Jungian Interpretation of Religion - Western Religious Tradition

Western Religious Tradition

Jung's assessment of Western religion arose both from his own experiences as well as from the psychotherapeutic work with his European clients. As a young man he had visions and dreams that were powerful and rich with meaning, yet he clung to Christianity. While he believed that God could "do stupendous things to me, things of fire and unearthly light", he was profoundly disappointed by his first communion—in his words, "nothing happened". He saw the same symptoms in his clients, namely, a fascination with the power of the unconscious, coupled with the inadequacy of Western religious symbols and rituals to represent this power. Summing up his analysis of the modern European situation he said: "Our age wants to experience the psyche for itself ... knowledge, instead of faith."

According to Murray Stein, Jungian training analyst and author, Jung related theological concepts and psychological concepts using three tenets:

1. That words about theological constructs (such as "God") can be interpreted as referring to structures within the psyche.
2. That psychologists can evaluate the adequacy of theological constructs against the normative structure and dynamics of the psyche.
3. That words about the psyche are also words about God, due to the correspondence between the structures of subjectivity and objectivity.

Thus, proceeding by tenet #1 in Answer to Job, Jung interprets Yahweh as an archaic form of the self, Job as the ego, and Satan as the principle of individuation. Jung interprets the evolution of the god-image portrayed in the Old and New Testaments as a process of psychological development: In the Book of Job, the archaic self is prompted to develop toward consciousness by the more conscious ego, a process attended by dreams and prophesies (e.g. the Old Testament prophets). The self enters ego-consciousness (the incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth), followed by the emergence of the transcendent function (when the Holy Ghost comes to the disciples at Pentecost).

In "A Psychological Approach to the Doctrine of the Trinity", again by tenet #1 Jung interprets the Father as the self, the source of energy within the psyche; the Son as an emergent structure of consciousness that replaces the self-alienated ego; and the Holy Spirit as a mediating structure between the ego and the self. However, Jung believed that psyche moves toward completion in fours (made up of pairs of opposites), and that therefore (using tenet #3 above) the Christian formulation of the Trinity would give way to a quaternity by including missing aspects (e.g. the feminine and evil). (This analysis prompted Jung to send a congratulatory note to Pope Pius XII in 1950 upon the adoption of the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to wit completing the quaternity.)