From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 14 2004 - 00:19:59 GMT
Sam, Scott and all:
Sam asked dmb:
I'm interested to see/hear your reaction to Scott's comments on this (in an
excellent post), especially when he points out "there are also a few who
understand that the metaphor/fact distinction, taken in this absolutist way,
is a product of SOM. To the pre-modern intellect, all reality was as much
metaphorical as factual."
dmb says:
I see what Scott is trying to say, but I think it is confused. The
distinction between myth and fact is a distinction between social and
intellectual, but in not nesessarily tied to SOM. We can reject SOM and
theism at the same time. Or to put it another way, the ability to make the
distinction between facts and myths depends on a capacity for intellectual
abstraction, depends upon a skill, ability and form of consciousness
previously unavailable to most people, but it does not rest upon any
particular metaphysical formulations such as SOM. The MOQ rejects faith and
theism AND SOM, for example. To put it even more simply, you're confusing an
ability with one particular product of that ability. Its like confusing the
Arts with one particular painting.
Sam continued:
It is my suspicion that your understanding of mysticism and mythology is
compromised by a more or less unspoken inheritance from SOM, but I want to
pursue that in the James thread. For now, I want to explore one question
with you. Do you think that the first Christian communities understood the
resurrection mythologically or factually? If the former, at what point did
the understanding change from the factual? Or was it never seen as factual
(in which case how do you understand Paul's writings)?
dmb says:
As I understand it, all great religions begin with a mystical experience and
Paul's is a good example. As I explain in a post that has yet to arrive, the
metaphors have been understood as such by those in the underground current
of Christianity. Neo-Platonism injected some mysticism into it early on and
it was born on the heels of centuries of mystery religions of Greece. I'm
not saying the truth is nowhere to be found within christianity, I'm just
saying that its all been covered over by the clap-trap and that the
perennial philosophy is what allows us to ressurect that esoteric core.
As to the "unspoken inheritence of SOM", there is an explanation in the
"transcendence" thread that shows how traditional christianity and SOM are
like two peas in a pod and that MOQ rejects both. I mean, you've been very
short on specifics and am curious to find out what tortured logic you'll
employ to make such a case, because philosophical mysticism is about as far
as one can get from SOM. I suspect your case rests upon the same confusion
Scott displays on the matter, but we'll see.
And finally, as Campbell explains it, the literalism began to take over
early in the 14th century. From Mask of God vol.4, p583...
" 'Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem: Beings of essences
are not to be multiplied beyond necessity'. With this formula, known as
'Occam's razor', the Invincible Doctor closed with a single phrase the book
of scholastic 'realism', wherein substantial 'reality' had been attributed
to ideas; and on September 25, 1339, his 'nominalism' was the object of a
special censure by the Paris Faculty of Arts.
In effect, the import of Occam's slash across the field of names and forms
was to convert metaphysics into psycholgy. The achetypes of mythology (God,
abgels, incarnations, and so forth) could no longer be referred to a
supposed metaphyscial sphere by were of the mind. Or if they referred to
anything outside the mind it could be only to individual facts, historical
events that were once actually percieved in the field of space and time.
Half a century before Occam, in the Condemnations of 1277, the point had
been made that neither Scripture nor its interpretation by the Church could
be reconciled with reason. One could choose to stand either with reason or
with Scripture and the Church, but not with both. ...There followed the
absolutely anti-intellectual piety of the so-called Devotio moderna, of
which the Imitation Christi (1400) and Theologiica Germanica (1350) are the
outstanding documents. The later, through it influence on Martin Luther
(1483-1546), became a contributing force int the inspiration of the
indomitable churchly and scriptural positivism of the Protestant Reformation
and subsequnet centures of bibliolatry; the sum and substannce of the whole
movement being epitomized in that supine formula of John Gerson: "Repent and
believe the Gospels, all Christian wisdom lis in this.'"
Sam said:
Thing is, one of the main objections to the idea that Christianity is just a
trans-historical myth is that it happened 'in historical time', in other
words, there are historical actors present and involved - it takes place
within the 'historical' world, and not 'a long time ago in a galaxy far
away' etc. Do these factors make any difference to your perspective?
dmb says:
No. That's merely what makes the confusion possible. Its not some wild
co-incidence that actual people live lives that enact myths becasue they are
an inherent part of human consciousness. We all live by myths its just that
once in a while, seemingly with increasing frequecy, someone comes along who
epitomizes these forms better than most anyone else. From this actual
occurances, legends are born and eventually they are mythologized. The
missing parts are added by story tellers and such. But this overlap
shouldn't confound anyone. There are historical events and then there are
metaphors and the different interpretations are everything. If the
crucifixtion is taken for a singular historical events, then it is about
somebody else in some other place and time. But if the same narrative is
read as a myth, its about you, right here, right now. The latter happens
everyday and the former happened once. Huge difference!
WE worship the historical Jesus as a unique incarnation, but we indentify
with and become the mythical Christ, see? This is what I mean when I say the
historical interpretation destroys the meaning of the myth, it hides the
meaning of the myth. If we take myths literally and historically we end up
looking for the promised land through a real estate agent instead of looking
inward, which means we will never find it.
dmb
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