not the destination.

This could be read to imply that the Gospels never actually 'happened', there were no miracles, no visions, no healings, no feeding ... but rather a complex and profound fiction to express a truth beyond all human access and comprehension, and here, of course, you would run intro trouble with orthodoxy...

My view is close to my reading of Dauer's original comment ... it seems implicit in Campbell that because myth is a means of conveying a spiritual reality, then all expressions of the spiritual are necessarily mythological, which I think is putting the cart before the horse.

Is it the old dualism rearing its head again ... the insistence that God cannot intervene directly into human affairs?

Thomas

[seattlegal]

I wonder if Schrödinger's cat would be considered a myth 5,000 years from now?

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

I wonder if Schrödinger's cat would be considered a myth 5,000 years from now?

Not just his cat ... Schrödinger himself will no doubt also be relegated.

Thomas

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Not just his cat ... Schrödinger himself will no doubt also be relegated.

Thomas

I think Schrödinger's Cat, The Big Bang, and The Watchmaker all have great mythic potential.

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

I think Schrödinger's Cat, The Big Bang, and The Watchmaker all have great mythic potential.

Is that not Dauer's point, though?

Because something has mythic potential, is it a myth? Cannot reality have a mythic potential, and yet be real.

The question is important, because once you start 'undoing' the content of any given sacra doctrina, then we come down to one's individual reason and logic determining what is myth and what isn't, and then what God can do, and what God can't ... and then the whole thing is reduced to a relativism.

So we could say that Jesus was not, in fact, the Incarnate Son, but a bit of an odd-ball ... that Buddha was not, in fact, enlightened at all, but just blissed out on the idea that ignorance is bliss ...

Another important stream, and a massive assumption, is that if this is a myth about God, and that is a myth about God, then both talk about the same thing, in their own way ...

... like the assumption that all religions are equal ... and therefore the same mechanism of mythology applies to them all ... how do we know that?

Thomas

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Is that not Dauer's point, though?

Because something has mythic potential, is it a myth? Cannot reality have a mythic potential, and yet be real.

The question is important, because once you start 'undoing' the content of any given sacra doctrina, then we come down to one's individual reason and logic determining what is myth and what isn't, and then what God can do, and what God can't ... and then the whole thing is reduced to a relativism.

So we could say that Jesus was not, in fact, the Incarnate Son, but a bit of an odd-ball ... that Buddha was not, in fact, enlightened at all, but just blissed out on the idea that ignorance is bliss ...

Another important stream, and a massive assumption, is that if this is a myth about God, and that is a myth about God, then both talk about the same thing, in their own way ...

... like the assumption that all religions are equal ... and therefore the same mechanism of mythology applies to them all ... how do we know that?

Thomas

You would run the risk of Schrödinger's cat getting mixed up with Jung's archtypes, so to speak. (or babbel.)

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Hi Lunamoth –

I think you've touched on an important element that's been 'skated across', as it were, but is fundamental to the discussion of myth as a literary form deployed within the context of a sacra doctrina that employs a number of literary forms.



This is a misconception of myth, as you rightly point out. I would say myth 'conveys' a truth that is otherwise inaccessible. Genesis is a 'myth' in the sense that there were no witnesses to the events in Paradise, so it's a story ... but the wisdom it conveys, utilising myth, is transmitted in the most succinct and accessible fashion.



Here we run into trouble. Bultmann, for example, drew the conclusion that because the gospels tell a story that shares many elements with the mythologies of antiquity ... a meeting with the gods, miracles, prophecy, wisdom ... then the gospels are a myth constructed by the early communities ... there were no miracles, no Baptism, no Transfiguration, no Eucharist, definitely no Resurrection, no Ascension ... he went so far as to suggest that the Person of Jesus Christ himself is a myth ...



This could be read to imply that the Gospels never actually 'happened', there were no miracles, no visions, no healings, no feeding ... but rather a complex and profound fiction to express a truth beyond all human access and comprehension, and here, of course, you would run intro trouble with orthodoxy...

My view is close to my reading of Dauer's original comment ... it seems implicit in Campbell that because myth is a means of conveying a spiritual reality, then all expressions of the spiritual are necessarily mythological, which I think is putting the cart before the horse.

Is it the old dualism rearing its head again ... the insistence that God cannot intervene directly into human affairs?

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Good points and I was thinking about this as well when I made that post. Certainly the Gospel is not less than mythic. We each get to make our own decision about what actually happened and what that all means, which is what I was getting at when I said 'entering into it.' Not just pretending that we think it is 'real.' For example, I conclude (intellectually) that Jesus did in fact walk the earth (the historical fact) and that the Gospels are very real testimony of what the people who knew Him concluded about Him, and what was very real to them (the Resurrection). I get to choose, based upon that testimony (Scripture), my heritage as a Christian (Tradition), and my understanding and experience (Reason), Who He was. In Campbellism you can give your 'head' to the myth. In Christianity you give your heart.

I hope that does not seem wishy washy or side-stepping.

Oh yeah, I realize now that I kind of took us off-topic of dauer's OP about the monomyth.

luna

[Dondi]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

Hi Thomas,

Good points and I was thinking about this as well when I made that post. Certainly the Gospel is not less than mythic. We each get to make our own decision about what actually happened and what that all means, which is what I was getting at when I said 'entering into it.' Not just pretending that we think it is 'real.' For example, I conclude (intellectually) that Jesus did in fact walk the earth (the historical fact) and that the Gospels are very real testimony of what the people who knew Him concluded about Him, and what was very real to them (the Resurrection). I get to choose, based upon that testimony (Scripture), my heritage as a Christian (Tradition), and my understanding and experience (Reason), Who He was. In Campbellism you can give your 'head' to the myth. In Christianity you give your heart.

I hope that does not seem wishy washy or side-stepping.

Oh yeah, I realize now that I kind of took us off-topic of dauer's OP about the monomyth.

luna

I guess it comes down to convictions on how much of it you want to accept as real. In the case of the Gospel accounts, even if someone believes that the idea of the resurrection of a God-man figure is a compilation of previous stories or ideas, would that necessarily discount the hope of a personal resurrection? Perhaps there are enough elements in the myth to allow the possibility of a resurrection or afterlife, or whatever. On the otherhand, it would seem more hopeful if there was a person named Jesus who preached the kingdom of God, performed miracles, was killed, but revived after three days. To believe such is to give concreteness to the account, and help solidify you own convictions.

[dauer]

Thomas,

it seems implicit in Campbell that because myth is a means of conveying a spiritual reality, then all expressions of the spiritual are necessarily mythological, which I think is putting the cart before the horse.

I wasn't seeing exactly that in Campbell, although I do think that is also putting the cart before the horse, but more the problem I have is the claim that it's the same story everywhere. Really, by permuting the various events that can happen in his model, a person can end up with very different stories. And on top of that, for any given people, their myths can have many more attached meanings besides those he's ascribed. In addition to that he really seems to be noting mostly that in myth there is entry into conflict, the conflict itself, and then some sort of resolution which isn't very revelatory at all. Maybe it was when he wrote it but I can't really imagine so. I may have misunderstood you though. Your follow-up post seems to be pointing closer to what I was saying. I really don't think the risk of confusing literature for sacred myth is so great because ordinary literature isn't canon for anyone, and I really think that canonization is key in the process of myth becoming Myth. That is not to say I think it would be wrong to view Myth on one level as literature or to view literature as a form of myth.

Luna,

Oh yeah, I realize now that I kind of took us off-topic of dauer's OP about the monomyth.

Perfectly alright. I change the flow of my own threads all the time. Conversation will carry where it does. Long as it's moving along.

Dauer

[Thomas]

Hi Dauer –

Originally Posted by dauer

... but more the problem I have is the claim that it's the same story everywhere ...

Absolutely. It seems a reductionist methodology to me, and it's most apparent, and most destructive, when applied to the 'inner' experiences of a people.

Originally Posted by dauer

And on top of that, for any given people, their myths can have many more attached meanings besides those he's ascribed.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by dauer

I really don't think the risk of confusing literature for sacred myth is so great because ordinary literature isn't canon for anyone,

Well, not sure if I read you right, this time round, but we'd have to qualify what counts as 'ordinary' literature ... but I would say, from a Christian perspective, or necessarily a Catholic one today, that many 'confuse' or relegate the gospels to sacred myth, whereas in fact it is 'ordinary' literature in that it tells what happened ... albeit extraordinary events?

Originally Posted by dauer

and I really think that canonization is key in the process of myth becoming Myth.

I would argue this point, obviously.

Originally Posted by dauer

That is not to say I think it would be wrong to view Myth on one level as literature or to view literature as a form of myth.

Current Catholic biblical scholarship has made great advances in this area since Vatican II, and the acknowledgement that sacra doctrina comprises a number of literary forms – mythic, poetic, biographic, liturgical, mystical, prophetical, exegetic ... I have recently been reasearching the differences between Hellenic 'metaphor' as a device, compared to the Hebraic 'masal', for example.

Thomas