A New Awakening, Part 12

I have in this ongoing series been investigating the wisdom of myth as it informs what I call a potential "new awakening" of spirituality in our society. I take as one of my main reference points the book and PBS television series The Power of Myth, in which, during the mid-1980s, Bill Moyers interviewed at great length the scholar of comparative mythology Joseph Campbell.

In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell tells Bill Moyers that myth has four functions: the mystical, the cosmological, the sociological, and the pedagogical. The mystical function (a.k.a. the metaphysical function) is meant to lead us to awe before the mystery of creation, after which “the universe becomes, as it were, a holy picture.”

Carl Sagan, whose
Cosmos TV series
brought us a sense of awe
in the face of the discoveries
of modern science

The cosmological function of myth is to tell us “what the shape of the universe is, but showing it in such a way that the mystery again comes through.” At its best, Campbell says, our scientific awareness today is all about that.

The sociological function is for the purpose of “supporting and validating a certain social order,” Campbell says. “And here’s where the myths vary enormously from place to place. You can have a whole mythology for polygamy, a whole mythology for monogamy. Either one’s okay. It depends on where you are. It is this sociological function of myth that has taken over in our world — and it is out of date.”

Finally, the pedagogical function tells us “how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances. Myths,” according to Campbell, “can teach you that.”

Moses, who gave us the
Ten Commandments handed
down by God

Campbell makes clear throughout The Power of Myth that he strongly urges us to reclaim the fourth function of myth — and to an equally great extent, the first and second functions — and not so much the third. The validation of a particular social order boils down to, Campbell somewhat disparagingly says, “Ethical laws. The laws of life as it should be in the good society. All of Yahweh’s pages and pages and pages of what kind of clothes to wear, how to behave to each other, and so forth, in the first millennium B.C.” But those ancient laws are, he says, “out of date” today.

Many Catholics today would have a problem with that attitude. They would re-label the "ethical" the "moral" and instead insist on a "new evangelization" in behalf of the church as the teaching authority responsible for promulgating traditional moral rules that Campbell might call into question. (See this story in The Washington Post.) If polygamy is "okay," depending on "where you are" — on your social circumstances, that is — then such things as abortion on demand, gay marriage, birth control paid for by universal health coverage, and in vitro fertilization become moral questions whose answers are relative to time and place.

I personally find problematic any pooh-poohing of the sociological function of our religions and their underlying mythologies. My main reason is that we can't very well have a "new awakening" of spirituality based on the four functions of myth if one of the functions is effectively relegated to the trash heap.

Let me be as clear as I can about that touchy subject. I personally support such hot-button moral choices as abortion on demand, gay marriage, birth control paid for by universal health coverage, and in vitro fertilization. I think such moral questions are relative to time and place. But I recognize that such issues need to be resolved, over time, within a framework of sociological authority grounded ultimately in all four functions of myth. We can't completely peel off our ethical/moral debates from any "new awakening" of spirituality that might occur as we rediscover the "power of myth."