Carl Jung on “God,” “Gods.” - Anthology

For a woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious comes from above, from the “spiritual” sphere personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the chthonic realm of the “world and woman,” i.e., the anima projected on to the world. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 559

One of the essential features of the child motif is its futurity.

The child is potential future.

Hence the occurrence of the child motif in the psychology of the individual signifies as a rule an anticipation of future developments, even though at first sight it may seem like a retrospective configuration.

Life is a flux, a flowing into the future, and not a stoppage or a backwash.

It is therefore not surprising that so many of the mythological saviours are child gods.

This agrees exactly with our experience of the psychology of the individual, which shows that the “child” paves the way for a future change of personality.

“Child” means something evolving towards independence.

This it cannot do without detaching itself from its origins: abandonment is therefore a necessary condition, not just a
concomitant symptom. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 287

If we go further and consider the fact that man is also what neither he himself nor other people know of him—an unknown something which can yet be proved to exist —the problem of identity becomes more difficult still.

Indeed, it is quite impossible to define the extent and the ultimate character of psychic existence.

When we now speak of man we mean the indefinable whole of him, an ineffable totality, which can only be formulated symbolically.

I have chosen the term “self” to designate the totality of man, the sum total of his conscious and unconscious
contents.

I have chosen this term in accordance with Eastern philosophy, which for centuries has occupied itself with the problems that arise when even the gods cease to incarnate. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 140

When Nietzsche said “God is dead,” he uttered a truth which is valid for the greater part of Europe.

People were influenced by it not because he said so, but because it stated a widespread psychological fact.

The consequences were not long delayed: after the fog of–isms, the catastrophe.

Nobody thought of drawing the slightest conclusions from Nietzsche’s pronouncement.

Yet it [Nietzche’s “God is Dead”] has, for some ears, the same eerie sound as that ancient cry which came echoing over the sea
to mark the end of the nature gods: “Great Pan is dead.” ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 145.

All opposites are of God, therefore man must bend to this burden; and in so doing he finds that God in his “oppositeness” has taken possession of him, incarnated himself in him.

He becomes a vessel filled with divine conflict. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 659

It is quite right, therefore, that fear of God should be considered the beginning of all wisdom.

On the other hand, the much-vaunted goodness, love, and justice of God should not be regarded as mere propitiation, but should be recognized as genuine experience, for God is a coincidentia oppositorum [unity of the opposites].

Both are justified, the fear of God as well as the love of God. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 664.

“unconsciousness” throws a peculiar light on the doctrine of salvation.

Man is not so much delivered from his sins, even if he is baptized in the prescribed manner and thus washed clean,
as delivered from fear of the consequences of sin, that is, from the wrath of God.

Consequently, the work of salvation is intended to save man from the fear of God. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 659.

God has a terrible double aspect: a sea of grace is met by a seething lake of fire, and the light of love glows with a fierce dark heat which it is said, ‘ardet non lucet’—it burns but gives no light.

That is the eternal, as distinct from the temporal, gospel: one can love God but must fear him. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, § 733.

The paradoxical nature of God has a like effect on man: it tears him asunder into opposites and delivers him over to a seemingly insoluble conflict.

What happens in such a condition?

Here we must let psychology speak, for psychology represents the sum of all the observations and insights it has gained from the empirical study of severe states of conflict.

There are, for example, conflicts of duty no one knows how to solve. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 738

Job realizes God’s inner antinomy, and in the light of this realization his knowledge attains a divine numinosity. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 584

We can, of course, hope for the undeserved grace of God, who hears our prayers.

But God, who also does not hear our prayers, wants to become man, and for that purpose he has chosen, through the Holy Ghost, the creaturely man filled with darkness—the natural man who is tainted with original sin and who learnt the divine arts and sciences from the fallen angels. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 746.

Since the Apocalypse we now know again that God is not only to be loved, but also to be feared.

He fills us with evil as well as with good, otherwise he would not need to be feared; and because he wants to become man,
the uniting of his antinomy must take place in man.

This involves man in a new responsibility.

He can no longer wriggle out of it on the plea of his littleness and nothingness, for the dark God has slipped the atom bomb and chemical weapons into his hands and given him the power to empty out the apocalyptic vials of wrath on his fellow creatures.

Since he has been granted an almost godlike power, he can no longer remain blind and unconscious.

He [Man] must know something of God’s nature and of metaphysical processes if he is to understand himself and thereby
achieve gnosis of the Divine. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 747.

One should make clear to oneself what it means when God becomes man.

It means more or less what Creation meant in the beginning, namely an objectivation of God.

At the time of the Creation he [God] revealed himself in Nature; now he wants to be more specific and become man.

It must be admitted, however, that there was a tendency in this direction right from the start.

For, when those other human beings, who had evidently been created before Adam, appeared on the scene along with the higher mammals, Yahweh created on the following day, by a special act of creation, a man who was the image of God.

This was the first prefiguration of his becoming man.

He took Adam’s descendants, especially the people of Israel, into his personal possession, and from time to time he filled this people’s prophets with his spirit.

All these things were preparatory events and symptoms of a tendency within God to become man.

But in omniscience there had existed from all eternity a knowledge of the human nature of God or of the divine nature of man.

That is why, long before Genesis was written, we find corresponding testimonies in the ancient Egyptian records.

These intimations and prefigurations of the Incarnation must strike one as either completely incomprehensible or superfluous, since all creation ex nihilo [from nothing] is God’s and consists of nothing but God, with the result that man, like the rest of creation, is simply God become concrete.

Prefigurations, however, are not in themselves creative events, but are only stages in the process of becoming conscious.

It was only quite late that we realized (or rather, that we are beginning to realize) that God is Reality itself and therefore—last but not least —man. This realization is a millennial process. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 631.

No one can know what the ultimate things are.

We must therefore take them as we experience them.

And if such experience helps to make life healthier, more beautiful, more complete and more satisfactory to yourself and to those you love, you may safely say: “This was the grace of God.” ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 167.


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Carl Jung: The Gods envy the Perfection of Man

The one arose from the melting together of the two. He was born as a child from my own human soul, which had conceived him with resistance like a virgin. Thus it corresponds to the image that the ancients have given to us. But when the mother, my soul, was pregnant with the God, I did not know it. It even seemed to me as if my soul herself was the God, although he lived only in her body.And thus the image of the ancients is fulfilled: I pursued my soul to kill the child in it. For I am also the worst enemy of my God. But I also recognized that my enmity is decided upon in the God. He is mockery and hate and anger, since this is also a way of life.

I must say that the God could not come into being before the hero had been slain. The hero as we understand him has become an enemy of the God, since the hero is perfection. The Gods envy the perfection of man, because perfection has no need of the Gods. But since no one is perfect, we need the Gods. The Gods love perfection because it is the total way of life. But the Gods are not with him who wishes to be perfect, because he is an imitation of perfection. ~The Red Book; Page 244.

Carl Jung: Words ought not become Gods

In principio erat verbum, Latin for At the beginning there was the Word, from the Clementine Vulgate, Gospel of John, 1:1–18

[A conversation between Carl Jung “I” and the Anchorite “A” in the Desert of the Soul.

I: “But Philo Judeaus, if this is who you mean, was a serious and a great thinker. Even John the Evangelist included some of Philo’s thoughts in the gospe!.”

A: “You are right. It is to Philo’s credit that he furnished language like so many other philosophers. He belongs to the language artists.

But words should not become Gods.”

I: “I fail to understand you here. Does it not say in the gospel according to John: God was the Word. It appears to make quite explicit the point which you have just now rejected.”

A: “Guard against being a slave to words. Here is the gospel:read from that passage where it says: In him was the life. “
What does John say there?”

I: “And life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it. But it became a person sent from God, by the name of John, who came as a witness and to be a witness of the light. The genuine light, which illuminates each person, came into the world: He was in the world, and the world became through him, and the world did not recognize him.” -That is what I read here. But what do you make of this?”

A: “I ask you, was this [Logos] a concept, a word? It was a light, indeed a man, and lived among men. You see, Philo only lent John the word so that John would have at his disposal the word alongside the word ‘light’ to describe the son of man. John gave to living men the meaning of the, but Philo gave as the dead concept that usurped life, even the divine life. Through this the dead does not gain life, and the living is killed. And this was also my atrocious error.”

I: “I see what you mean. This thought is new to me and seems worth consideration. Until now it always seemed to me / as if it were exactly that which was meaningful in John, namely that the son of man is the,Logos in that he thus elevates the lower to the higher spirit, to the world of the Logos. But you lead me to see the matter conversely; namely that John brings the meaning of the Logos down to man.”

A: “I learned to see that John has in fact even done the great service of having brought the meaning of the Logos up to man.”

I: “You have peculiar insights that stretch my curiosity to the utmost. How is that? Do you think that the human stands higher than the Logos?”

A: “I want to answer this question within the scope of your understanding: if the human God had not become important above everything, he would not have appeared as the son in the flesh, but in the Logos.”

I: “That makes sense to me, but I confess that this view is surprising to me. It is especially astonishing to me that you, a Christian anchorite, have come to such views. I would not have expected this of you.”

A: “As I have already noticed, you have a completely false idea of me and my essence. Let me give you a small example of my preoccupation. I’ve spent many years alone with the process of unlearning. Have you ever unlearned anything? Well, then you should know how long it takes. And I was a successful teacher. As you know, for such people to unlearn is difficult or even impossible. But I see that the sun has gone down. Soon it will be completely dark. Night is the time of silence. I want to show you your place for the night. I need the morning for my work, but after midday you can come to me again if you like. Then we will continue our conversation.” ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Pages 268-269