C.S. Lewis and Rudolf Bultmann

Misreading Mythology

Near the end of the survey bible course I teach, I carefully introduce students to the idea of the bible as myth. To do this, I use a short essay by Lewis with the title “Myth Became Fact”. Many students, like myself, come from communities that take the bible seriously as God’s word. For many, this means a flattening of the truth of scripture into a correspondence to historical or scientific fact. The purpose of introducing Lewis (and Tolkien) is to help them think about reading the bible differently. Here’s what I want students to hear from Lewis:

But Christians also need to be reminded…that what became fact was a myth, that it carries with it into the world of fact all the properties of a myth. God is more than a god, not less; Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about "parallels" and "pagan Christs": they ought to be there-it would be a stumbling block if they weren't. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome. If God chooses to be mythopoeic-and is not the sky itself a myth-shall we refuse to be mythopathic?

Lewis recognizes the mythical nature of the biblical story, even as he affirms the historical “fact”—that in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ God has acted in history for the salvation of all creation.

On the surface, Lewis deals with the same categories as Rudolph Bultmann. Both are asking similar question: What is the relationship between mythology and history, and, where does the gospel fit within these categories? In an address given to students titled “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism” Lewis excoriates Bultmann’s work, claiming that Bultmann was not a good literary critic. Instead of allowing the writing to speak, Lewis accused Bultmann of imposing a modern paradigm on the gospels by searching for something behind the text. Christopher Bryan writes, “His problem was that as he read the work of certain New Testament scholars, he found that however learned they might be as Biblical critics, he distrusted them ‘as critics’ – by which, of course, he meant literary critics.” (C. S Lewis as an Interpreter of Scripture)

Regardless of whether Bultmann was a good literary critic, I can’t help but wonder if Lewis has misunderstood Bultmann’s project. More than that, I wonder if Lewis and Bultmann are much closer in their view of scripture than Lewis recognized? After all, both took the mythological nature of the gospels seriously. Bultmann’s work was not the liberal theological project of aligning the bible with modernity, it was an attempt to free the message of the gospel to speak to people who lived in the modern age. The term “demythologization” unfortunately portrays this negatively, as if the mythology is less important than the scientific world of modernity. However, I’m not sure this is Bultmann’s point. His point is that the meaning and message of the gospels, when delivered in the mythological (or maybe a better term is the ancient cosmological) wrapping, makes no sense. The message needs to be interpreted and proclaimed for a people who have the power to overcome darkness by simply flipping a switch.

In a certain sense, Bultmann honors the New Testaments writings by refusing to gloss over the immanent eschatological message found throughout. Again and again, the followers of Jesus expected the Kingdom of God to break into the world. For Bultmann, it’s those who smooth this incongruence over with a futuristic interpretation, and the necessary linguistic gymnastics this implies, that are not taking seriously the immanent expectations of the writers. This eschatological message of the New Testament is what needs to be heard. Far from imposing a modern worldview on the text, Bultmann wants the eschatological message of the crucified and resurrected Christ to confront the modern world.

This seems to be the same project undertaken by Lewis. In Myth Became Fact he writes, “Now as myth transcends thought, incarnation transcends myth.” There’s a recognition by Lewis that what happens in the incarnation transcends myth, in the same way it transcends history. Of course, it is at the same time mythical and historical, but it is more than that. This is also Bultmann’s message: The living Christ cannot be objectified—captured in myth or history or science for that matter. Thus, the message transcends. If it doesn’t, then Christ is not a living Christ, he is trapped either in story or the past. Bultmann wants human beings to encounter the eschatological kingdom of God through the proclamation of the word. But this is what Lewis wants too! Otherwise, why would he feel the need to “steal past those watchful dragons” in the writing of the Narnia series?

The power of myth is found in the way it captures our imagination, conveying truth about reality and identity through story and symbol. If Lewis were to have stumbled into a Naria style Comic-Con, and meet someone who takes the Chronicles of Narnia so literally as to base their whole worldview upon the books, he would probably tell them they’ve missed the point. Meaning, they’ve missed the message that transcends the details of the story. This, to me, is what Bultmann is trying to say about the New Testament. If we insist upon either myth (story) or history, and never encounter the living Christ—we’ve missed the point entirely.