ANSWER TO JOB: SOME EARLY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS

Not so long ago, I finished my first pass of Answer to Job, one of Carl Jung’s more controversial works. I’m not surprised it ruffled a lot of feathers. Not only is the author pointed in his criticisms, he also approaches the subject with a great deal of rigour. This isn’t the easily-rebuffed voice of your common or garden atheist but of a serious, and seriously affronted, scholar.

Off the bat, let me make two points clear. First, this is not a review, I just want to touch on a few things that really stood out. And second, I understood maybe half of what I read, and that’s being generous to myself. But even so, the book unsettled me. This isn’t because Jung puts God on the couch and finds him wanting in his interactions with Job and Satan. And it isn’t because he asks questions many believers may quail at and many non-believers may lack the clout to pursue effectively. Rather, it’s because some of my naivety has been stripped away, which is painful and frightening in equal measure.

Jung approaches Christianity with deadly seriousness. He may call himself a layman, but he appears very familiar with scripture. And his treatment of his chosen texts – from the Book of Revelation to the 89th Psalm – shows a strong understanding of their content and of what they imply in psychological terms, both individual and collective.

Not only do we see that the devotion of some early Christians connected them with a greater undertow of consciousness than most are privy to – John’s horrific visions are viewed as projections of something potent and collective – we also see that Christianity, and by extension religion in general, represents deep archetypal motifs at play within the unconscious of mankind. The stories of the Bible and its surrounding texts may be myths, but as Jung puts it, “Myth is not mere fiction: it consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again.”

I doubt I’ve fully grasped the implications of this, but it seems to me the origins of religion scarcely matter. Whether it comes from the heavens or from the mind of man is only a side issue, the main point being that something beyond us is seeking expression through us. We can either go along with it as consciously as possible, do our best to facilitate, understand, perhaps even resist, or we can put our fingers in our ears and let it do with us whatever it will.

Which leads me to the following words, attributed to Christ himself: “Man, if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blessed: but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed, and a transgressor of the law.” This basically means there’s no excuse for ignorance and that ignorance is no excuse.

And I guess that’s what I find most troubling. No one knows what happens when we shuffle off this mortal coil, but it’s clear to me that sleepwalking through life is as far from the ideal as we can get. Is there a judgement at the end of it all? I don’t know. Is hell just a metaphor for the anguish we bring to ourselves and others by living without awareness? Again, I don’t know.

But I do know that whatever there is to be aware of, whatever may be stirring in the depths, I don’t want to be ignorant of it. The fact we are ostensibly conscious creatures, able to think and feel, sense and intuit, seems reason enough to make the most of these faculties. And whether this argument holds water or not, it’s more than enough for me, for now at least.