James Carlson #7: Myth became Fact

C.S. Lewis defends the fundamental elements of Christian doctrine in his essay “Myth became Fact” by illustrating the essence of faith and belief. The main argument of Lewis’s essay is as follows:

“The myth (to speak [Corneus’s] language) has outlived the thoughts of all its defenders and of all its adversaries. It is the myth that gives life. Those elements even in modernist Christianity which Corineus regards as vestigial, are the substance: what he takes for the real modern belief' is the shadow” (Lewis 64).  

It seems that the belief in the doctrine, for Lewis, is only the side affect rather than the substance. The “myth” or rather the Christian doctrines themselves have a substance all their own that transcends the influences of its followers and criticizers. Despite the constant generations that have pasted before and after the Christian doctrines of the Bible, the subject matter is still influential, still alive. While I am not particularly religious, I believe in the power of myth and its transcendental properties in relation to people. The persistence of these doctrines over the whims of society attests to the power of belief and experience over the rational scrutiny of scholars. People’s “modern belief” comes secondary to the subject that inspires that belief. Christian teachings may be more fluid on the basis of societal discernment but the fount from which those teachings spring still stands resolute, firm and influential.