Resurrection, Truth of

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     The First Proof is the life of Jesus Christ Himself. It is always a disappointment when a life which commenced well finishes badly. A perfect life characterized by Divine claims ends in its prime in a cruel and shameful death. Is that a fitting close? Surely death could not end everything after such a noble career. The Gospels give the resurrection as the completion of the picture of Jesus Christ. There is no real doubt that Christ anticipated His own resurrection. At first, He used only vague terms, such as, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But later on. He spoke plainly and whenever He mentioned His death, He added, “The Son of man . . . must be raised the third day.” These references are too numerous to be overlooked, and, in spite of difficulties of detail, they are, in any proper treatment of the Gospels, an integral part of the claim made for Himself by Jesus Christ.

     His veracity is at stake if He did not rise. Surely the word of such a One must be given due credence. We are, therefore, compelled to face the fact that the resurrection of which the Gospels speak is the resurrection of no ordinary man, but of Jesus—that is, of One whose life and character had been unique, and for whose shameful death no proper explanation was conceivable. Is it possible that, in view of His perfect truthfulness of word and deed, there should be such an anti-climax as is involved in a denial of His assurance that He would rise again.

     Consider, too, the death of Christ in the light of His perfect life. If that death was the close of a life so beautiful, so remarkable, so God-like, we are faced with an insoluble mystery—the permanent triumph of wrong over right, and the impossibility of believing in truth or justice in the world. So the resurrection is not to be regarded as an isolated event, a fact in the history of Christ separated from all else. It must be taken in close connection with what precedes. The true solution of the problem is to be found in that estimate of Christ which “most entirely fits in with the totality of the facts.”

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ;” In: The Bible Champion: Volume 25: No. 12: December, 1919, [Reading: Frank J. Boyer, 1919], pp. 490-491.)

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     The Second Proof is the fact of the empty tomb. That Jesus died, and was buried, and that on the third morning the tomb was empty, is not now seriously challenged. The theory of a swoon and a recovery in the tomb is impossible, and to it Strauss “practically gives its deathblow.” At Christ’s burial, a stone was rolled before the tomb, the tomb was sealed, and a guard was placed before it. Yet on the third morning the body had disappeared, and the tomb was empty. There are only two alternatives. His body must have been taken out of the grave by human hands or else by superhuman power. If the hands were human, they must have been those of His friends or His foes. If His friends had wished to take out His body, the question at once arises whether they could have done so in the face of the stone, the seal and the guard. If His foes had contemplated this action, the question arises whether they would seriously have considered it. It is extremely improbable that any effort should have been made to remove the body out of the reach of the disciples. Why should His enemies do the very thing that would be most likely to spread the report of His resurrection? Besides, the position of the grave-clothes, proves the impossibility of the theft of the body. How, too, is it possible to account for the failure of the Jews to disprove the resurrection? Not more than seven weeks afterward Peter preached in that city, the fact that Jesus had been raised. What would have been easier or more conclusive than for the Jews to have produced the dead body and silenced Peter forever? “The silence of the Jews is as significant as the speech of the Christians.”

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ;” In: The Bible Champion: Volume 25: No. 12: December, 1919, [Reading: Frank J. Boyer, 1919], p. 491.)

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     The Third Proof is the transformation of the disciples caused by the resurrection. They had seen their Master die, and through that death they lost all hope. Yet hope returned three days after. On the day of the crucifixion they were filled with sadness; on the first day of the week with gladness. At the cruicfixion [sic] they were hopeless; on the first day of the week their hearts glowed with certainty When the message of the resurrection first came, they were incredulous and hard to be convinced, but when once they became assured, they never doubted again. What could account for the astonishing change in these men in so short a time? The mere removal of the body from the grave could never have transformed their spirits and characters. Three days are not enough for a legend to spring up which should so affect them. Time is needed for a process of legendary growth. There is nothing more striking in the history of primitive Christianity than this marvelous change wrought in the disciples by a belief in the resurrection of their Master. It is a psychological fact that demands a full explanation. The disciples were prepared to believe in the appearance of a spirit, but they never contemplated the possibility of a resurrection. Men do not imagine what they do not believe, and the women’s intention to embalm a corpse shows they did not expect His resurrection. Besides a hallucination involving five hundred people at once, and repeated several times during forty days, is unthinkable.

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ;” In: The Bible Champion: Volume 25: No. 12: December, 1919, [Reading: Frank J. Boyer, 1919], p. 491.)

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     The Fourth Proof is the existence of the primitive church. “There is no doubt that the church of the apostles believed in the resurrection of their Lord.” It is now admitted on all hands that the church of Christ came into existence as the result of a belief in the resurrection of Christ. When we consider its commencement, as recorded in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, we see two simple and incontrovertible facts: (1) the Christian society was gathered to gether by preaching; (2) The substance of the preaching was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was put to death on a cross, and would, therefore, be rejected by Jews as accursed of God. Yet multitudes of Jews were led to worship Him, and a great company of priests to obey Him. The only explanation of these facts is God’s act of resurrection, for nothing short of it could have led to the Jewish acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Messiah. The apostolic church is thus a result of a belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The early chapters of Acts bear the marks of primitive documents, and their evidence is unmistakable. It is impossible to allege that the early church did not know its own history, that myths and legends quickly grew up and were eagerly received, and that the writers of the Gospels had no conscience for principle, but manipulated their material at will, for any modern church could easily give an account of its history for the past fifty years or more. And it is simply absurd to think that the earliest church had no such capability. In reality there was nothing vague or intangible about the testimony borne by the apostles and other members of the church. “As the church is too holy for a foundation of rottenness so she is too real for a foundation of mist.”

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ;” In: The Bible Champion: Volume 25: No. 12: December, 1919, [Reading: Frank J. Boyer, 1919], p. 492.)

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     One man in the apostolic church must be singled out as a special witness to the resurrection. The conversion and work of Saul of Tarsus is our next line of proof. Attention is first called to the evidence of his life and writings to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some years ago an article appeared inquiring as to the conception of Christ which would be suggested to a heathen inquirer by a perusal of Paul’s earliest extant writing (1 Thess.). One point at least would stand out clearly—that Jesus Christ was killed and was raised from the dead. As this Epistle is usually dated about 51 A.D.—that is, only about 22 years after the resurrection-and as the same Epistle plainly attributes to Jesus Christ the functions of God in relation to men, we can readily see the force of this testimony to the resurrection.

     Then a few years later, in an Epistle which is universally accepted as one of St. Paul’s, we have a much fuller reference to the event. In the well-known chapter (1 Cor. 15) where he is concerned to prove (not only Christ’s resurrection but the resurrection of Christians, he naturally adduces Christ’s resurrection as his greatest evidence, and so gives a list of the various appearances of Christ, ending with one to himself, which he puts on an exact level with the others: “Last of all he was seen of me also.” Now it is essential to give special attention to the nature and particularity of this testimony. “I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Cor. 15. 3f). This, as it has often been pointed out, is our earliest authority for the appearances of Christ after the resurrection, and dates from within 30 years of the event itself. But there is much more than this: “He affirms that within 5 years of the crucifixion of Christ, he was taught that ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scritpures [sic]; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.’” And if we seek to appreciate the full bearing of this act and testimony we have a right to draw the same conclusion: “That within a very few years of the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus was, in the mind of at least one man of education, absolutely irrefutable.” 

     Besides, we find this narrative includes one small but significant statement which at once recalls a very definite feature of the Gospel tradition—the mention of “the third day.” A reference to the passage in the Gospels where Jesus Christ spoke of His resurrection will show how prominent and persistent was this note of time. Why, then, should St. Paul have introduced it in his statement? Was it part of the teaching which he had “received?” What is the significance of this plain emphasis on the date of the resurrection? Is it not that it bears absolute testimony to the empty tomb? From all this it may be argued that St. Paul believed the story of the empty tomb at a date when the recollection was fresh, when he could examine it for himself, when he could make the fullest inquiry of others, and when the fears and opposition of enemies would have made it impossible for the adherents of Jesus Christ to make any statement that was not absolutely true. “Surely common sense requires us to believe that that for which he so suffered was in his eyes established beyond the possibility of doubt.”

     In view, therefore, of St. Paul’s personal testimony to his own conversion, his interviews with those who had seen Jesus Christ on earth before and after His resurrection, and the prominence given to the resurrection in the apostle’s own teaching, we may challenge attention afresh to this evidence for the resurrection. It is well known that Lord Lyttleton and his friend Gilbert West left Oxford University at the close of one academic year, each determined to give attention, respectively, during the long vacation to the conversion of St. Paul and the resurrection of Christ, in order to prove the baselessness of both. They met again in the autumn and compared experiences. Lord Lyttleton has become convinced of the truth of St. Paul’s conversion, and Gilbert West of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If therefore, Paul’s 25 years of suffering and service for Christ were a reality, his conversion was true, for everything he did began with that sudden change. And if his conversion was true, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, for everything Paul was and did, he attributed to the sight of the risen Christ.—International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ;” In: The Bible Champion: Volume 25: No. 12: December, 1919, [Reading: Frank J. Boyer, 1919], pp. 492-493.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria

Relativism

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

C. S. Lewis: (The self-referential argument)

You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.

(C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man: Or, Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools, [New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974], p. 91.)

G. K. Chesterton:

But the new rebel is a sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.

(Gilbert K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, [New York: John Lane Company, 1908], pp. 73-74.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria

Relationships

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

N. T. Wright:

Of course, being by yourself is often very desirable. If you work in a noisy factory, or even if you live in a crowded home, getting away, perhaps out into the countryside, can be a blessed relief. Even those of us who like being with lots of other people can sometimes have enough of it and enjoy curling up with a book, or going for a long walk and thinking about things without other voices intruding. Differences of temperament, upbringing, and other circumstances have a large part to play in this.

     But most people don’t want complete, long-term solitariness. In fact, most people, even those who are naturally shy and introverted, don’t normally choose to be alone all the time. Of those who opt for a solitary life, some do so for religious reasons, becoming hermits. Others do so to escape danger, as when a convicted criminal chooses solitary confinement rather than face prison violence. But even those who make such choices are usually conscious that what they’re doing is abnormal. Indeed, sometimes when people are locked up by themselves they quite literally go mad. Without human society, they don’t know who they are anymore. It seems that we humans were designed to find our purpose and meaning not simply in ourselves and our own inner lives, but in one another and in the shared meanings and purposes of a family, a street, a workplace, a community, a town, a nation. When we describe someone as a “loner,” we’re not necessarily saying the person is bad, simply that he or she is unusual.

(N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006], pp. 30-32.)

N. T. Wright:

We search for justice, but we often find that it eludes us. We hunger for spirituality, but we often live as though one-dimensional materialism were the obvious truth. In the same way, the finest and best of our relationships will eventually end in death. The laughter will end in tears. We know it; we fear it; but there’s nothing we can do about it.

     If this is paradoxical—we’re meant for relationship, but all relationships come to an end—we find in both parts an echoing voice that reminds us of the echoes we have heard in the first two chapters. Those faith-systems which are rooted in the scriptures we call the Old Testament speak of human beings as made, irreducibly, for relationship: for relationship with one another within the human family (and especially within the male-female complementarity); for relationship with the rest of the created order; and for relationship, above all, with the Creator. And yet, within the story of creation which remains foundational for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all things within the present world are transient. They are not designed to be permanent.

     That impermanence—the fact of death, in other words—has now attained the dark note of tragedy. It is bound up with human rebellion against the Creator, with a rejection of that deepest of relationships and a consequent souring of the other two (with one another and with the created order). But the motifs of relationship and impermanence are part of the very structure of what, in the great monotheistic religions, it means to be human. We shouldn’t be surprised that, when we think of human relationships, we find ourselves hearing the echo of a voice, even if, as in Genesis, the voice is asking “Where are you?”

(N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006], pp. 35-36.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria

Purpose

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche:

If we possess our why of life we can put up with almost any how.

(Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols: Or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, §. Maxims and Arrows, #12; In: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols; and The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979], p. 23.)

Viktor E. Frankl:

     To be sure, man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” I can see in these words a motto which holds true for any psychotherapy. In the Nazi concentration camps, one could have witnessed that those who knew that there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive. 

(Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, [London: Rider, 2004], Part II: Logotherapy in a Nutshell, §. Noö-Dynamics, p. 109.)

Viktor E. Frankl:

…this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man. 

(Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, [London: Rider, 2004], Part II: Logotherapy in a Nutshell, paragraph 5, p. 104.)

John R. W. Stott:

Existentialism has the effect of diminishing people’s sense of significance. Radical existentialists may be said to differ from humanists in general by their resolve to take their atheism seriously and to face its terrible consequences. As we saw in chapter four, because (in their view) God is dead, everything else has died with him. Because there is no God, there are no values or ideals either, no moral laws or standards, no purposes or meanings. And, although I exist, there is yet nothing that gives me or my existence any significance, except perhaps my decision to seek the courage to be. Meaning is found only in despising my own meaninglessness. There is no other way to authenticate myself. 

     Bleakly heroic as this philosophy may sound, there must be very few people able to perform the conjuring trick of pretending to have significance when they know they have none. For significance is basic to survival.

(John Stott, Why I Am a Christian, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004], p. 104.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria

Omnipotence

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

Richard Swinburne:

A logically impossible action is not an action. It is what is described by a form of words which purport to describe an action, but do not describe anything which it is coherent to suppose could be done. It is no objection to A’s omnipotence that he cannot make a square circle. This is because ‘making a square circle’ does not describe anything which it is coherent to suppose could be done.

(Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism: Revised Edition, [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993], pp. 153-154.)

C. S. Lewis:

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think all nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask―half our great theological and metaphysical problems―are like that.

( C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, [London: Faber and Faber, 1966], pp. 58-59.)

 

Thomas Aquinas: 

     I answer that, All confess that God is omnipotent; but it seems difficult to explain in what His omnipotence precisely consists: for there may be doubt as to the precise meaning of the word “all” when we say that God can do all things. If, however, we consider the matter aright, since power is said in reference to possible things, this phrase, God can do all things, is rightly understood to mean that God can do all things that are possible; and for this reason He is said to be omnipotent. …Now God cannot be said to be omnipotent through being able to do all things that are possible to created nature; for the divine power extends farther than that. If, however, we were to say that God is omnipotent because He can do all things that are possible to His power, there would be a vicious circle in explaining the nature of His power. For this would be saying nothing else but that God is omnipotent, because He can do all that He is able to do. It remains therefore, that God is called omnipotent because He can do all things that are possible absolutely; which is the second way of saying a thing is possible. For a thing is said to be possible or impossible absolutely, according to the relation in which the very terms stand to one another, possible if the predicate is not incompatible with the subject, as that Socrates sits; and absolutely impossible when the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject, as, for instance, that a man is a donkey. …Whence, whatsoever has or can have the nature of being, is numbered among the absolutely possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent. Now nothing is opposed to the idea of being except non-being. Therefore, that which implies being and non-being at the same time is repugnant to the idea of an absolutely possible thing, within the scope of the divine omnipotence. For such cannot come under the divine omnipotence, not because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has not the nature of a feasible or possible thing. Therefore, everything that does not imply a contradiction in terms, is numbered amongst those possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent: whereas whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them. 

(The “Summa Theologica” of St. Thomas Aquinas: Part I. QQ. I.-XXVI.: Second and Revised Edition, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, [London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1920], Pt. I, Q. 25, Art. 3, pp. 350, 350-351, 351-352.)

R. C. Sproul:

The answer is “No, God cannot build a rock so big that He cannot move it.”

     How can that be? Is there something God cannot do? To understand this answer we must first establish some foundations. First, it is important to note that the word omnipotent is an abstract theological term used by theologians in theological conversation. Most theologians do not use the term omnipotence in an absolute sense, which would mean that God could do anything, absolutely anything. God could die. God could lie. God could create a square circle. God could be God and not be God at the same time and in the same relationship. Here the concept of omnipotence is pushed to the level of absurdity.

     The normal meaning of omnipotence is that God has absolute power over His creation. He rules His creation; the creation does not rule Him. God has the entire universe under His control. There are no horses that run too fast for Him to catch them, no elephants too heavy for Him to lift, and no rocks too big for Him to move.

     Thus, the answer to the student’s question is God cannot build a rock too big for Him to move because God cannot stop being God. He cannot stop acting consistently with His nature. It is His nature to be omnipotent over what He creates.

(R. C. Sproul, One Holy Passion: The Consuming Thirst to Know God, [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987], pp. 125-126.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria

Nothing, Concept of

Note: Last Updated 7/31/2024.

David C. Downing:

     In Surprised by Joy Lewis notes that his reading of Henri Bergson in 1918 was an important first step in moving away from Schopenhauer. Bergson, says Lewis, showed him “the snares that lurk about the word Nothing” and helped him get past Schopenhauer’s “haunting idea . . . that the universe might not have existed.” The book Lewis has in mind here is Creative Evolution, first published in 1907. In it Bergson critiques the notion that the physical universe is a cosmic fluke, that it was preceded at some time eons ago by a pure Void, and that it need not have existed at all.

     Bergson argues that we can conceive of an empty glass, as opposed to a full one, by retaining the idea of the glass. And we can conceive of an empty universe, as opposed to one with galaxies, worlds and life forms, only by retaining the idea of a universe, something which exists. To posit the existence of nonexistence is, for Bergson, a logical impossibility. One might assert that a chalk circle is present or absent from a blackboard, but one cannot argue that the idea of a circle does not exist, for it is independent of, and logically prior to, any particular physical circle. In the same way, there are logical principles, such as that A = A, which are eternal, self-existing and have no meaningful logical opposites. To Bergson, existence itself is such a term, an object necessary for any contemplating subject, regardless of how dark and empty one might try to imagine the universe. For him a nonexistent universe is like a square circle, “a self-destructing idea, a pseudo-idea, a mere word.”

(David C. Downing, The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis’s Journey to Faith, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004], pp. 93-94.)

Henri Bergson:

…Existence appears to me like a conquest over nought. I say to myself that there might be, that indeed there ought to be, nothing, and I then wonder that there is something. Or I represent all reality extended on nothing as on a carpet: at first was nothing, and being has come by superaddition to it. Or, yet again, if something has always existed, nothing must always have served as its substratum or receptacle, and is therefore eternally prior. A glass may have always been full, but the liquid it contains nevertheless fills a void. In the same way, being may have always been there, but the nought which is filled and, as it were, stopped up by it, pre-exists for it none the less, if not in fact at least in right. In short, I cannot get rid of the idea that the full is an embroidery on the canvas of the void, that being is superimposed on nothing, and that in the idea of “nothing” there is less than in that of “something.” Hence all the mystery.

     It is necessary that this mystery should be cleared up. It is more especially necessary, if we put duration and free choice at the base of things. For the disdain of metaphysics for all reality that endures comes precisely from this, that it reaches being only by passing through “not-being,” and that an existence which endures seems to it not strong enough to conquer non-existence and itself posit itself. It is for this reason especially that it is inclined to endow true being with a logical, and not a psychological nor a physical existence. For the nature of a purely logical existence is such that it seems to be self-sufficient and to posit itself by the effect alone of the force immanent in truth. If I ask myself why bodies or minds exist rather than nothing, I find no answer; but that a logical principle, such as A = A, should have the power of creating itself, triumphing over the nought throughout eternity, seems to me natural. A circle drawn with chalk on a blackboard is a thing which needs explanation: this entirely physical existence has not by itself wherewith to vanquish non-existence. But the “logical essence” of the circle, that is to say, the possibility of drawing it according to a certain law—in short, its definition—is a thing which appears to me eternal: it has neither place nor date; for nowhere, at no moment, has the drawing of a circle begun to be possible. Suppose, then, that the principle on which all things rest, and which all things manifest possesses an existence of the same nature as that of the definition of the circle, or as that of the axiom A = A: the mystery of existence vanishes, for the being that is at the base of everything posits itself then in eternity, as logic itself does.

(Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell, [London: Macmillan and Co., 1911], pp. 291-292.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria

Myths, Pagan

Note: Last Updated 3/27/2025.

Michael J. Christensen:

Myths are only shadows of the light of God. We walk in the light by faith, not by sight or exhaustive understanding.

(Michael J. Christensen, C. S. Lewis on Scripture: His Thoughts on the Nature of Biblical Inspiration, the Role of Revelation, and the Question of Inerrancy, [Waco: Word Books, 1979], p. 63.)

Michael J. Christensen:

     Myth, it must be remembered, does not mean lie, error, illusion or misunderstood history. The term has little to do with fact or history but transcends both. Properly understood, myth is a medium of divine revelation bringing a level of understanding superseding that which can be known through facts and history.

(Michael J. Christensen, C. S. Lewis on Scripture: His Thoughts on the Nature of Biblical Inspiration, the Role of Revelation, and the Question of Inerrancy, [Waco: Word Books, 1979], pp. 76-77.)

Michael J. Christensen:

    Good Dreams: Pagan Premonitions of Christ

     Pagan myths or “good dreams,” as Lewis refers to them in Mere Christianity, comprise yet another medium of divine revelation. Scattered throughout human history are archetypal patterns, stories, rituals, and religious motifs “about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men.”

     In Reflections on the Psalms, Lewis cites a passage from the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 B.C.), who wrote in one of his Eclogues: “The great procession of the ages begins anew. Now the Virgin returns, the reign of Saturn returns, and the new child is sent down from heaven.” The “reign of Saturn,” Lewis reminds us, is the great Roman age that roughly corresponds to the Garden of Eden before the Fall in Hebrew mythology. Virgil’s poem describes the new paradisal age which would emerge with this nativity. Apparently, Lewis surmises, some dim prophetic knowledge of Christ’s birth impressed the mind of the famous pagan poet.

     Plato was another, perhaps the greatest of all myth-makers. In his Republic, we are asked to imagine a perfectly righteous man, who “will be scourged, tortured, and imprisoned, his eyes will be put out, and after enduring every humiliation he will be crucified. . . .” Although Plato was clearly inspired by the death of Socrates, he is really depicting, according to Lewis, “the fate of goodness in a wicked and misunderstanding world.” The obvious similarity between Plato’s vision and the Passion of Christ was not one of coincidence but insight. “It is the very same thing of which that Passion is the supreme illustration.”

     “And what are we to say of those gods in various Pagan mythologies who are killed and rise again and who thereby renew or transform the life of their worshippers or of nature?” Lewis asks in Reflections on the Psalms, referring to the corn-kings in the nature religions who personify the annual death and resurrection of corn. He asks again, “Can one believe there was just nothing in that persistent motif of blood, death, and resurrection, which runs like a black and scarlet cord through all the greater myths—through Balder and Dionysus and Adonis and the Grail too?”

     How are Christians to understand the obvious similarities between pagan myths and Christianity? Either pagan mythology is essentially demonic and functions as counterfeit revelation for the purpose of confusing mankind, or else it is the dim foreshadowing of God’s supreme revelation in Christ. Lewis identifies with the latter view: “Surely the history of the human mind hangs together better if you suppose that all this was the first shadowy approach of something whose reality came with Christ.”

     The difference between pagan myths of redemption and the Divine Incarnation in history “is not the difference between falsehood and truth. It is the difference between a real event on the one hand and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other.” As Lewis explains in Miracles, Christ is like the corn-kings of pagan mythology “because the Corn-King is a portrait of Him. The similarity is not in the least unreal or accidental. For the Corn-King is derived (through human imagination) from the facts of Nature, and the facts of Nature from her Creator; the Death and Re-birth pattern is in her because it was first in Him.”

     This archetypal pattern of redemption—birth, death, new life—is “a thing written all over the world.” Embedded in the natural processes of the sun rising and setting, the cycles of the seasons, the cycle of life, or a seed being planted in the ground and dying only to live again is the mythological truth that man must die to live: “In the sequence of night and day, in the annual death and rebirth of the crops, in the myths which these processes gave rise to, in the strong, if half-articulate, feeling . . . that man himself must undergo some sort of death if he would truly live, there is already a likeness permitted by God to that truth on which all depends.” One of the functions of the natural world, it seems, is to furnish symbols that point to spiritual reality. Nature supplies the substance for myth; God supplies the meaning.

(Michael J. Christensen, C. S. Lewis on Scripture: His Thoughts on the Nature of Biblical Inspiration, the Role of Revelation, and the Question of Inerrancy, [Waco: Word Books, 1979], pp. 73-75.)

C. S. Lewis:

Myths have been accepted as literally true, then as allegorically true (by the Stoics), as confused history (by Euhemerus), as priestly lies (by the philosophers of the enlightenment), as imitative agricultural ritual mistaken for propositions (in the days of Frazer). If you start from a naturalistic philosophy, then something like the view of Euhemerus or the view of Frazer is likely to result. But I am not a naturalist. I believe that in the huge mass of mythology which has come down to us a good many different sources are mixed — true history, allegory, ritual, the human delight in story telling, etc. But among these sources I include the supernatural, both diabolical and divine. We need here concern ourselves only with the latter. If my religion is erroneous then occurrences of similar motifs in pagan stories are, of course, instances of the same, or a similar error. But if my religion is true, then these stories may well be a preparatio evangelica, a divine hinting in poetic and ritual form at the same central truth which was later focussed and (so to speak) historicised in the Incarnation. To me, who first approached Christianity from a delighted interest in, and reverence for, the best pagan imagination, who loved Balder before Christ and Plato before St Augustine, the anthropological argument against Christianity has never been formidable. On the contrary, I could not believe Christianity if I were forced to say that there were a thousand religions in the world of which 999 were pure nonsense and the thousandth (fortunately) true. My conversion, very largely, depended on recognizing Christianity as the completion, the actualization, the entelechy, of something that had never been wholly absent from the mind of man. And I still think that the agnostic argument from similarities between Christianity and paganism works only if you know the answer. If you start by knowing on other grounds that Christianity is false, then the pagan stories may be another nail in its coffin: just as if you started by knowing that there were no such things as crocodiles then the various stories about dragons might help to confirm your disbelief. But if the truth or falsehood of Christianity is the very question you are discussing, then the argument from anthropology is surely a petitio.

(C. S. Lewis, “Religion Without Dogma?” In: C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2014], pp. 137-138.) Preview.

Note: See further: Cosmology (As a Literary Genre—Myths/History).

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria