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Myth, Truth, and Justification in Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

William L. Power
Affiliation:
University of Georgia

Extract

When one addresses the issue of myth, truth, and justification in religion, what one says to a great extent depends upon one's understanding of religion and theology. For that reason I want to sketch out my views on such matters as a way of locating or identifying the theme of this paper in what I judge to be its proper setting. Having done that, I will then present my thoughts on myth, truth, and justification in religion in hope that some light will be cast on this rather complex issue and that what I say will provoke fruitful discussion.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

page 447 note 1 The two important essays by Clifford Geertz are ‘Religion as a Cultural System’ and ‘Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols’. They constitute Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 in his The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

page 451 note 1 Beardslee, William A., Literary Criticism of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), pp. 45.Google Scholar

page 451 note 2 Gunn, Giles B., ‘Introduction: Literature and Its Relation to Religion’, Literature and Religion, ed. Gunn, Giles B. (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 133.Google Scholar

page 451 note 3 For an excellent discussion of these matters see especially the ‘Preface’ by Amos N. Wilder in Jesus' Parables and the War of Myths, ed. Breech, James (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 1538.Google Scholar

page 453 note 1 Barbour, Ian G., Myths, Models, and Paradigms (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 44.Google Scholar

page 453 note 2 Wilder, Amos N., New Testament Faith for Today (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955), p. 60.Google Scholar

page 453 note 3 Ibid. p. 61.

page 454 note 1 Ogden, Schubert M., The Reality of God (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), pp. 117–18.Google Scholar

page 454 note 2 Wilder, Amos N., Early Christian Rhetoric (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 120.Google Scholar See also his Theopoetic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), p. 24

page 454 note 3 Wilder, , Theopoetic, p. 75.Google Scholar

page 454 note 4 Ibid. p. 80.

page 455 note 1 Barr, James, The Scope and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1980), p. 126.Google Scholar

page 455 note 2 See my article, ‘Story and Theory in Christian Theology: Two Levels of Language and Logic’, Encounter, XLIII, 3 (Summer 1980), 205–18.

page 455 note 3 Wilder, , Theopoetic, p. 74.Google Scholar

page 455 note 4 Wilder, , Early Christian Rhetoric, p. 121.Google Scholar

page 457 note l See my articles,‘Philosophic Logic and Theology’, The Miff Review, XXXVI, I ( 1979), 11–23 and ‘The Christian Story of Creation and Redemption: Heilsgeschichte Reconsidered’, Cithara, XXI, I (11 1981), 43–57.

page 457 note 2 This is one of the main arguments of Ian G. Barbour in Myths, Models, and Paradigms.