In the legends and mythology surrounding Hercules, one that really stands out and got my attention was his capture of the Erymanthian boar. This creature was said to be immense and also very dangerous, and Hercules' capture of it was called his "Fourth Labor." From the outset, this looks like either an exaggeration or another mythic creature that never existed until one starts to look at fossil records and other things. Now, for the skeptic like Bultmann, this is an impossibility due to the fact that many "demythologizers" of Christian faith are often theistic evolutionists at best, and thus they believe a greater mythology of secularism which presupposes that the earth is billions of years old, and that life occurred spontaneously and "evolved." Interestingly, there is a prehistoric creature called an Entelodont that actually fits the description in the Hercules legend, but for an evolutionist this is impossible because to them 1) Hercules was a mythical figure, and 2) the Entelodont in evolutionary timelines existed over 25 million years ago. Really?? If one looks at this from the Biblical view of creation though, these creatures lived and existed with humans, and thus a confrontation between a human and a beast like this would not have been an impossibility. The Christian euhemerist then would see the Erymanthian boar as possibly being an Entelodont, and that actually fits.
The Entelodont, a hypothetical possibility of the Erymanthian boar of myth
Another legend similar to this is in Arabic folklore, and entails a huge and onery bird called a "Roc." For the evolutionist, this is an impossibility for two reasons: 1) giant birds would have predated humans by millions of years, and 2) the only giant bird of significant size to be a threat to humans was a large eagle that lived in New Zealand up until the year 1400, and New Zealand is of course thousands of miles away from the Middle East. However, for a Christian euhemerist who would uphold Biblical creation, it is not a problem at all, as these "prehistoric beasts" interacted with humans and therefore man would have encountered them. This means then that the two greatest possibilities for the "roc" of Arabic folklore could have either been the terror bird (which was flightless) or the Haast's eagle, which lived in New Zealand up until about 600 years ago and was the largest predatory flying bird to ever live. Depending on which interpretation of the folklore one embraces, it could be either.
The terror bird
Haast's eagle attacking another giant flightless New Zealand bird, the moa
Another more recent controversial legend has a number of eyewitnesses that swear to its existence, and of course that is the Sasquatch/Bigfoot creature. Every year, hundreds of people report seeing this creature in various parts of the world, and with that many sightings, it is not easy to dismiss its possibility. Human reason, as seen through the eyes of the Christian euhemerist, warrants also looking at the evidence, and as it turns out, there did exist a giant ape called Gigantopithecus which almost lines up exactly with what people claiming "Bigfoot" sightings have reported. Now, according to the secularist/evolutionist, this is an impossibility because Gigantopithecus supposedly died out around anywhere from 3 million years ago to several hundred thousand years, yet if one does accept the Bible as true, and the Biblical account of creation, then the possibility of this creature being known to exist by humans is very real, and if one accepts recent creation, it means there may be a population of them still alive. Science has uncovered and verified stranger things - the mountain gorilla, the platypus, etc. If one takes this to logical conclusions then, it means the mystery of "Bigfoot" may be right in front of our noses - "Bigfoot" is either a surviving population of Gigantopithecus, or at least a close relative. If that be the case, then one day someone may actually find one, and then what was dismissed as legend may in fact turn out to be as real as raccoons and grizzly bears.
Re-creation of a Gigantopithecus specimen in a museum
Another example that actually may be even more relevant but is often dismissed as mere legend is the dragon. Prior to the 1800's, fossils that were found of giant reptiles were actually thought to have been "dragons," and that is what they were known as until the mid-1800's, when a new term for these fossilized remains was coined - dinosaur. Like the other creatures mentioned above, dinosaurs are supposed to have existed hundreds of millions of years before mankind came into existence, yet almost every culture has these dragon legends, and even more so in some parts of the world there are sculptures and carvings depicting these creatures as perfect living specimens. Now, we often have an arrogance that we, as "modern man," are more "sophisticated" and "advanced" than our ancient counterparts (the arrogance of secularism never ceases to amaze me!). But, "sophisticated" 21st-century man still has yet to theorize as to how an ancient culture in southeast Asia could carve the likeness of a perfect stegosaurus on a temple, utilizing just a few bones?? That discussion is warranted at another time, but it just proves that "demythologizing" things to make them fit with our own narrow vision may not always work, and in the case of creatures like these, it definitely doesn't.
T-Rex - the original "dragon?"
Other things that are confined to the world of mythology - for example, the existence of Atlantis - are also equally worth exploring, and indeed a man named Richard Freund has. In his 2012 book Digging Through History (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield) Freund proposes that the actual site of what legends called "Atlantis" may in fact be connected with the Biblical Tarshish, and the location possibility may be in southwestern Spain. The ruins of a city there match almost perfectly Plato's description of Atlantis, and therefore maybe such a place existed. If this could be further developed, it means that history may require a re-write. History, like science, has been the realm of the secularist for so long that too many people believe a somewhat constricted view of history that would dismiss anything empirical, but as we have seen not everything is necessarily strictly empirical. The problem is, however, the same forces that secularized history and science are now going after theology and the Bible, and that is why a study like this is necessary, and at this point we pick up with Mascall.
Beginning on page 54, Mascall draws a connection between Bultmann's theology and the existentialism of Martin Heidegger, and at this point Heidegger warrants discussion. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German existentialist philosopher who also was unfortunately an unrepentant Nazi - from May 1, 1933, Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party, and although he was a protege of German-Jewish phenomenological philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) - Husserl also was a leading influence on St. Edith Stein as well - he was also an opportunist and when the Nazis began to systematically discriminate against Jews, Heidegger eagerly supported Husserl's eviction from the University of Freiburg and his own acquisition of the position Husserl was forced to vacate. This was a paradox for Bultmann unfortunately, who on one hand has a fanatical commitment to Heideggerian existentialism but at the same time was on the opposite political spectrum - to note, Bultmann was a member of the "Confessing Church," along with his contemporaries Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and opposed the Nazis (a commendable position to Bultmann's credit), yet Heidegger was an all-out Nazi. As Mascall notes, Heideggerian existentialism was so integral to Bultmann's whole system that he had more fervor than even the most devout Dominican monk ever had to St. Thomas Aquinas! However, this led to some conflicting paradoxes with Bultmann, as we will now see.
Nazi existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
Due to Bultmann's trying to hold to both a more atheistic Heideggerian existentialism and his Christian faith, it led to him trying to maintain two imcompatible theses, as Mascall notes that Ogden states on page 55:
1. The existentialist thesis that Christian faith is to be interpreted as man's justification for authentic historical existence based on appropriate philosophical analysis (the Christian faith as a "coping mechanism," in other words, but not real or truthful)
2. The Christian faith, as properly upheld, as a "possibility in fact" due to the historicity of Jesus.
So, to justify himself, Ogden (previously discussed) reworks these theses as this:
1. Christian faith is to be interpreted as man's possibility of authentic existence (it is a comfort and encouragement, as well as a moral impetus, in other words)
2. The unconditional gift and demand of God's love is manifested in the historicity of Jesus Christ, but omitting the historical validity of such.
Ogden's restatement of these incompatible theses then means that the Christian faith is defined in Heideggerian terms as simply a "coping mechanism" that motivates authentic existence, and although Jesus is a historical person for Ogden (and Bultmann), it doesn't mean the faith has any substance. Jesus, therefore, is only an "example" of motivation of authentic existence that can also occur without His involvement. Let's now discuss that.
Historical and consistent Magisterial teaching affirms that Jesus is the focus and central fact of the faith (known in catechetics as "Christocentricity") and as Josef Jungmann explained in his 1936 text The Good News and the Proclamation of Our Faith, Jesus is at the center of all catechesis, and every doctrine we hold to as Christians radiates from him like spokes radiate from the hub of a bicycle wheel. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us in regard to such ideology as Heideggerian existentialist thought (although the passage I am referencing addresses atheism specifically), these positions are often based on a false conception of human autonomy which are exaggerated to the point of refusing any dependence on God (CCC 2126). It is also true of the agnostic, which in reality many of these liberal theologians such as Ogden and Bultmann were, in that it can sometimes include a certain search for God, but also equally expresses indifferentism, a flight from the ultimate question of existence, and a sluggish moral conscience - in other words, as the Catechism notes, agnosticism is practical atheism (CCC 2128). Contrary to this Heideggerian mantra of Odgen's that Jesus is only an "example" of motivation of authentic existence, the Church affirms that man is dependent on his Creator and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom (CCC 396), and He upholds them (meaning the human race in general) and sustains them in being, enables proper action, and brings them to their final end (CCC 301). All law, therefore, finds its first and ultimate truth in eternal law (CCC 1951) which in turn has its source in the Creator and finds its fullness and unity in the person of Christ (CCC 1953). Faith, for the Christian, is not in a system or an institution, but is in a Person, and in that Person (Jesus Christ) is the center of our whole existence and not a mere "possibility of authentic existence." Scripture reminds us of this fact too, as in Acts 17:28 we are reminded that in Him we live, move, and have our being. Therefore, creation cannot exist without its Creator, and the Creator is a Trinity of three distinct Persons, of which one is Jesus Christ, God the Son. If anyone denies that, then their Christianity bears a re-evaluation.
Even among liberal agnostic theologians like van Buren, there are differences of opinion, as he finds five objections to Ogden's position that Mascall notes on pages 56-57:
1) Bultmann's and Ogden's indulgence in "experienced non-objective reality" is meaningless, according to van Buren, when judged by strictly empirical criteria. The definition of what or who "God" is comes into focus for van Buren on this one.
2) Analogical speech about God is meaningless for van Buren, but any speech about God would have to be analogical (?). For van Buren, both Bultmann and Ogden are using words without meaning, in other words.
3) There is a discrepancy for van Buren regarding the distinct forms of statements - objective/informative and existential - which call for self-understanding of the hearer.
4) Van Buren objects to Ogden's displacement of the historical event of Jesus of Nazareth from the existential response of the believer. The Cross, for instance, is for van Buren a mere execution device devoid of present application - it is only a past event for him and not a present reality.
5) The Resurrection event is ignored by Ogden and dismissed as merely a "way the primitive Church responded to the ministry of the historical Jesus." Van Buren (surprisingly!) correctly notes that this divorcing of the Easter event from faith is tantamount to dispensing with Jesus Himself.
Van Buren is by no means an orthodox, devout believer (earlier discussions of him establish that!) but at least he has the sense to know what Ogden denies - Easter, the Resurrection, and the personage of Jesus do have a pivotal role in the faith of Christianity. However, all of these characters make a point of reducing the greatest event of salvation history to a mere abstraction - all of them would actually deny the reality of the Resurrection, although at least van Buren acknowledges its importance for Christian belief. And, on page 60, Mascall identifies the problem with their theses - there is a choice between "God" and the man Jesus Christ, and the secular empirically-minded "believer" can only choose the latter because of tangible historical fact of Jesus's existence. This then means, as Mascall notes on page 61, that if modern man is this Heideggerian secularist that van Buren proports him to be, then those Heideggerian tendencies revolt against both the particularity of a religion centered on Christ as well as the secularist revolt against the transcendentalism of a religion centered upon God. So, ever the linguistic empiricist, van Buren makes a complete reconstruction of the whole thing and thus "adjusts" his outlook on the nature of Christianity to conform with the secularist mindset he has. And, that brings us back to the discussion at the beginning of this segment.
The major problem with "modern man," in particular those of us who exist in the 19th-21st centuries, is that we presume with all of our "technological advances" to know more than the ancients did. We fancy ourselves more "enlightened," intelligent, and advanced than our "primitive" forebears, but is that really the case. Consider this for a minute from a euhemerist perspective - while it is true that many accounts of persons and creatures of legend are often ornamented and embellished, it is equally true that maybe that flowery language of embellishment is their way of expressing something that we may see now. This then means the "dragon" of legend becomes the "dinosaur" of fact, and that the demigod Zeus of Greek mythology was a deified ancient king who maybe was popular with his people. Only in the fact of the life of Christ do we not see any real embellishment (aside from some pseudopigraphal literature that is extra-Biblical and also rejected as such by the Church), but unfortunately empiricism has become a religion in itself and seeks to deny not only the supernatural, but also any natural phenomena that upsets the status quo - it is, after all, real work to rewrite history books and science texts in order to accommodate new evidence, and people would lose credibility and money if that happened, right? And, since the empirical secularist is a "believe it only if I can see it" person, it means that anything dealing with faith, the supernatural, and the metaphysical are irrelevant and not worth any consideration. That means then that salvation, belief in a God who is the originator of the universe, and other matters of faith (including the possibility that dinosaurs may have actually walked with man!) cannot be possible because they cannot be seen. Yet, these same people will say we as humans are descended from some African baboon that evolved over millions of years from a fish-like creature, yet that cannot be observed either. That means in essence that their empiricism is selective, and what is unsavory to them should therefore be dismissed as false. As we have seen, it means then a radical reworking of recorded facts for them to fit their narrative, and thus revisionism to justify non-belief is their fruit. As we pick up with this later, more will be seen as to how it relates to how justification on the part of such "theologians" is manufactured, and how so much of it draws upon some rather controversial philosophers (such as Heidegger and Nietzsche) to the degree that their own legacies are white-washed in order to give credibility to these theses.
