Myths And Symbols by Joseph M.; Charles H. Long KitagawaMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mircea Eliade (1907 – 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and interpreter of religious experience, he established paradigms in religious studies. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but (at least in the minds of the religious) actually participate in them.
We know from the studies of such historians of religions as Wilhelm Schmidt, Raffaele Pettazzoni, and Mircea Eliade that one of the central problems in recent study of history of religions is the problem of the High God. It was Mircea Eliade who observed that the problem of the High God among primitives became a central issue for historians of religions in the same generation that Nietzsche proclaimed the "death of God." And, Eliade continues in his observation, one of the most important elements in the structure of the High God symbol is the tendency of the High God, who is always the creator-deity, to become a deus otiosus after the world has been created. He describes this tendency explicitly in his Patterns in Comparative Religion.
What is clear is that the supreme sky god everywhere gives place to other religious forms. The morphology of this substitution may vary; but its meaning in each case is partly the same: it is the movement away from the transcendence and passivity of sky beings towards more dynamic, active, and easily accessible forms. One might say that we are observing a "progressive descent of the sacred into the concrete"; man's life and his immediate surroundings come more and more to have the value of sacred things.... Every substitution marks a victory for the dynamic, dramatic forms so rich in mythological meaning over the Supreme Being of the sky who is exalted, but passive and re-mote the supreme divinities of the sky are constantly pushed to the periphery of religious life where they are almost ignored; other sacred forces, nearer to man, fill the leading role.
And then there is this final statement which I should like to use from Eliade's work:
this slipping of the omnipotence, transcendence, and impassiveness into the dynamism, intensity, and drama of the new atmospheric fertilizing vegetation figures, is not without significance. It makes clear that one of the main factors in the lowering of people's conception of God. is the more all-embracing importance of vital values and of "Life" in the outlook of economic man.
Eliade's description of the history and structure of the High God being who created may be summarized as follows: (1) he is a the world; (2) his symbolism is related to the sky and thus he always represents transcendence, power, and wisdom; (3) after the creation of the world, the High God becomes deus otiosus, removed from the world he has created; (4) in his place are substituted the dramatic deities of fertility and creativity; (5) the High God is not completely forgotten, but he is no longer a part of the life of man and the world; he has no cult and worship is not addressed to him; (6) he is called upon or remembered in moments of strife or catastrophe when the basic structure of the world is threatened and when no help can be gained from the deities of fertility and creativity.
This pattern of elements and experiences in the structure of the High God bears a similarity to the structure of experience of the marvelously new. Subsequently there is the experience of awe and trembling fear before the wonder of the world, and finally, for Pascal there is the movement to silence. Now, I said there is a similarity, not a one-to-one relationship between the two structures, but the similarity is so marked that it might give us some insight into the religious experience of modern man; it might show us how, within the context of modernity, some basic patterns of man's religiousness may be discerned.
Pascal, unlike the enthusiasts of the Enlightenment, possesses that insight of double vision. He is able to see the infinite world of possibility which the new science makes possible, but he discerns at the same time that God has departed from this world and he is terrified by the infinite spaces, the void.
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