Carl Jung: Your idea of writing a doctoral thesis about sin is brilliant.

To Pastor Fritz Pfaffiin

Dear Pastor PfafHin, 9 March 1937

Your idea of writing a doctoral thesis about sin is brilliant.

That is something I would definitely like to know, what sin really is, seeing that theology has been talking about it for thousands of years.

In my theological impartiality I would say that only the good Lord can decide, as stands clearly written in the Acts of the Apostles.

Everything else is man-made law, wholly time-conditioned and relative.

Men would never have talked of sin and the forgiveness of sin had this not been a fundamental psychological fact that existed long
before there were any laws.

Deviation from the will of the gods was a preoccupation of humanity even in primeval times.

In this sense "the old man" would have a very great deal to say.

But this sense is far more comprehensive and in a way more inexorable than any human law.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 253-254