Carl Gustav Jung

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Carl Gustav Jung

• Rejects many of Freuds conclusions about ethics.
• Accepts
• Religion as a psychological phenomena/ a natural
  process which stems from archetypes in the
  human mind/ performs the function of harmonizing
  the psyche/ a beneficial phenomena.

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Carl Gustav Jung Archetypes

• Concept of God is a primordial image/ a part of
  the collective consciousness we all have.
• ARCHITYPES that part of the psyche that creates
  these images. We have a functional disposition
  to produce the same/similar images/ideas.
• We are born with the ability to generate images
  of God and other religious phenomena.
• We pick up images of God from our experience of
  the world, but the disposition to generate these
  images is innate.
• An experience which is archetypal in character
  can be classed as religious.
• Jung
• GOD along with the images generated by all the
  other archetypes is INEFFABLE (beyond
  explanation/description) since He comes from a
  part of the mind about which nothing concrete may
  be known.

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Carl Gustav Jung God?

• The existence of GOD?
• The is no proof either way!!! We simply do not
  know the ultimate derivation of the archetype
  Nothing positive or negative has thus been
  asserted about the possible existence of God
  Jung Psychology and Alchemy
• What can be asserted? God exists as a psychic
  phenomena/ For people who experience the effects
  of the archetype, God is real/ As to existence of
  God outside the mind, nothing can be proven.
• Freud Religion a neurosis
• Jung Religion performs the role of maintaining
  the balance of the mind and preventing neurosis

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Carl Gustav Jung Individuation

• INDIVIDUATION
• The balance of the libido and the ensuing mental
  health of the individual are governed by an
  innate process-individuation. INDIVIDUATION
  results in a psychologically balanced
  personality-through the integration of the
  various archetypes into the conscious
  personality.
• INDIVIDUATION is a religious process any
  process/attitude governed by archetypes may be
  termed religious.
• Through religious images the personality achieves
  its goal of integration. Those who reject
  religion are less likely to individuate
  successfully, are more likely to experience
  neurosis.

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Carl Gustav Jung

• Using Jungs ideas we could argue that God made
  mankind in his image by placing a very blueprint
  of Himself in our minds!

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Criticisms

• Criticism of Jungs methodology
• Jung argues that we can know nothing about God.
  Can we accept this? Key to his argument is that
  Gods existence cannot be proven. He can only be
  known as a psychic entity and not in the world of
  reality.
• Phil of Religion for A level
• He has set up a necessary truth and hence
  safeguarded it from ever being reputed by
  empirical evidence. In this, however, he has no
  justification.

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Criticisms

• Can we accept the theory of Archetypes?
• Cannot myths, imagery etc. Be better explained by
  the fact that we share generally the same
  experiences
• Birth-death-parents-sun common ideas about
  Parent gods, sun gods, punishing and rewarding
  gods.
• Do we need to postulate an archetypal instinct
  from God from the evidence that people believe
  in God? NO!
• Anyway many people do not believe in God. Jung
  said that atheism was itself a form of religion,
  but if so where is the God archetype?

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Criticisms

• Individuation as a Religious Process?
• Is individuation anything to do with God? Is
  religious practice and belief more than about
  becoming whole?
• ..there is an extra dimension in religious
  practice which Jung fails to explain. Phil of
  R. for A level
• Jungs theories may be true but they are not
  proven so!

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I need to show Background reading!

• Jung Among all my patients in the second half
  of life.over 35.there has not been one whose
  problems in the last resort was not that of
  finding a religious outlook of life. It is safe
  to say that everyone of them fell ill because he
  had lost that which the living religions of every
  age have given to their followers, and none of
  them had been really healed who did not regain
  this religious outlook T. Thouless An
  introduction to the Psychology of religion

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I need to show Background reading!

• Thouless points out that Jungs ideas lacked
  objective confirmation but that they did find
  support
• Psychotherapist Alphonse Meader. He began by
  rejecting religion but converted to
  Christianity.. He reported that he had found
  himself better able to help patients since he
  could guide them in spiritual readjustment
  necessary to restore mental health.
• Dr. Frankl developed a system of psychotherapy
  which not only recognized mans spirit, but
  actually starts from it.
• Thouless An intro to the psychology of
  religion

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I need to show Background reading!

• J. MacQuarrie 20th Century Religious Thought
• What kind of Religion does Jung
  recommendNaturalistic religion, not traditional.
• Increasingly as Jung sees it, men will turn from
  collective dogmatic religions to private
  religions, in which each individual works out
  independently his own solutions of the religious
  problem
• Jung view is that God is within us as a
  psychological reality, the denial of which
  distorts our life.
• The beginners guide to ideas W. Raeper and L.
  Smith Jung came to believe that people need
  meaning and significance in their lives. P. 80
• The sea of Faith Don Cupitt The objective side
  of religion, its institutions, dogma, myth and
  rituals, is interpreted as a psychic projection,
  and is thereby made available to us as a vast
  body of resources to be used by us in the service
  of a modern spitiuality.

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Carl Gustav Jung Implication for Ethics

• The link between religion and ethics/ between
  images of God resulting from archetypes and
  responses to moral behaviour.
• Love God/A loving God image AND Love your
  neighbour.
• The sheep and the Goats. Images of heaven and
  hell alongside images of meeting the needs of the
  poor give drink to the thirsty/visit the
  prisoner etc..
• We often see ethical issues being interpreted
  from a religious perspective Just War theory -
  Should the UK have gone to war against Saddam
  Hussain?
• Could it be that ethics is an aspect of religious
  imagery and therefore part/an aspect of the
  archetype?

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Carl Gustav Jung Implication for Ethics

• Ethics an aspect of balancing the mind? A
  healthy outlook? When we integrate various
  archetypes are we integrating an ethical world
  view also? Is this part of the process of
  Individuation?
• Blueprint concept We have an innate ability to
  create images of God. Is an ethical perspective
  part of the blueprint CONSCIENCE?
• One reason why religion is so healthy is that it
  provides a foundation for an ethical
  understanding of oneself, others and the world?
• Could it be that the source of our ethical
  perspective, our innate ability to understand and
  think morally, like the source of our innate
  ability to create images of God, comes in fact
  from God?????????? Case not proven!