ABSTRACT
This introduction presents some overview of key concepts discussed in subsequent chapters of this book. The popular identification of myth with the legendary and the fictional must obviously be abandoned completely if the term is to be used helpfully in theological and philosophical reconstruction. The three-storied pre-Copernican universe of the biblical writers is for him mythology, in the sense that it involves a cosmology now thoroughly discredited from the scientific point of view and which can never be reinstated. In the religious consciousness, myth becomes symbolic. Let us apply it to the biblical mythology and see whether it helps us to elucidate its significance and value. Inadequate conceptions of the Holy Spirit are not infrequent in Christian history and are justly subject to attack. What is obviously needed is a careful study of the various religious symbols provided by the New Testament "mythology" and their metaphysical validity.
