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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gregory D. John who wrote (13028)	4/4/1998 1:05:00 PM
From: Emile Vidrine	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 39621

"What I would like ask of you now, if I may, is what do you think of this quote from Carl Jung? "The demand made by the imitatio Christi - that we should follow the ideal and become like it - ought logically to have the result of developing and exalting the inner man. In actual fact, however, the ideal has been turned by superficial and formalistically-minded believers into an external object of worship, and it is precisely this veneration of the object that prevents it from reaching down into the depths of the psyche and giving the latter a wholeness in keeping with the ideal. ... For it is not a question of imitation that leaves a man unchanged and makes him a mere artifact, but of realizing the ideal on one's own account - Deo concedente - in one's own individual life. We must not forget, however, that even a mistaken imitation may sometimes involve a tremendous moral effort which has all the merits of a total surrender to some supreme value, even though the real goal may never be reached and the value is represented externally." Hi Gregory, Jung's thoughts are simply a psychology of the mind and senses rather than the psychology of the hidden man of the heart in Christian revelation and Christian reality. To answer the question fairly, I must first give a brief introduction to the mindset of Carl Jung. Jung, like Freud, was a disciple of Nietzsche. It was Nietzsche who uncovered subconscious man in the pagan culture of classical Greece. The pagan Greeks had studied, developed and exalted the subconscious mind of fallen man to an art. Classical Greek art and literature played upon these themes to provide catharsis and justification for their pagan lifestyle. This artistic emotional purging gives rise to an understanding of the subconscious levels of the mind---id, ego and superego. Nietzsche discovered these psychological principles in his brilliant research and exalted these pagan principles to the level of a religion. Nietzsche's purpose was to find the core nature and psyche of natural and fallen man before the imposition of the Old Testament Law and the New Testament Jesus upon that raw nature. Nietzsche saw Christianity and Old Testament Judaism as artificial and false systems superimposed upon man's "noble" and "magnificent" natural nature. Nietzsche's purpose was to strip man of these "artificial systems" of morality and ethics so that the real man, "the raw pagan man" could emerge. In Nietzsche's mind, raw sinful man was beautiful and only considered sinful and imperfect because of the false moral and ethical codes imposed upon him by these false and degenerate religions. It was a degenerate system of "immorality" against raw man imposed upon the superior creative man by the inferior noncreative masses. Freud borrowed his core subconscious psychological principle from Nietzsche ( without identifying the source) and developed his perverse and bizarre brand of psychoanalysis. Jung became a disciple of Nietzsche and swallowed not only his subconscious principles but also his conception of the beauty of natural and raw man without the morals and ethics of the ancient Hebrews and Christians. Jung believed in Nietzsche's perception that natural man's nature was beautiful but unlike Nietzsche, Jung believed that once the Christian morals and ethics had been superimposed upon the Christian psyche, the Christian developed a new archetypical personality and nature that was transmitted to the next generation through the genetic transmission of archetypical personalities. Jung also believed that the attempted "liberation" of European and American cultures from their Christian beliefs and roots had produced many of the psychological problems of its Christian population. Although many Christians were accepting the new christless philosophies of the new civilization of the West, they retained a memory and consequent guilt because the Christian archetype was permanently imposed upon their nature and psyche. ------------------------------------- Now to answer your question. Jung's conception of the image of Christ or the God formation within a Christian heart, is an intellectual conception based upon sense and intellectual knowledge. The sense knowledge of observation and science is inadequate to understand the hidden man of the heart or the recreated human spirit that comes through being Born Again as a Christian. The hidden man of the heart is a new creation within the human heart and cannot be observed with scientific or sense knowledge. The hidden man of the heart does not grow into the image of Christ but rather is instantly re-created by the Holy Spirit of God. This hidden man of the heart is not dependant upon sense knowledge but rather communicated directly with the Spirit of God. This hidden man of the heart is incomprehensible to the natural mind and natural man. The natural man who has not been Born Again can only deal with sense knowledge. Jung is trying to understand the operation within a Christian with the natural mind and consequently fails miserably. Although the spirit of man is Born Again and re-created into the image of God, the natural mind of man must grow by renewing the mind through the Holy Scriptures and the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Christians struggle to renew their minds, not their re-created perfect spirits, who have been created instantly in the image of God. This is why Jung is so confused and deals only with the sensual mind and not with the hidden man of the heart--the real Christian.