Last month, I wrote a Substack post on the subject of Carl Jung’s Answer to Job, partly in reaction to a video that the Essentia Foundation had just released, which included comments by Bernardo Kastrup. As a result, I was asked to discuss the same on the Transcendent Psychotherapist YouTube channel. That thoroughly enjoyable talk took place yesterday and I’ve posted it below. It lasts about an hour. I have also removed the paywall on the original post, so it’s now available for everyone to read (see below).
Again, I have to reiterate that I admire much that Kastrup has written and said in interviews, so my criticisms in both the post and the discussion should be taken in light of that. Likewise, with Jung. It has been noted that Jung brushed off criticisms of his Job book similar to mine during his lifetime, but his brush-off — sadly — didn’t amount to anything more profound than that. As I wrote in the post, “he could, when he wished, brush aside objections to his more edgy ideas with appeals to an almost esoteric power of psychological perceptiveness.” He compounded that appeal in this instance by suggesting that he was only a layman reacting to “the Job” he had been taught “authoritatively” from the pulpit. As I remark in the video, he was more widely read than that and, I believe, he certainly should have known better. There’s more than just a little spite in Answer to Job, a bit of “getting-back-at” that’s embarrassing to read (at least, for one who otherwise respects Jung).
Anyway, here is my original post:
Jung's argument with God
I intended to hold off until after I had finished my current series of posts on the Gospels to address the topic of C. G. Jung’s concept of God and specifically his 1952 book, Answer to Job, but this past week the Essentia Foundation released a video on this very subject and that was incentive enough for me to go ahead and address it without delay (one …
And here is the Transcendent Psychotherapist interview:
Writing about God, Jung demonstrates the crucial difference between good exegesis and bad fan fiction.
Addison, I’m so glad you got that out of your system - that was excellent. Really enjoyed hearing an exemplary elucidation of the true motivating elements and real aim of Christianity.