Dionysus and the Divine Oneness: Schelling's Critique of Greek Mythology

Schelling finds Greek mythology to be the highest point of mythology as it is able of expressing all three potencies with a degree of spirituality that we find nowhere else in the pagan world. The Hellenic representation of the three potencies is of them as the three different forms that the god Dionysus assumes. However, although Greek mythology acknowledges that the three potencies are one, it still fails to see the oneness underlying the different images of God, and how the potencies can be one without their differences ceasing to be. The three forms of Dionysus are separated from one another, and do not enjoy the same degree of oneness which binds the three persons of the Trinity. Thus, only with revelation we finally come to an understanding of God's oneness which represent the potencies in an organic oneness.

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However, the latter is the integral way toward humanity’s flourishing in God. In mythology, we ought to understand the different steps of the theogonical process in the light of the increasing truth of the symbols of God. In revealed religion, the concern is not so much around our images of God as in a sense they cannot be improved. Rather, we must care about how much these images are interiorized. In mythology the images of the divine become more and more spiritual as we better imagine God, where in revealed religion to do the same does not bring new images but rather deepen our relationship with them. In other words, Christians do not ever get to move past the image of God as the Holy Trinity, but can develop an ever better communion with the transcendent by deepening their understanding of this symbol of the divine. In other words, they can always re-imagine the Trinity, this way developing the metaphorical bridge between the symbol and God and renewing the life of their relationship with