Myth, Truth and Reality - Allie Hanscom

C.S. Lewis wrote "What flows into you from myth is not truth, but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is)." I had a hard time understanding the idea of myth in the context of faith because of the negative connotations the word has when it's associated with religion. However, if you think of myth as a meaningful story, it removes any idea that myth is not based on the truth. C.S. Lewis was saying that myth gives us symbolic accounts of the real, but that it isn't truth itself. In essence, myth to Lewis communicates God's reality. I thought this was very interesting language that I was not used to using when talking about the message of the Bible.

Myth helps us as humans embrace mystery. Myths emphasize the mystery of symbols and how we can't fully explain reality. Dr. Redick's story of the troll under the bridge is a good example of a myth and how it can apply to our lives today. In his story, the troll represented danger to his young daughter who had no concept of drowning or death. When he put it this way, the concept of myth made a whole lot more sense to me and helped me apply the concept to my own life. Another example of a myth in our culture is the grim reaper. Although this creature doesn't exist, we use it to symbolize the mysterious force or power that comes to take life away when it is someone's time. Ever since we started discussing myth and reality in this class, I have begun to think of other examples of myths in our culture. Myths are very useful to help us describe accounts of the real rather than explain truths that we can't understand with our finite, human minds.


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