Lecture VII [VIII](Nr. 0061)

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Tillich Lectures
[58]

Lecture VII [VIII]
Oct. 20, 1955

There are several written questions here which I shall try to answer after I finish the lecture, and perhaps some of them will be answered implicitly anyhow.

Now what I said in the last minute of Tuesday's lecture was that in all religions, there are movements of anti-mythological criticism, and that this refers not only to polytheism (which means a divided ultimacy), but that it also refers to attempts to take the monotheistic symbolism literally. I refer here to a concept which is as ugly as it is important—namely “demythologization.” Everybody breaks his tongue when he uses that word for the first time! Nevertheless, the word has been used and is now in the center of many theological discussions, especially on the European Continent. The word has been used in connection with the elaboration of the mythical elements in the stories and symbols of the bible, especially of the New Testament-stories like those of the paradise, of the fall of , of the great flood, of the Exodus from Egypt, of the virginal birth of the Messiah, many of his miracles, of his resurrection and ascension, of his expected return as the judge of the universe—in short, all the stories in which divine-human interactions are told, are considered mythological in character and therefore as objects of demythologization.1

Now the question we must ask, in connection with our problems here (namely, religion and language) is: what does the word “demythologization” really mean? I would say it can mean something very sound and necessary, namely the necessity of acknowledging a symbol as a symbol, and a myth as a myth, and rejecting the transformation of a symbol or myth into a literal statement about things and events happening in time and space. On the other hand, the word can mean something very wrong. It can mean the removal of symbols and myths altogether. And if it does mean this, then demythologization must be rejected. Then it becomes an attempt which can never be successful because symbol and myth are forms of the human consciousness which are always present in all of us. One can replace one myth by another one, but one cannot remove myth from man's spiritual life, for the myth is the combination of symbols of our ultimate concern.

1Tillich, like Bultmann, opposes a literal interpretation of myth and supports Bultmann’s program of demythologization, which has become the subject of a debate over direction (see Bultmann’s famous 1941 lecture “The New Testament and Mythology: The Problem of the Demythologization of the New Testament Proclamation”). Tillich and Bultmann, however, interpret myth quite differently themselves. In his own interpretation of Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms, Tillich closely links the concept of myth with his concept of the symbol. All statements about God are symbolic. There is no way to speak of God except in mythological terms. There is a development of mythical thinking, but it can never lead to a non-mythological discourse about God. For Tillich, demythologization is thus a critique of a literal, supernaturalist understanding of myth that fails to grasp its symbolic character. Like Bultmann, Tillich combines demythologization with existential analysis, but considers ontology indispensable—a stance that Bultmann criticized. Bultmann’s stated goal, on the other hand, is to interpret myth anthropologically—that is, existentially—as a further development of Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis of Dasein. He is concerned with the self-understanding and relationship to the world expressed in myth. Myth stands for a pre-scientific worldview. The background to this is primarily the work of Wilhelm Bousset and Hermann Gunkel. For this reason, Bultmann is primarily concerned with separating the kerygma from its form. Bultmann understands demythologization as analogous to Paul’s doctrine of justification. For modern humans to adopt the antiquated mythical worldview would be to demand justification by works.

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