More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

by Bernardo Kastrup

The human intellect does have the unique ability to ‘stand outside’ its own thoughts in the sense that it can think about its thoughts. We can also stand outside our emotions in the sense that we can ponder our emotions. We can even stand outside ourselves in the sense that we can contemplate our situation in the world as if we were looking at ourselves from the outside. This capacity is what we call self-reflective awareness and it is essential for making sense of nature.

Think about this for a moment: without the capacity for self-reflection embodied in us, nature would stand no chance of groking itself; it would never be able to raise its head above the waters of its own instinctive unfolding. Now, this uniquely human capacity seems intimately tied to our tendency to think of ourselves as discrete entities, separate from the rest of nature. At the very moment that we become able to ‘stand outside’ our own thoughts and emotions, we also become able to ‘stand outside’ the rest of nature. Do you see how these things come together? Whatever evolutionary pressure pushed the human organism towards self-reflection also rendered it vulnerable to the myth of separateness. Perhaps this delusory myth was never the point. Perhaps the delusion of separateness is merely an unwelcome but natural side-effect.

The no-myth traditions may reject self-reflective interpretations of the world along with the myth of separateness. They may fail to recognize that the illusion of consensus reality may be the symbolic expression of transcendence. If so, self-reflection is crucial for groking the symbolism.

But there is a problem: self-reflection is largely an intellectual capacity. At the very moment that we bring an originally obfuscated intuition up into the field of self-reflection, we place it in the intellect and, therefore, confine it to language. And since language cannot capture transcendent truths, the whole exercise seems to defeat itself. If we try to apply self-reflection to a transcendent idea, we end up losing its very transcendence through the filter of language; we end up with a well-elaborated circle, but miss the cylinder altogether.

The true value of self-reflection is not in answering, but in asking. As we’ve seen above, the self-reflective but language-limited intellect will never be able to produce the transcendent answer to the riddle of life. But by progressively refining the way the riddle is posed—that is, the way the questions are asked—the intellect can nudge and guide the obfuscated mind toward increasingly more insightful answers.

And since answers to the ultimate questions of life and reality are always intrinsically transcendent, the only way to reduce their obfuscation is to frame them in the form of a religious myth.

The true value of intellectual self-reflection is not in answering, but in asking the right questions. By progressively refining the questions, the intellect can nudge and guide the broader obfuscated mind toward increasingly more insightful answers.

Consensus reality is trying to get us to ask the right questions. Dramatic life events are forceful, maybe desperate attempts to lead us to these questions. A tremendous mystery unfolds in front of our senses every waking hour of our lives; a mystery more profound, more tantalizing, more penetrating and urgent than any novel or thriller. This unfolding mystery is nature’s challenge to us. Are we paying enough attention to it? Or are we, instead, cavalierly dismissing the whole thing as meaningless illusion?

A religious myth can create the conditions for a direct experience of a transcendent reality. If and when the experience actually happens, the myth dissolves itself. But once the experience is over, the religious myth remains an important link—a reminder—between ordinary life and transcendence.

What is it about religion that has so powerfully drawn the soul of humankind for so many generations? The answer is the innate, irresistible intuition most of us share that religious myths can point the way to a truth beyond the appearances of ordinary life; a truth that promises to liberate us from existential despair. The very existence of religious myths reflects humankind’s archetypal quest for liberation.

The first culturally sanctioned concept of truth has to do with the validity of perceptions in the present moment. It entails that our perceptions are true only if they correspond to states of affairs that exists now, independently of our subjective inner lives. For instance, my experience of seeing daylight at noon is true because it corresponds to the presence of the sun in the sky out there. But schizophrenic hallucinations are untrue because they exist only in the subjective inner life of the schizophrenic. Notice that the mind-independent state of affairs that a true perception supposedly corresponds to must exist in the present moment, simultaneously with the perception itself. After all, the vivid re-experiencing of an episodic memory is not a true perception, for it does not correspond to a thing or event out there in the present moment. Let us call this first concept of truth ‘perceptual truth.’

The second culturally sanctioned concept of truth has to do with the validity of explanations, whose essential elements are inferred past causes. For instance, suppose that a person visits her doctor presenting a skin rash. Based on the rash’s appearance and the patient’s memory of a recent walk in the woods, the doctor infers that a now-invisible insect bite was the cause. After a few days, the rash clears by itself. Since this is the outcome expected in cases of mild insect bites, can we then say that the diagnosis was true? Not really: it is conceivable that the rash was caused by exposure to a chemical, cold weather, or even by clothes rubbing on the skin. In all these cases, rashes also tend to clear on their own. We can only assert that the doctor’s explanation was true if it corresponded to past causes that existed independently of the doctor’s conjectures: in this specific case, an actual insect piercing the patient’s skin just prior to the onset of the rash. In other words, a true explanation is supposed to be more than just a story that happens to be fully consistent with the present; it must also correspond to a past state of affairs independent of subjective, internal conjectures. Notice that what we call episodic memories are, in essence, elements of our explanations for the present moment: they, too, are only considered true if corresponding to past states of affairs outside mind. Let us call this second concept of truth ‘explanatory truth.’

The third culturally sanctioned concept of truth has to do with predictions and deals with future possibilities. For instance, imagine that Italian seismologists detect earth tremors in Sicily, suspecting that Mount Etna is going to erupt once again. A first team of seismologists runs the measured data through a first computer model and concludes that Etna, despite the tremors, isn’t going to erupt any time soon. A second team then runs the same data through a second model and concludes that Etna is indeed going to erupt within a week. Imagine that the models of both teams, though different, are theoretically sound and internally consistent. Nonetheless, if Etna actually erupts within the week, only the second team’s conclusion will supposedly have ever been true. Indeed, a true prediction requires more than just ...

In summary, perceptual truth entails that an internal, subjective perception is true only if it corresponds to a present external state of affairs. Explanatory truth entails that an internal, subjective explanation is true only if it corresponds to a past external state of affairs. And predictive truth entails that an internal, subj...