For numerous reasons, and not the least being what must be an 'unconscious draw' to depth content, I have been very interested in exploring 'Christianity' in many different manifestations. One level is the 'doctrinal' which also concerns what might be labeled 'conservative' and also 'fundamentalistic'. This is the ethical and the moral level with all the challenges it presents, but also the 'downsides' in so far as I view 'fundamentalism' in any field as problematical. But this is a conflicted and contended territory since, in my view, and even under the influence to some extent of 'alternative approaches' to the religious questions ('Jungianism' being one!), it seems to me clear that 'we' ('the world') is losing a solid connection to defined values and moves toward a form of postmodern relativism.
At another extreme, the other extreme I suppose one would say, is the 'depth relationship': the symbolical, the dream, the relationship to archetypal 'self' symbols and the work entailed in this. One has an inner relationship to *something* but this is not quite the same as the outer relationship to doctrine, to dogma (as Jung writes about in Aion) and to the conscious work of defining and living values.
One notable issue is about Jung the man: it would be hard to imagine a man more familiar with the actual doctrines of Christianity and I mean this more exoterically: the specificity of moral and ethical doctrines. But it has seemed to me that 'the Jungians', some of them, not having such a strong base in substantial doctrines, drift toward a form of relativism, or in any sense something non-doctrinal; loose, open, non-specific. I note that this is one element of the (fundamentalist) Christian critique of Jung's Christianity.
Well, these are some of the things I have been thinking about. Since this is my first post I will not extend this more. I will be curious to see how such a conversation as this might unfold in this medium.
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Christianity has been my starting point (actually, communism-induced atheism was the real starting point long time ago) for thinking about things that one cannot see or measure. Now we have a sort of relationship where I just don’t know what to think about it. It’s changing all the time. I see (I might be wrong) that “darkness” or laziness to think and behave morally as it is described in “The Road Less Traveled” by Morgan Scott Peck, as entropy that is just there, totally useless for anything. Jung (in Aion) tends to look at everything having some purpose. Neurosis is one thing (ups and downs that make some sense), but seeing a (teleological) purpose behind (especially collective) ignorance and laziness to think as a stage necessary for something good and interesting to emerge. Nothing good will ever be a direct consequence of world wars or any other war. If you need to clean the mess, it doesn’t mean that the mess has some purpose.
What do you think of the famous Heraclitus philosophy: 'War is the father of us all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free.'?
Please don't think I am defending the horror of war, which for individuals and groups is terrible. But all sorts of 'positive' things come out of it, so that a definitive statement about 'no good consequence', though politically correct, is not factually correct. Europe is a product of Roman invasion, conquering by war, and the imposition of an republican system. Modern Europe is a consequence.
Aren't we dealing on a peculiar 'Jungian' issues? The ambiguity of all things? That to live in this plane of existence is to live in terrible and even insolvable paradoxes?
The Secret of the Golden Flower with Jung's commentaries is another interesting book. It is very… I wouldn’t say open for interpretations, but one has to feel and live some parts of it in order to know that it makes a lot of sense. It’s like a manual for those who understand (or perhaps feel and have some experience) its terminology before reading it. Aion and some other Jung’s books such as Mysterium Coniunctionis are more about what Joseph Campbell calls Hero Journey. I don’t like that “there is a reason for everything” attitude. There is no purpose behind darkness (I’m not talking here about “Oh, no! She doesn’t love me anymore!” darkness) and stupidity. They are there just because it’s easier to be stupid and not to turn on the light.
Oh, you asked about Christianity? I don't know what to say.
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