Four Functions of Religion
In our western culture, the word mythology has overtones of some other religion, or a religion of the past. I have no problem calling my own religion a mythology.
As a school age child of the 60’s and 70’s, I was taught that mythology was used to explain the world before the real sciences were developed. I take issue with this explanation of mythology because it is an interpretation based from a purely rational epistemology. Does mythology/religion attempt to explain the workings of our environment and/or the whole Cosmos? Yes it does, but seen properly, only as a component of our relationship with the environment. Rational interpretations (with an emphasis on cause/effect, subject/object experience) neglect the psychological, existential ramifications of our “being” in relation to environment. Unfortunately, I think rationalism has crept into our religious thought, weakening our ability to transcend our egocentric tendencies.
Another contemporary problem with the use of the word “mythology” is that myth is synonymous with falsehood. I can only assume, but it seems to me that this use of the word came about as an egocentric defense mechanism to protect the integrity of one’s own belief system. In short, “my religion is the true religion, other religions are myths”.
Joseph Campbell describes the four major functions of mythology. He had a special gift of finding the sacred in all myths. These are a mixture of his own words and paraphrase from many different works of Joseph Campbell. The comment on marriage is my own thought (I think Joe would agree).
The first function is the mystical. The mystical function is opening the transcendence, opening the heart and mind, pointing out that the ultimate mystery that we all try to solve lies beyond the range of human thought or naming. When you have given it a name you have fallen short. You’re no longer in the mystical tradition.
The second is cosmological. It’s the world as the science of the day presents it or as the knowledge of the day presents itself, radiant of this transcendent energy. Turn the whole world into an icon so that it’s radiant. And that’s the function of art: to take the world so it is radiant. Religion has to accept the science of the day and penetrate it-to the mystery.
The third function is the sociological. All religions have had among other functions that of validating and maintaining a certain specific social system. The moral system is culturally established and therefore relative to the time and place.
The fourth function is pedagogical, the guiding of individuals in a harmonious way through the inevitable crises of life. These include the stages of life brought about in the aging process. We all have had to develop an ego as a toddler (think of the terrible twos). We must all experience puberty, a mid-life crisis, and old age (if we’re lucky). I include marriage in this group. We don’t all marry, but for those who do, it is radically life changing. The ritual of a religious marriage ceremony enacts the mythological requirements for such a profound psychologically altering life event.
In the study of religions, I have found they have much in common. And, why shouldn’t they? After all, we are all human beings attempting the most human of endeavors; making sense of our existence. As a pragmatist, I find truth in function. Any religion that satisfies these four functions is true, though not in a rational, scientific, or even historical sense of truth; but a notion of truth validated by the fulfillment of its purpose.
I find it difficult to reconcile the concept of myth with truth. Myth at best suggests a relativistic truth. But there is only one absolute truth that is the basis of all faith. The problem comes when ‘I’ start believing that ‘I’ have taken possesion of that absolute truth.
There is much unknown in science and much that is contradictory. One of the biggest contradictions in present day science is between Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. But we plod along working for a day when this and other contradictions are reconciled. In the meantime in science if evidence is uncovered that contradicts present understanding then we discard our present view and develop a new understanding.
Religion, all religion, also professes to be working towards discovery of the ultimate absolute truth but the greatest obstacle to this pursuit of religious truth is that even when evidence is uncovered contradicting a dearly held notion it is very difficult for religious organizations to give up their cherished notions. It took the Vatican nearly 500 years to acknowledge that Galileo was right and to be honest the Vatican is not by any means the slowest among religious organizations.
Religon has much to offer to advance human society if we can pursue truth more honestly.
On the four functions, while organized religion may indeed be serving these functions in human society, religon ultimately has only one purpose. To discover the Creator.
Khalid, Thanks for the comments. To discover the Creator, I think that would be covered by the first function, the mystical. Again, as Joe Campbell points out, the absolute is transcendent of our ability to comprehend. Any name or idea of God is only “the finger pointing to the moon”.
Peace, Ed
You point to an importanat distinction, and why God, for some, has no name.
My understanding is that myths are stories. They may or may not be true. They hold our history and our identity, either truth or possiblity. Reality or perception is a distinction that is meaningless in any moment of being, and that matters only in our past.
The inability to distinquish truth from preception except through viewing the past, and my respect for what inspires me calls me to give what is possible my belief. In this choice to live, truth becomes truth with a small “t.”
What guides me in my future, the truth which exists for me only in my past, or what is possible which I have not yet named?
For me, the function of religion is a relationship with God. Through this commitment I maintain all my relationships. It is a disciline, a practise of simple techinques and tools, to maintain what is possibile.
Religion as access to understanding or explanation is meaningless. It is ontology. To place truth and meaning above what is possible is to live one’s life always in the past. This is antythical to belief.
Religion as a mythology for meaning is confusing it with science. The myth’s in science and religion are distinct. Science is the study of what we know and our ability to predict it. Religion is maintaining possibility as our future, and our power in it.
If religion has one guiding principle it is integrity in the language. It is through language that we exist for each other and relationship is maintained. It is in this commitment that some believe that God has no name.
Another, Awesome response. You said, “the function of religion is relationship with God.” Joe Campbell would say and I agree, all four functions named in the blog pertain to relationship. Relationship with our fellow human beings. Relationship with our bodies, our existence and life itself. Joe maintains that God is a metaphor for life. An appropriate relationship with God is an appropriate relationship with life. The challenge for us becomes to transcend a subject/object perception of God. An objectified God falls short of the mystical function. You’ve asked about the absurd before, this is an area that needs an appreciation of the absurd. Some things can’t be comprehended.
Another view is that God is not incomprehensible. We have fabricated pretenses that obscure God from view.
In a Biblical view, God was comprehensible in the beginning. We lost that view for ourselves.
We have chosen to exist in knowledge of good and evil. Consider this the colored glasses through which we now choose to see God only in part.
Any way one looks at it “fabricated pretenses” obscures the view. I agree, that is all were left with after the garden(however it is interpreted). And isn’t that the mythological theme of the garden; that the view is now obscured. The Garden of Eden story is a classic example of God’s truth conveyed in a story that need not be historically correct. It conveys a truth about our inability to comprehend God. We may learn from myths independent of rational systems of knowledge (scientific and historical).
Consider that the Hebrew Name God gives Gods-self is rendered “I AM”. Even more significant, the Tetragramaton “YHWH” is considered so sacred that it cannot be pronounced, and is rendered when read out loud as “Elohim”, which isn’t even close.
I’m going to need to look up Joseph Campbell.
You’re right, by the way, Religion is very much about making sense of the mystery, the transcendent, the vast number of things we cannot explain. Most true scientists will also acknowledge that every good quality scientific answer raises at least 2 or 3 new questions. We’ll never answer them all. Heck, we’ll never ASK them all.
hs, I read once that Elohim can be translated as “that which is over the mountain” the mountain always being a symbol of God or the Sacred. Another translation is “that which can’t be named”. We try to name that which the ancients knew no name.
Bill Moyers and Joe Campbell together produced a DVD set of interviews called “The Power of Myth”. I recommend these as an entry point into Joe’s thought. No other person has influenced my religious life more than Joe Campbell. When I first saw “The Power of Myth”, I couldn’t believe I had found someone so alike in religious thought. It didn’t take long to realize Joe’s level of knowledge and wisdom gained from that knowledge was way above mine in intelligence and wisdom.
I have a sense that many people stop seeking a deeper Spirituality simply because they don’t want to acknowledge the unknown. It is safer psychologically to stop while things still make sense. We tend to concentrate on the immanent aspect of God’s nature ignoring the transcendent.
The unknown is the future. It is not mystical or beyond comprehension. It is there for us to create, and be responsible for.
Pretending that there is some mystical quality in the future as the unknown is pretending that we are not responsible for it.
When we speak this way we may accept responsiblitiy for the view of religion as accepting mystery in the face of ignorance, and we are deserving of the criticism that religion is myth inspired by ignorance and fear of the unknown.
My own view of Campbell’s work is not so enthusiastic.
I find it elaborate and conventional in an anthropological viewpoint, and not very useful in its attempt to redefine established views.