Out of Egypt:

Mo' Love for Jung (in which I talk about my crazy times, somewhat)

My CHOW paper, a Christian critique of Jung's "Approaching the Unconscious." It was actually kinda fun to write.

1 down, 4 to go.

Sigmund Freud opened the doors to the unconscious, that irrational realm whose unseen conflicts trouble our waking life. Carl Jung, however, was the first to map its territory. To Freud, the only significant conflict was that between eros and thanatos, the life instinct and the death instinct. The language of dreams was monotone; everything spoke of sex. Whereas Freud infantilized the unconscious, reducing it to its lowest terms, Jung took what it was saying seriously. Unlike Freud, the atheist, Jung could even say, “God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions” (575). Jung’s theories, unlike Freud’s, open a path to the healing of self and society since they avoid the dangers of rationalism and reductionism to which most schools of psychology are prone. While secular psychology generally compartmentalizes the world, regarding those mystic powers and symbols that bind patients’ minds as nothing more than illusions, Jung’s theories lead the field toward epistemic holism.

To clarify that last phrase will take a while, for it comes from my own experience rather than a process of reasoning. Last spring, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The condition had been a long time coming. Starting in February, I felt as though everything I was learning in class, in church, in chapel, and in my own reading was coming together into one massive synthesis. I felt like I was drawing near to some kind of breakthrough. I was seeking a theory of linguistic meaning which could justify my fundamental insight that there is truth in metaphor. However, these goals were unrealistic and my focus was off. Looking back, I can see how far my priorities had gotten askew when I remember how I spent the night before a major psychology test reading St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation instead of studying. Seeking knowledge is good, but not when it causes one to fail at meeting one’s responsibilities.

In mid-March, the world came crashing down around me, with all the conceptual frameworks I had so carefully constructed. Everything became fluid; as I wrote in my journal of the time, “I feel like Heraclitus – everything flows.” Sleep was impossible; my body tingled as though supercharged with electricity. I shut my eyes and yet could feel them pulsing underneath their lids.

It was in that time that I entered the world of dreams. Our waking life is typically dominated by rationality, the strange self-consciousness by which we evaluate our acts. In my manic state, however, there was no such censor holding sway over the impulses coming from below. I had no sense of time – I could be out walking for a half-hour and it would feel like a few minutes. I only acknowledged the outer world inasmuch as it corresponded with my inner life.

I was full of theories then, theories that I would call superstitions now that I have returned to the compartmentalized mindset of the modern world. However, if I had been treated then by a strict behaviorist like Skinner, who utterly ignored the inner life of the mind, addressing himself only to that behavior which can be observed, I doubt I could have been helped. For in my view, which is Jung’s as well, all behavior is a manifestation of inward conflict. Until the wellsprings of behavior are addressed, the conflict will remain, even if repressed. Freud, for all his faults, understood this much – that repression can cause the greatest pain, simply because it is directed inward. When anger is directed inward to the fullest extent, then it leads to suicide. I write this as a layman, but as one with some experience of my own, experience that, as Jung says, “no textbook can teach” (567).

Sometimes I wish that I had one to speak with then who could have treated my theories with respect, foolish as they seem today. For I have always been fascinated by the language of dreams, and here that language entered into my waking life. Everything was a sign from heaven to me, just as with the natives of whom Jung speaks.

My reading of St. Athanasius had suggested to me that the world is a body of which Christ is the Mind. This is not pantheism, but rather the consequence of taking seriously God’s immanence within the world. In the 4th century, before the advent of the clockwork universe, St. Athanasius could view the world itself as holy, even as Jung writes. Through the medieval period, the world was seen as a temple whose design speaks of the Spirit who created and inhabits it.
While I remained manic, however, this pre-modern mindset, which returns beauty and significance to the created order, became oppressive to me. I felt as though the world was full of spirits and I was caught up in a war between them. I felt as though all my actions were specifically dictated by Providence, as if I could be personally conscious of predestination.

Secular psychology could not help me out of such a state, except as it eventually did help me - with the medication that it offers. If I had spoken of my theories to those treating me, they would view them as delusions to be dispelled rather than intuitions to be redirected. I have to learn for myself how to retain some part of that holistic vision of the world which I received during my manic state, while also retaining my own identity and ability to live within this society.

Our world is too cramped and programmed to deal with an all-encompassing myth of creation, providence, and final destiny. Perhaps that is why, in my case, an attempt to create such a myth finally resulted in mental illness. I cannot deny the genetic and chemical factors that were involved, but I believe the disjunction between my developing theories and the prevailing mindset of Western society contributed to my breakdown.

The myth that I sought to create – or rather, to discover - was a myth in the Jungian sense. A myth of this sort is alive, giving vital force to culture. The Greek and Norse myths are no longer living and many say Christianity no longer lives either. However, this does not mean myth has vanished from culture – for myth, as Jung defines it, is simply that which is foundational to a culture and which expresses its ultimate values. A culture must possess an integrated vision of the world – a myth – in order to give the lives of individuals within that culture meaning. Jung contends that individuals must be taught by their culture both their origin and their final end. The consequences of a failure to transmit this knowledge are alienation, social stagnation, and finally death.

Freud answered Einstein’s “Why war?” by proposing that there is a “death instinct” inherent in humanity. Jung, despite his reputation as a mystic, actually is more rational here. To him, Freud’s death instinct is a symptom, not a disease. There is a crisis of meaning in modern life. Individual happiness cannot come simply from material prosperity. There is food for the soul as well as the body, and the spiritual food the twentieth century offers does not satisfy.
The reason for this, according to Jung, is that the educated twentieth century denies the spirit. Rationalists equate spirit simply with intellect, even as they reduce matter to its elementary particles. In this way, Jung writes, “[spirit] has degenerated to the limited ego-thoughts of man” and “the immense emotional energy expressed in the image of ‘our Father’ vanishes into the sand of an intellectual desert.”

Jung regards this as dehumanizing. From the Christian perspective, this is so because man loses all significance apart from an I-Thou relationship to God. Without the doctrine of the Incarnation, man is lost in the cosmos.
All cultures prior to our own recognized the necessity of religion, not simply for the pragmatic reasons Jung offers, but because they believed the spiritual world was a fundamental part of reality. Indeed, the very word “culture” comes from a root meaning “worship.” Perhaps now, for the first time in history, there is a culture that is unified and yet maintains radical individualism in worship. All truth outside the realm of the empirically provable is seen as subjective. The choice between faiths is a matter of personal preference only. Logically, this makes the choice a matter of indifference.

A significant question, perhaps the most significant, which Jung does not address in “Approaching the Unconscious” is whether religious faith of one kind is preferable over that of another. Since to Jung all faiths are myths – impossible to prove, though impervious to disproof – is there a particular faith which he regards as better expressive of the archetypes lying latent in the collective unconscious? Furthermore, will this faith still have the same benefits when those who adopt it are aware that they do so not out of a belief in its absolute truth, but rather out of a desire for its psychological benefits? If faith is a placebo, as Jung seems to suggest, no matter how powerful it is, it will only work on the ignorant.

I agree with Jung that there are no purely rational proofs for a religion, even for Christianity. However, I do not believe this puts the Christian faith in a noumenal “upper story” where the question of proof is irrelevant. Since Christianity is based on the assertion of a particular historical fact, it is theoretically possible, at least, to disprove the faith. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “…[I]f Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17).

Proving Christianity, on the other hand, is not so simple. No evidential argument can bring one to the level of certainty necessary to make such a life-or-death commitment. Here intuition, however, – which is so crucial to Jung’s theory – must bring one into faith from doubt. Perhaps the best apologetic for the faith is a work like The Brothers Karamazov, which shows forth the beauty of the Gospel. Perhaps an even better apologetic is the lives of Christians themselves. In both cases, one is forced to ask the question, “How can this exist in a world in which there is no God, in which redemption in Christ is just a romantic illusion?”

I agree with Jung that our society believes it has outgrown the old myths. Yet this does not mean we ought to seek new ones. There is no symbol that we could manufacture more powerful than the symbols which God has already given us. Day follows night, spring follows winter – in these symbols, and many others, God hints at the story which He explicitly declares in Scripture. We have not outgrown the Word of the Cross. All those who believe so have never understood it.

Jung offers a needed corrective to all purely mechanistic theories of psychology, but his critique does not go far enough. The collective unconscious may exist; dreams are unquestionably significant. However, Christianity cannot be regarded as simply another manifestation of the archetypes of the race. It will not coexist with any other system of thought; Christ will not be shuffled to the periphery. If He is significant at all, He is ultimately significant. The parallels that might be found in other faiths are fragments of the image of God in man. Christ is the only One who can restore that image to its first glory.

Evan, this was great.

Posted by: JosiahQ at April 19, 2004 8:20 AM

Evan,

After such an astonishingly rich piece I feel hesitant to say anything...but I want to ask for one clarification. When you say,

"No evidential argument can bring one to the level of certainty necessary to make such a life-or-death commitment. Here intuition, however, - which is so crucial to Jung's theory - must bring one into faith from doubt,"

are you implying that intuition is the ultimate mover in (or ultimate cause of) our move from rebellion to acceptance of Christ? Or are you presenting Jung's position here? You can probably see what I'm getting at, and perhaps I have read this wrong, but could you clarify?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Posted by: Angela at April 23, 2004 12:19 AM

If I were to say anything - and this is admittedly tentative - there is a double reality going on here. Since I was addressing Jung's psychology, I only spoke of that reality from one side - the human. From a human perspective, this movement is caused by intuition. But from the divine perspective, it's the witness of the Holy Spirit. It can only be recognized as such afterward, however.

The movement of which I speak isn't, however, from rebellion to faith, but from doubt to faith. The one who doubts in this manner is not the atheist or agnostic who wants an excuse for rebellion, in response to their guilty knowledge of God, but is rather already being led by the Holy Spirit toward faith. Intuition is like a "secondary cause" which the Holy Spirit uses. And of course it must ultimately result in an encounter with Scripture.

Thanks for your thoughts. That's exactly what I was hoping would happen.

Posted by: Evan Donovan at April 23, 2004 5:42 AM