Sep 1, 2022·edited Sep 1, 2022Liked by Psychology & The Cross
Jakob, it is good that you have decided to grapple with this issue. I think Jung's engagement with Christianity is a failure. He is stuck in ancient metaphysical thought and thinks Christianity is all about archetypal ideas. In truth, Christianity is about *worldly events*, of which the most important is the crucifixion and resurrection of the Son of God, which occurred in a certain place and at a point in time. Christianity centers on revelation, God's will and action in the world, and the human person's will and conduct.
Jungian analyst Marilyn Nagy identifies Jung as belonging to the Platonic and Kantian tradition (Nagy, "Philosophical Issues in the Psychology of C.G. Jung", 1991, p.46). When she realized this, it made her very downcast. Jung's Christianity is all about ideas, archetypes, and abstract thought. But Christianity centers around the manifestation of God in temporal events and the action of the human person in the world.
The Christian God is a God who acts. He is not an archetype. Nor is He the Unmoved Mover of ancient philosophy. God is a person who is "hidden in suffering", as Luther says. We can have a lot of information and ideas about a person. Nevertheless, this is largely useless, considering that we have to meet the person in order to get to know him.
Christianity is oriented towards experience and relation. Jung, however, is caught up in abstractions and figments of the mind. This is what Jung means by "experience", because whatever exists in the mind is "real". His subjectivistic and romantic idealism is incompatible with earth-bound and pragmatic Christianity. Jung wants to take us above the clouds whereas Christianity wants us to remain humble and restricted to the earth, where God manifests His will in events of our life. I had the same experience as Marilyn Nagy. I was downcast when writing "An Assessment of the Theology of Carl Gustav Jung".
Mats, it's always a pleasure to read your thoughtful comments. I am curious to see if also I will be downcast through the process of grappling with Jung's take on these important questions. It's already becoming clearer to me where I can follow Jung and where I have to depart from him. It's still too early for any conclusions on my end but as I get there I would be happy to discuss these further with you.
Would you mind to share a link to your assessment of the theology of Carl Gustav Jung here?
It seems to me that faith and humility are almost synonymous. We must bow down before a Truth we cannot know. We don't know that Jesus resurrected. We don't even know if he ever existed. This is good, because it means that Christian truth can only be acquired through faith. There are no shortcuts. It is good that there are no proofs of God's existence or any evidence of Christ's passion, because Christianity is the religion of faith, not of knowledge. Critics don't get it. They say that there are no scientific proofs and no empirical facts. Good! This is exactly what faith requires.
Luther explains why the Lord's Supper is the flesh and blood of Christ: "Because he says so!" Obeisance is required of us; we are expected to shut up and obey. But we are unaccustomed to this, and that's why modern man is in such a bad shape. An important dimension of human nature, belonging to our instinctual nature, is atrophied. Imagine a dog that isn't completely faithful and loyal to its owner. Well, then it is no longer a dog but belongs to some other species.
We human beings, too, must bow down to our Master, or else we are not fully human. In that case we aren't complete. According to Jung, completeness is the goal of individuation. But he rejected the most important aspect of our nature, namely faith. The conclusion is that wholeness is impeded in Jungian psychology.
Anyway, I suppose that something good has come out of Jungian psychology. I like Marie-Louise von Franz. Perhaps Jungian psychology can be repaired, provided that Jungians learn from Christianity and stop thinking that they possess a higher truth. The Cross is the highest truth, to which we must all bow down. However, we mustn't leave a millimetre air between the forehead and the floor, like Jung did in a dream. He was faking it! This is also a common problem among churchgoers. There's a lack of humility, and then they start faking it. Imam Mohammad Tawhidi says that 95% of all Muslims possess such false faith.
Mats, it's beautiful how you write about the deep link between humility and faith.
As for Jung's 1 millimetre and his attempt at imitating his fathers submission I want to quote Wolfgang Giegerich.
"If it had not been Uriah but a majestic God who was the highest presence, then, I presume, Jung could have willingly touched his forehead to the ground without hesitation. But to sincerely bow to a “highest presence” that was in itself nothing but a suffering, wronged man being, this was out of the question, even when this was precisely the task that the dream, and Jung’s father in the dream, set the Dream-I."
- Jung's Millimeter: Feigned submission - Clandestine defiance: Jung's religious psychology, Dreaming the myth onward, p. 13
Don't feel downcast my friend, your studies have been sorely restricting. If you feel an ill feeling towards Jung, or perhaps have difficulty in understanding him, you can study Owen Barfield as well, who is more excepted into western Christianity. You are correct, Christianity as we practice it today, is blinded by the literalness that accompanies scientific materialism. With that being the fundamental part of Christianity, rooted in history, technically you know only the story of Christ, you don't know Jesus at all. Not physically anyway.... If you ignore the introspective implications that are most necessary to "knowing Christ" without actually "knowing Christ" you know him about as well as you know your great, great, great, great grandfather. If Christianity was rooted in only the physical and not the psychological, Christ would have no other choice but to revisit every follower and lead them about, just as he did his disciples. No my friend, there is no other way to understand the Spirit, but to subject yourself to the deep introspective journey that Jung had best tried to understand!
The redeeming thing about Jungian psychology is that it has opened up the valuable symbolic world of paganism, dreams, fairytales and myth. Christian theologians have thought that the only thing that matters is the Christian kerygma as explicated in the bible, not knowing that pagan myth can throw light on many biblical themes. Bengt R. Hoffman, in two books, laments that Lutheran theology has thrown out the mystical side and instead followed a rationalistic and externalistic path. If Hoffman is correct, then important parts of Luther's enunciation were lost immediately after his death. In fact, Luther's favourite book, next to the bible, was Aesop's fables. He kept retelling the fables and supported their use in homes and schools. He also worked on a German edition of Aesop.
The problem with Jungian psychology is the mythology of the unconscious. According to this concept, the divine is within and may be accessed by turning inwards. In fact, the divine is extrinsic, as in all religions since times immemorial. Indeed, the Christian person ideally turns away from the world; but this is not the same as turning inwards, because then we only become curved in upon ourselves ('incurvatus in se'; Luther). To turn away from the world and follow Christ is to turn away from the ego. This can be achieved only in solitude, but not among people, because they have a corrupting influence.
The religion of the future will, I hope, have room for both psychology and the cross. The cross of course, is a sophisticated psychology itself. I'm drawn to Owen Barfield's notion of Original and then Final Participation as a grand map, with Christ initiating the final phase.
This Christ initiated phase can hardly be the last evolutionary development and many psychologies will have to emerge since the psyche is consciousness itself, which I see as the Godhead. The psychologies are perhaps poetic languages that dance around the ineffable.
It could be that Jung is a bridge figure to the divine for those lost in the forest of modernity . . . I'll quit while I'm ahead . . . behind.
Thank you Mark for your intriguing reflections on this. Like yourself I believe that a vibrant religion needs to have room for both psychology and the cross. I will need to read up on Owen Barfield's notions of participation...
Barfield provided a good map...he was a follower of Steiner and understood the importance of myth, being a friend of Tolkien and CS Lewis. How I’d love to be a fly on the wall during their talks together!
I’m very much with you on this point Mark. I think integration of psychology with real spirituality in practice is the next step. Jung has laid the groundwork on his side of things. Will religion meet him halfway?
I actually have not had a chance to listen to the podcast yet or do a close read of Bryant's book. It has now accumulated the sad fate of a place in my guilt stack of books unread in favor of required course readings, but I liked what I skimmed of it. And I think your project will add some good new contributions too.
Jakob, it is good that you have decided to grapple with this issue. I think Jung's engagement with Christianity is a failure. He is stuck in ancient metaphysical thought and thinks Christianity is all about archetypal ideas. In truth, Christianity is about *worldly events*, of which the most important is the crucifixion and resurrection of the Son of God, which occurred in a certain place and at a point in time. Christianity centers on revelation, God's will and action in the world, and the human person's will and conduct.
Jungian analyst Marilyn Nagy identifies Jung as belonging to the Platonic and Kantian tradition (Nagy, "Philosophical Issues in the Psychology of C.G. Jung", 1991, p.46). When she realized this, it made her very downcast. Jung's Christianity is all about ideas, archetypes, and abstract thought. But Christianity centers around the manifestation of God in temporal events and the action of the human person in the world.
The Christian God is a God who acts. He is not an archetype. Nor is He the Unmoved Mover of ancient philosophy. God is a person who is "hidden in suffering", as Luther says. We can have a lot of information and ideas about a person. Nevertheless, this is largely useless, considering that we have to meet the person in order to get to know him.
Christianity is oriented towards experience and relation. Jung, however, is caught up in abstractions and figments of the mind. This is what Jung means by "experience", because whatever exists in the mind is "real". His subjectivistic and romantic idealism is incompatible with earth-bound and pragmatic Christianity. Jung wants to take us above the clouds whereas Christianity wants us to remain humble and restricted to the earth, where God manifests His will in events of our life. I had the same experience as Marilyn Nagy. I was downcast when writing "An Assessment of the Theology of Carl Gustav Jung".
Mats, it's always a pleasure to read your thoughtful comments. I am curious to see if also I will be downcast through the process of grappling with Jung's take on these important questions. It's already becoming clearer to me where I can follow Jung and where I have to depart from him. It's still too early for any conclusions on my end but as I get there I would be happy to discuss these further with you.
Would you mind to share a link to your assessment of the theology of Carl Gustav Jung here?
"An Assessment of the Theology of Carl Gustav Jung": http://mlwi.magix.net/jungtheology.htm
It seems to me that faith and humility are almost synonymous. We must bow down before a Truth we cannot know. We don't know that Jesus resurrected. We don't even know if he ever existed. This is good, because it means that Christian truth can only be acquired through faith. There are no shortcuts. It is good that there are no proofs of God's existence or any evidence of Christ's passion, because Christianity is the religion of faith, not of knowledge. Critics don't get it. They say that there are no scientific proofs and no empirical facts. Good! This is exactly what faith requires.
Luther explains why the Lord's Supper is the flesh and blood of Christ: "Because he says so!" Obeisance is required of us; we are expected to shut up and obey. But we are unaccustomed to this, and that's why modern man is in such a bad shape. An important dimension of human nature, belonging to our instinctual nature, is atrophied. Imagine a dog that isn't completely faithful and loyal to its owner. Well, then it is no longer a dog but belongs to some other species.
We human beings, too, must bow down to our Master, or else we are not fully human. In that case we aren't complete. According to Jung, completeness is the goal of individuation. But he rejected the most important aspect of our nature, namely faith. The conclusion is that wholeness is impeded in Jungian psychology.
Anyway, I suppose that something good has come out of Jungian psychology. I like Marie-Louise von Franz. Perhaps Jungian psychology can be repaired, provided that Jungians learn from Christianity and stop thinking that they possess a higher truth. The Cross is the highest truth, to which we must all bow down. However, we mustn't leave a millimetre air between the forehead and the floor, like Jung did in a dream. He was faking it! This is also a common problem among churchgoers. There's a lack of humility, and then they start faking it. Imam Mohammad Tawhidi says that 95% of all Muslims possess such false faith.
Mats, it's beautiful how you write about the deep link between humility and faith.
As for Jung's 1 millimetre and his attempt at imitating his fathers submission I want to quote Wolfgang Giegerich.
"If it had not been Uriah but a majestic God who was the highest presence, then, I presume, Jung could have willingly touched his forehead to the ground without hesitation. But to sincerely bow to a “highest presence” that was in itself nothing but a suffering, wronged man being, this was out of the question, even when this was precisely the task that the dream, and Jung’s father in the dream, set the Dream-I."
- Jung's Millimeter: Feigned submission - Clandestine defiance: Jung's religious psychology, Dreaming the myth onward, p. 13
Thanks for this conversation, it’s water for the soul to hear others wrestling with these issues and willing to face the limitations of Jung.
It's great to see you participate in it. I look forward to speak further with you soon.
Don't feel downcast my friend, your studies have been sorely restricting. If you feel an ill feeling towards Jung, or perhaps have difficulty in understanding him, you can study Owen Barfield as well, who is more excepted into western Christianity. You are correct, Christianity as we practice it today, is blinded by the literalness that accompanies scientific materialism. With that being the fundamental part of Christianity, rooted in history, technically you know only the story of Christ, you don't know Jesus at all. Not physically anyway.... If you ignore the introspective implications that are most necessary to "knowing Christ" without actually "knowing Christ" you know him about as well as you know your great, great, great, great grandfather. If Christianity was rooted in only the physical and not the psychological, Christ would have no other choice but to revisit every follower and lead them about, just as he did his disciples. No my friend, there is no other way to understand the Spirit, but to subject yourself to the deep introspective journey that Jung had best tried to understand!
The redeeming thing about Jungian psychology is that it has opened up the valuable symbolic world of paganism, dreams, fairytales and myth. Christian theologians have thought that the only thing that matters is the Christian kerygma as explicated in the bible, not knowing that pagan myth can throw light on many biblical themes. Bengt R. Hoffman, in two books, laments that Lutheran theology has thrown out the mystical side and instead followed a rationalistic and externalistic path. If Hoffman is correct, then important parts of Luther's enunciation were lost immediately after his death. In fact, Luther's favourite book, next to the bible, was Aesop's fables. He kept retelling the fables and supported their use in homes and schools. He also worked on a German edition of Aesop.
The problem with Jungian psychology is the mythology of the unconscious. According to this concept, the divine is within and may be accessed by turning inwards. In fact, the divine is extrinsic, as in all religions since times immemorial. Indeed, the Christian person ideally turns away from the world; but this is not the same as turning inwards, because then we only become curved in upon ourselves ('incurvatus in se'; Luther). To turn away from the world and follow Christ is to turn away from the ego. This can be achieved only in solitude, but not among people, because they have a corrupting influence.
Mats, can you share your email with me or getting in touch over email? I have a question for you.
My email is malwinse[ ]gmail.com
The religion of the future will, I hope, have room for both psychology and the cross. The cross of course, is a sophisticated psychology itself. I'm drawn to Owen Barfield's notion of Original and then Final Participation as a grand map, with Christ initiating the final phase.
This Christ initiated phase can hardly be the last evolutionary development and many psychologies will have to emerge since the psyche is consciousness itself, which I see as the Godhead. The psychologies are perhaps poetic languages that dance around the ineffable.
It could be that Jung is a bridge figure to the divine for those lost in the forest of modernity . . . I'll quit while I'm ahead . . . behind.
Thank you Mark for your intriguing reflections on this. Like yourself I believe that a vibrant religion needs to have room for both psychology and the cross. I will need to read up on Owen Barfield's notions of participation...
Barfield provided a good map...he was a follower of Steiner and understood the importance of myth, being a friend of Tolkien and CS Lewis. How I’d love to be a fly on the wall during their talks together!
I’m very much with you on this point Mark. I think integration of psychology with real spirituality in practice is the next step. Jung has laid the groundwork on his side of things. Will religion meet him halfway?
New to your substack but very much looking forward to this project, I like the paradigms you are thinking. Curious if you have engaged with Christopher Bryant's book, who has more optimism on a reconciliation than some: https://www.amazon.com/Jung-Christian-Way-Christopher-Bryant/dp/0866838724
Thanks Joe! I assume you have already checked out the podcast. I actually just started reading Bryant's book with great interest. How did you like it?
I actually have not had a chance to listen to the podcast yet or do a close read of Bryant's book. It has now accumulated the sad fate of a place in my guilt stack of books unread in favor of required course readings, but I liked what I skimmed of it. And I think your project will add some good new contributions too.
I found this resource the other week which gives a good overview of books on Jung and Christianity and that also mentions Bryant's book.
Link: https://www.millinerd.com/2020/11/twelve-rules-for-understanding-jungians.html
Hi Marion! Good question as this should be clarified. All participants will get a recording of the lecture together with a PowerPoint.
Thanks for signing up and for your support!