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.

At this

point we have to resist the temptation of falling back in a framework/content dichotomy. In the light of the participatory stance I introduced above and to which I ascribe, we must not think of our images of God as more or less precise conceptual structure that we apply to a transcendent object. Once more, Persephone is the principle, the necessary relationship that we see in her through our consciousness. Accordingly, the Trinity is not the perfect representation of God because of its exceptional descriptive accuracy. The three potencies and the laws we find in them are not something to be described, but drives according to which living beings develop. In other words, in Schelling’s perspective the Trinity is the most sublime symbol of God as it is able to fully embody the nature and power of God’s life, rather than being something we superimpose to some sort of pre-existing pattern.
In Schelling's words, the images introduced by revealed religion are “images of the supreme unity which is the archetype of everything concrete there is”, and, as they bring together the three potencies in their oneness, “they shall be perfect, accomplished in themselves”. In light of this, mythologies are the scenery of struggle as the human spirit is pushed onto the next step of the theogonic process. By contrast, there is no continuation of the theogonical process after Christianity as its images are perfect and accomplished. Rather, a different sort of process takes place in revealed religion, namely that involving the development of the implications of its symbols and thus the augmentation of its tradition. As he puts it, even with the advent of revelation Satan is defeated but not destroyed. In other words, revelation does not remove completely the danger of reification, namely that of symbols losing their capacity of communicating God, as they can cease to resonate with the human spirit. Even if now the symbols provided by the revealed religion are complete, the possibility of re-enacting the fallen condition switches from the images of God to humanity's spiritual reality.
Borrowing upon Raimon Panikkar, we might say that no religion reflects human perfection - in Schelling’s terms, not even revealed religion does.

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

God.