Carl Jung Do You Believe in God I Dont Have to Believe I Know
Jung's most famous televised quote came after he was asked if he believed in God. He replied, "I don't need to believe, I know" (Jung 1959a, p. 428). His respond acquired some furore at the fourth dimension and, in the decades since, information technology has been quoted by many – such equally Richard Dawkins who cites information technology as an example of bullheaded faith (Dawkins 2006, p. 51).
Jung immediately regretted his answer – because of it's controversial, puzzling, or ambiguous nature (Jung 1959b). To empathize why, we need to have a expect at the context of the interview, and the groundwork of Jung'south mental attitude towards God.
Face to Face
Although the BBC Confront to Face interview may seem tame past mod standards, information technology was a pioneering television plan. John Freeman used clever techniques to unmask public figures and reveal the private person underneath (Freeman 1989, pp. 12-13).
The impact of Freeman'southward technique on Jung can be seen in the first few minutes of the interview. On four occasions, Jung replied with phrases such as "that's hard to say" and/or a long break. Jung was as well taken by surprise when Freeman switched quickly from Jung'southward childhood (asking if he was brought upwards to believe in God) to the present day (asking if he believed in God now). Jung recognised this after the interview:
Mr Freeman in his characteristic manner fired the question… at me in a somewhat surprising way, so that I was perplexed and had to say the next thing which came into my listen (Jung 1959b)
However, Freeman'south questioning had worked as intended. What came into Jung's mind was not an odd-brawl answer, but exactly the same respond that Jung had given in a paper interview four years earlier:
All that I have learned has led me step by step to an unshakable confidence of the being of God. I only believe in what I know. And that eliminates believing. Therefore I do not take his existence on belief – I know that he exists (Sands 1955, p. 6)
This was not a "blind faith", equally Dawkins has argued, but (according to Jung) a certainty that is based on evidence. His practice as a psychotherapist and his mythological research had convinced him of God'due south existence.
So why did he regret his respond?
Jung did non regret the respond he gave, he regretted the inevitable misunderstandings that would issue. This was because his reply was too short and viewers were working on a different set of assumptions to him.
Afterwards the interview, Jung expressed concern that about people thought "the truth is unproblematic and can exist expressed past 1 short sentence" (Jung 1959c). In Jung's view, the truth nigh God is complex because God is a mystery whose nature is beyond human comprehension. In trying to sympathize God, we each create our ain paradigm of him – and the image is never accurate. Jung recognised this nearly his own prototype of God:
Whatever I perceive from without or within is a representation or image… caused, as I rightly or wrongly assume, by a corresponding "real" object. Merely I have to acknowledge that my subjective paradigm is simply grosso modo identical with the object…
our images are, as a rule, of something… The God-image is the expression of an underlying experience of something which I cannot achieve to by intellectual means… (Jung 1959c)
In some other letter, Jung makes it clear that he would accept given a unlike response if he had been asked whether he agreed with anyone'southward particular prototype of God (Jung 1959b). Because of the mysterious and incomprehensible nature of God, no image of God will always be adequate. He therefore asserted the inadequacy of all images of God, including his own.
What should Jung have said?
Jung was ofttimes disquisitional of Christian theologians for failing to recognise the difference between their own paradigm of God and the mysterious reality of God (eastward.g. run into Jung 1955). Jung's response to the Freeman question played along with this conflation. It allowed people to retrieve that Jung was talking about the aforementioned image of God as them.
What Jung tried to practise in his messages afterward the interview was repair some of the damage. He confirmed his exclamation that he was convinced at that place is something there, simply also said that none of united states of america knew what is there. In the interview, he would take been better understood if he had acknowledged that there is something very real and mysterious, which we all telephone call God, merely the images of God nosotros all concord are different and inadequate.
Practical Implications
Jung's argument, in his postal service-interview letters, can be summarised by saying that God is kickoff and foremost a mystery. This happens to be the first tenet of the Orthodox Church (Ware 1979, p. 11) simply Jung was non arguing for a conversion to Orthodoxy. Rather, he was suggesting we recognise that any and all images of God are always dissimilar from the bodily nature of God. Once we realise this fact then, in Jung's view, we have taken a small, practical, but significant stride forward in our spiritual evolution.
References
Dawkins, R. (2006), The God Delusion, (London: Bantam Press)
Freeman, J. (1989), Face to Face with John Freeman, (London: BBC Books)
Jung, C.G. (1955), Letter to Paster Walter Bernet in C.G. Jung Letters, Volume 2, 1951-1961, edited past Gerhard Adler, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), pp. 257-64
Jung, C.K. (1959a), The Face up to Face Interview in C.Chiliad. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, (Princeton: Bollingen Paperbacks, 1977), pp. 424-439
Jung, C.Thousand. (1959b), Alphabetic character to M. Leonard in C.G. Jung Letters, Book 2, 1951-1961, edited by Gerhard Adler, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), pp. 525-6
Jung, C.G. (1959c), Alphabetic character to Valentine Brooke in C.Thousand. Jung Letters, Volume ii, 1951-1961, edited by Gerhard Adler, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), pp. 520-3
Sands, F. (1955), Men, Women and God: An interview with Frederick Sands – Office 5: I believe in God (Daily Post) in Heisig, J.W. (1979), Imago Dei: A Report of C.G. Jung's Psychology of Religion, (London: Associated University Presses), p. 90
Ware, K. (1979), The Orthodox Mode, (New York: St Vladimir'due south Seminary Press)
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Jung'south regret over "I don't need to believe, I know." ,
Source: https://steve.myers.co/jungs-regret-over-i-dont-need-to-believe-i-know/
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