I have written about myth and specific myths for quite a while now. These ancient tales appear distant, archaic, and irrelevant to modern cultural and political debates. And yet, the truth is that myths have never been more relevant. Why? Because, unlike modern theories that claim truth is entirely relative or culturally conditioned, myths propose that some truths are universal—eternal, even—and recur in every age, including our own.
Let’s start with a non-Western classic. “Tao Te Ching” affirms that “if one does not recognize the Eternal, one falls into confusion and sin.” That word—eternal—is key. It refers to truths that do not alter depending on the times or the trends. Greek myths, and many others across cultures, capture such truths in the form of a story, image, or symbol. They speak to the nature of reality, human limitation, justice, and the consequences of pride. That’s why they endure.
A Shallow Understanding of Myth
Unfortunately, our modern culture increasingly confuses myth with falsehood. The dictionary defines myth as “a fictitious narrative” or “a widely held but false belief.” But this is a deeply impoverished understanding.Consider the biblical myth of the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Whether or not one believes in a literal Adam and Eve, the myth is deeply and observably true: humanity, again and again, reaches for the wrong tree. We choose the Tree of Knowledge—facts, certainty, control—over the Tree of Life—imagination, trust, and faith. We do it still. And, in doing so, we fall.
Even the atheist philosopher John Gray acknowledges this. He notes that, while Enlightenment thinkers believed knowledge would liberate us, the myth of the Fall is closer to the truth. Science progresses, yet human behavior becomes more irrational and savage. The myth speaks to this paradox. It describes a condition, not a chronology. And so myths, properly understood, are not in competition with science or history but rather complement them, offering insight into the meaning behind the data.
The problem is, since the Enlightenment, we have stopped seeing myth as alive. It has become fossilized—dismissed as make-believe. As a result, we privilege science and facts over story and meaning. We see it in education, where STEM subjects are exalted and the arts and humanities marginalized. We see it in public discourse, where poets are ignored and scientists are revered as sole arbiters of truth.
Science, however, cannot escape the need for myth. Take the Big Bang theory: It’s a story, a narrative framework to make sense of what we cannot directly observe. It’s mythic in structure, even if scientific in ambition.
This is not to pit science against myth, but to point out that myth is unavoidable because human beings think in stories. Professor Brian Cox once observed, “Narrative may be regarded as a primary act of mind.” The most important truths—love, justice, goodness, and value—are invisible. We can’t see or measure them, yet we live and die for them. Myths help us grasp these invisible realities by giving them form. They make the unseen seen.
The Greeks knew this. They called the great transgression hubris—an overstepping of human limits, a refusal to acknowledge higher order. And they told stories about what happens to those who ignore that order. Myths, then, are not idle entertainments. They are warnings and wisdom, passed down in symbolic form. They are a way to orient ourselves in a disordered world.
Disorder is what we increasingly see around us. Why? Because we have abandoned the sense of order that the Greeks—and not only the Greeks, but the Hebrews, Chinese, and ancient Egyptians too—understood as essential. At the heart of Greek mythology is the establishment of cosmos—order—out of chaos. Zeus, in defeating the Titans, institutes a divine hierarchy. Law and justice are born. Yet today, many reject hierarchy and limitation in favor of a boundless equality, mistaking freedom for license and mistaking limitation for oppression.
But as the “Tao Te Ching” reminds us: “In leading men and in the service of Heaven, there is nothing better than limitation. For only through limitation can one deal with things early on.” Limitation is not the enemy; it is the structure that makes meaning possible. Myth reminds us of this. It reintroduces boundaries and points us to higher laws—those that transcend human whim.
What Is Progress?
The modern notion of “progress” complicates this further. Progress, as currently imagined, is not just a belief in better technology but a myth in itself: the belief that we are inevitably improving.But what if that belief blinds us to what we are becoming? John Gray argues that belief in progress has become a “mechanism of self-deception” that prevents us from seeing the evils created by unchecked growth. Myth, by contrast, offers a corrective. The ancients believed the Golden Age was behind them; we believe it lies ahead. But both are myths—just very different ones. Ours, perhaps, is more dangerous.
Ironically, even science has its own unacknowledged myths, its own sacred stories, yet it refuses to admit it. It insists on seeing myth as fiction, while spinning grand origin tales of its own. And so, it remains blind to its limitations.
The rejection of myth has not made us more rational, only more fragmented. Marx, for example, mocked the biblical truth that “man shall not live by bread alone,” insisting that man cannot live without bread. But this is to misunderstand the myth entirely. The saying is not about bread but about being fully human—about aspiring beyond mere survival.
Myth and Christianity
Talking about the power of myth is not to contradict the unique historical basis of Christianity, nor is it to engage in fanciful fiction. But, it can guide us to truth—truth that is eternal, recurring, and necessary.
The Greeks knew this. They understood that even the gods were subject to deeper laws—justice, fate, retribution, destiny. And these were not merely religious beliefs, but observations of how the world works. Cosmos means order. And it is order—moral, psychological, spiritual—that we most lack today.
Myth can help restore that order. If we let it.
