I’m currently reading Tolkien: Man and Myth by Joseph Pearce.
Myths, far from being lies, are the best way of conveying truths which would otherwise be inexpressible. We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Myths may be misguided, but they steer, however shakily, towards the true harbor.
The story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works in the same way as the others, but a myth that really happened.
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August 5, 2009 at 8:38 am
The idea that there is truth in some form, however obscured, to the various myths of the world is an incredible revelation. My wife I think understood it before I did.
This is what is behind Pauls comments about how they are without excuse even if they didn’t hear the law, which is in Romans and also in Wisdom. Likewise his appeal to pagan ideas on occasion when speaking to pagans.
It explains a view that the Church seems to have as well and one which many of my anscestors capitalized on to denigrate it. The idea that if they could show commonality with something the Church said/did and paganism it proved the Church was false. Rather what it did was prove that there was truth, however slight obscured and shrouded with error even in paganism.