Pannikar- Myth & Language

Anyway, as for the current reading from Pannikar, there are several thoughts going through my mind and heart, particularly with myth and mystical language.

Myth. In regard to Myth, I am reminded of C.S. Lewis' own struggle with myth and the Bible; and it seems relevant in regard to what it seems Pannikar is driving at. In a letter of October 18, 1931, Lewis writes,

"Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn't mind it at all: again, that if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself . . . I like it very much and was mysteriously moved by it: again, that the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels. The reason was that in Pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even tho' I could not say in cold prose 'what it meant'.

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's myth where the others are men's myth: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'. Therefore it is true, not in the sense of being a 'description' of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being the way in which God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties. The 'doctrines' we get out of the true myths are of course less true: they are translations into our concepts and ideas of the wh. God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Does this amount to a belief in Christianity? At any rate I am now certain (a) That this Christian story is to be approached, in a sense, as I approach the other myths. (b) That it is the most important and full of meaning. I am also nearly certain that it really happened."

Thirteen years later, Lewis, in an essay called "Myth Became Fact" (1944) adds,

"The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens--at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed. To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myth. The one is hardly more necessary than the other."

This is something I have been struggling or working with in my own life, though in the reverse of Lewis, as I am trying to look at the mythical, archetypal and symbolic power of the Christian myth (fact though it may be). But the struggle is the same. How we approach such myths determine the lense of how we view the world and reality. "Myth for Panikkar is that through which you experience and understand and not that which you experience and understand. It is the universe of meaning in which one finds oneself; it is the horizon of one’s being and understanding." If we reduce myth, specifically the Christian myth, to mere creedal assents we often miss the transforming power of myth. Its the difference, again, between a Christology and a Christophany. However, as Pannikar later suggests, its not and either/or but a both/and. They are complemntary but alone we lose something in the process. "We must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth... with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myth. "

The Cultural Lense of Myth. Myth is the symbolic value through which we view or rather, "experience and understand" life and the world. However, it is necessary to discern "the myth that is operative in a particular culture." This is a very important point. Not only has most of the Christ event been reduced to creedal affirmations and mental assents, the mythic portrait of Christ that was fashioned in western culture has been filtered through the language and philosophical constructs of the Greco/Roman culture, society, language and ideas, especially, the Platonic and Aristotelian. However, as we try to enter into Inter-religious conversation with eastern cultures with different mythic constructs,we often run into problems. Rather, than trying to share a Christophanic experience with, say, Buddhists or Hindu's, we too often have tried to convert them, not only to a different religious perspective, but to the importation of a western cultural trappings. Western and Eastern culture and worldview are very different. It's like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. This was one of the points of Dom Bede Griffiths- that in order for us as Christian's to truly enter into Inter-religious Dialogue, the Christ myth must be shared and translated through the filter of eastern constructs not western/European civilization and Greco-Roman language and philosophy. Western thought tends toward the scientific Aristotelian categorizations which reduce an experience into all of its smallest parts. What is left is a Christology often devoid of the original exprience, instead of a Christophany that goes beyond it. And this is precisely, why Pannikar's idea of Christophany is powerful. The eastern mind is not as interested in, say, our theological constructs but would be more interested in how to experience the Christ myth themselves, if they're interested at all. Pannikar's Christophany brings both western intellect and eastern emphasis on experience together.

Perhaps a more practical way of illustrating this is the difference between Western (Roman) evangelical methods and early Celtic Christian Methods. In the Roman model, the particular portrait of the Christ myth was normally limited to proclaiming "The Gospel" within the boundaries of Roman culture and civilization; and belonging to the church community was contingent upon one's acceptance of this Gospel. It was a method of Believing before Belonging. The Celtic Church on the other hand, went beyond the boundaries of Roman culture and civilization to "pagan and barbarian" societies. They built their churches and monasteries near villages or social groups, learned their language and entered into a relationship with them. The "converts" belonged to the church before they ever believed. It was a method of Belonging before Believing.

This seems to me to be one of the power's of Pannikar's Christophany. It is sensitive to both the western mythical portrait of Christ and its subsequent Christology; but goes beyond it to the experience and sharing of that myth in a way that is Inter-religious, empowering and transformational, both personally and culturally. It realizes that the experience of Christ in larger than any single portrait; and that we can not only begin to discern the largeness of the Christ myth; but can enter into the portraits of Christ for ourself. We can experience Christ or have a Christ experience ourselves and not just read about. We can experience even the experience Christ experienced of Abba. It also helps us to be more sensitive to symbols of "emerging myth of our times."

I apologize if I have drifted too far afield from our readings. But these thoughts are symptomatic of some of my concerns for how to both experience and share the changing or enlarging portraits of Christ that I am experiencing, thru both my CP practice and the tapestry that is unfolding through the experience of being touched by the word and presence of such spiritual masters like Fr Keating and Raimon Pannikar. As the portraits change, our reasons and methods of sharing also change. If the sapiential awakening and recognization events I am and others are experiencing through them is so powerful, I can only imagine that the original experience of Christ was even more earth shattering. And these deep and overwhelming waters we are experiencing in Pannikar are there to take us beyond a mere Christology to the very experience of Christ and Abba, that we may ourselves be transformed and perhaps be mirrors ourselves of this experience for others.