Answer to Job

Karl Jung

Miracles appeal only to the understanding of those who cannot perceive the meaning. They are mere substitutes for the not understood reality of the spirit. This is not to say that the living presence of the spirit is not occasionally accompanied by marvellous physical happenings. I only wish to emphasize that these happenings can neither replace nor bring about an understanding of the spirit, which is the one essential thing.

But myth is not fiction: it consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again. It is something that happens to man, and men have mythical fates just as much as the Greek heroes do. The fact that the life of Christ is largely myth does absolutely nothing to disprove its factual truth--quite the contrary. I would even go so far as to say that the mythical character of a life is just what expresses its universal human validity. It is perfectly possible, psychologically, for the unconscious or an archetype to take complete possession of a man and to determine his fate down to the smallest detail.

God is an authority only in so far as he authorized the writings of the New Testament, and with the conclusion of the New Testament the authentic communications of God cease. Thus far the Protestant standpoint. The Catholic Church, the direct heir and continuator of historical Christianity, proves to be somewhat more cautious in this regard, believing that with the assistance of the Holy Ghost the dogma can progressively develop and unfold. This view is in entire agreement with Christ's own teachings about the Holy Ghost and hence with the further continuance of the Incarnation. Christ is of the opinion that whoever believes in him--believes, that is to say, that he is the son of God--can "do the works that I do, and greater works than these." He reminds his disciples that he had told them they were gods. The believers or chosen ones are children of God and "fellow heirs with Christ." When Christ leaves the earthly stage, he will ask his father to send his flock a Counsellor (the "Paraclete"), who will abide with them and in them for ever. The Counsellor is the Holy Ghost, who will be sent from the father. This "Spirit of Truth" will teach the believers "all things" and guide them "into all truth." According to this, Christ envisages a continuing realization of God in his children, and consequently in his (Christ's) brothers and sisters in the spirit, so that his own works need not necessarily be considered the greatest ones.

Their author need not necessarily be an unbalanced psychopath. It is sufficient that he is a passionately religious person with an otherwise well-ordered psyche.

The numinosity of the object makes it difficult to handle intellectually, since our affectivity is always involved. One always participates for or against, and "absolute objectivity" is more rarely achieved here than anywhere else. If one has positive religious convictions, i.e., if one believes, then doubt is felt as very disagreeable and also one fears it. For this reason, one prefers not to analyze the object of belief. If one has no religious beliefs, then one does not like to admit the feeling of deficit, but prates loudly about one's liberal-mindedness and pats oneself on the back for the noble frankness of one's agnosticism. From this standpoint, it is hardly possible to admit the numinosity of the religious object, and yet its very numinosity is just as great a hindrance to critical thinking, because the unpleasant possibility might then arise that one's faith in enlightenment or agnosticism would be shaken. Both types feel, without knowing it, the insufficiency of their argument.

The papal declaration has given comforting expression to this yearning. How could Protestantism so completely miss the point? This lack of understanding can only be explained by the fact that the dogmatic symbols and hermeneutic allegories have lost their meaning for Protestant rationalism. This is also true, in some measure, of the opposition to the new dogma within the Catholic Church itself, or rather to the dogmatization of the old doctrine. Naturally, a certain degree of rationalism is better suited to Protestantism than it is to the Catholic outlook. The latter gives the archetypal symbolisms the necessary freedom and space in which to develop over the centuries while at the same time insisting on their original form, unperturbed by intellectual difficulties and the objections of rationalists. In this way the Catholic Church demonstrates her maternal character, because she allows the tree growing out of her matrix to develop according to its own laws. Protestantism, in contrast, is committed to the paternal spirit. Not only did it develop, at the outset, from an encounter with the worldly spirit of the times, but it continues this dialectic with the spiritual currents of every age.

Jung's Answer to Job is a curious mix of his attempt to humanize God and elevate logic to divinity. Psychoanalyzing God, or even psychoanalyzing the human record/perception of God is a dangerous task--not because of the people one might offend nor because of the difficulties inherent, but because of how carefully one must tread around logical grounds. Godel aptly demonstrated that logic only will come so far in the explanation of some things. God is one of those things. Whether you believe in God or not, the psychological fact of God, as Jung points out, is indisputable. But even that being the sole case, one cannot treat God with the same logical methods one would treat the atom bomb or algebra or even one's spouse. This, I think is where Jung steps into muddy ground. He fails to allow a safety valve for potential forces he deals with, and so many of his arguments are blown all to hell. In an analysis of the nature of God as revealed by the book of Job, it is seems fair for Jung to call God as the book presents him, a childish deity who refuses to consult his own omniscience; but, in doing so, Jung must admit that this is the viewpoint of man. Jung writes his Answer to Job with a voice that claims equal footing with the persona of God. Even when one only sees God as a psychological fact, this is a dangerous stance. For with God, there are no logical guarantees.