"Deus Aderit": Learning from Carl Jung

Thinking Friend Dick Wilson in North Carolina didn’t know about my intention to write this article on Carl Jung when he ended his comments on my July 25 blog post, “vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit [Invited or not, God shows up!],” words long associated with the famed Swiss psychoanalyst. 

Jung’s Formative Years

Jung was born 145 years ago (on July 26, 1875) in a city about 50 miles northeast of Zürich, Switzerland. His father was a Swiss Reformed Church pastor, and his mother was the daughter of a distinguished churchman and academic—but she was also emotionally unbalanced when Jung was young.

Carl initially wanted to become a pastor, but he decided against the path of religious traditionalism and decided instead to pursue psychiatry and medicine. Consequently, at the age of 20 he began to study medicine at the University of Basel.

In 1900, Jung moved to Zürich and began working in a psychiatric hospital. Three years later he married Emma Rauschenbach, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist.

Jung met Sigmund Freud in 1907 and the two psychiatrists had a close relationship until 1912. They met for the last time in 1913, when Freud wrote, “We took leave from one another without feeling the need to meet again.”

In 1908 the Jungs bought land near Lake Zürich in Küsnacht, Switzerland, and had a large three-story house constructed there with money Emma had inherited. That was Carl’s home until his death in June 1961. (Emma died in 1955).

Above the entrance doorway, the Jungs had these words permanently inscribed: VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT. An alternative translation to that given by Dick (above) is: “Invoked or not invoked, God is present.” Those Latin words are also engraved on Jung’s tombstone.  

Entrance doorway to Carl and Emma Jung's house

Jung’s Productive Years

During the first half of his adult life, Jung developed an approach toward understanding the human psyche that contrasted that of Sigmund Freud. His important books during this time are Psychology of the Unconscious (1912), Psychological Types (1921), and Psychology and Religion (1938).

During these productive years, Jung introduced such terms as archetypes, collective unconscious, introvert and extrovert (originally extravert), persona, and shadow.

Unlike Freud, who understood God as a human fabrication, the infantile projection of the human need for protection, Jung was primarily positive toward religion and the reality of God.

(Click here to access my 10/15/14 blog post titled “Was Freud a Fraud?” In that article, I question Freud’s assertion that belief in God is just wish fulfillment and that religion is ““the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity.”)

Jung’s Reflective Years

While Jung’s concept of God wasn’t necessarily that of traditional Christianity, neither was it oppositional. His position seems clearly to have been starkly in contrast to Freud’s.

In 1952, when he was past 75, he wrote to a clergyman, “I find that all my thoughts circle around God like the planets around the sun, and are as irresistibly attracted to Him” (cited here in 2016).

Seven years later in a BBC “Face to Face” interview, Jung was asked if he believed in God. He replied, “I don’t need to believe, I know.”

According to psychologist Steve Myers (see here), in that statement Jung affirmed God as “a certainty” that was “based on evidence. His practice as a psychotherapist and his mythological research had convinced him of God’s existence.”

It was my reading of the highly respected (by me and many others) Richard Rohr that prompted this article on Jung. In his 2019 book The Universal Christ, Rohr has a three-page subsection about Jung and later cites the Latin inscription above the doorway to Jung’s house.

In his “daily meditation” for 1/2/15, Rohr writes about his “wisdom lineage.” He refers to “the brilliant psychology of Carl Jung,” and that is the only twentieth-century name mentioned.

The world would be better off if more people would spurn Freud and learn from Jung. Everyone needs to realize, as Jung evidently did, that Deus aderit: God is present, whether invoked or not.

The Domestication of God

The sixth chapter of my book The Limits of Liberalism, which I am currently revising, slightly, and updating for re-publication at the end of this year, is titled “Limits of Liberal Views of God.” This blog post is based on parts of that chapter. 

Is God’s Transcendence a Problem?

Among theological liberals, there has been rather strongly stated opposition to what some label as “supernatural theism.” For example, the noted British scholar Karen Armstrong has publicly rejected what she calls “the God of supernatural theism.”

This opposition is, in other words, a rejection of the transcendence of God, the idea/belief that God is “above” and “beyond” the natural world that we humans can know by science.

Since there is a tendency to think that all knowledge of the physical world (nature) can be obtained by modern scientific means, whatever is considered not a part of nature is, therefore, supernatural.

Consequently, belief in a “supernatural” Creator of heaven and earth, the concept of God who is somehow not completely an integral part of the natural world, is rejected.

For modern people, for whom liberal thinkers seek to speak, the transcendence or “otherness” of God—or the “infinite qualitative distinction” between God and human beings that Kierkegaard emphasized—is seen as a problem to be overcome by a newer, more enlightened, view of God.

Is God’s “Domestication” the Answer?

Over the last seventy years especially, many liberal theologians and philosophers have rejected the concept of God’s transcendence by emphasizing the complete immanence of God.

William C. Placher was a leading postliberal theologian in the United States. Back in 1996, he published a book titled The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking about God Went Wrong.

In his book, Placher (1948~2008) contended that the shift from a transcendental theism to an immanental pantheism led to what he calls (and titles his fifth chapter) “the domestication of God”—a pregnant phrase that indicates a significant aspect of the limits of liberal thinking about God.

That is part of the reason that Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre quipped in 1966, “Theists are offering atheists less and less in which to disbelieve.”

What about Experience of God?

In the fall of 1957, I began my final two years of college as a transfer student at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. One of my courses that fall was Philosophy of Religion.

Professor Murray Hunt chose Philosophy of Religion as our textbook. It was authored by the Quaker scholar D. Elton Trueblood, Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, and published earlier that year.

Because of that course and Trueblood’s book, the philosophy of religion became my main academic interest, and it remained so for decades.

Part II, the heart of Trueblood’s book, is titled “Theistic Realism,” which, although he doesn’t use those words, is a rebuttal/rejection of the movement toward the domestication of God.

Trueblood begins “The Theistic Hypothesis,” the first chapter of Part II, with these words: “God, when carefully defined, either is or is not.” He then goes on to explain,

To say that God “is” means to give assent to the proposition that the idea of God is not merely an idea in the minds of men, but actually refers to what is objectively the case—something which was before we came to be aware of it and which now is, independent of our awareness or lack of awareness (p. 79).

Those who have sought to domesticate God have often spoken of the “God within” human beings. Thus, God is understood as a subjective experience of individual persons. This stands in contrast to the theistic realism Trueblood expounds, and his position, I believe, is far more coherent.

The last chapter of Part II is “The Evidence of Religious Experience.” I was studying philosophy of religion because I was preparing to become a Christian pastor—and I was preparing for that vocation (literally) because of what I firmly believed, and still believe, was a definite “call” by God.

My experience was not highly ecstatic or “otherworldly.” It was much more like the “still small voice” that the prophet Elijah heard (according to 1 Kings 19:12, KJV). But it was unquestionably real.

Those who wish to domesticate God would explain my, and Elijah’s, experience as only a subjective one. But I am convinced that making everything related to God subjective, or immanent, is one of the debilitating limits of liberalism.

Women in the Church

Five days ago, I posted an article about an important decision made in the Roman Catholic Church in 1870. This article is about an action of the Catholic Pope 100 years later, as Pope Paul VI announced in July 1970 that he was going to name Teresa of Ávila the first female Doctor of the Church. 

Teresa of Ávila (1515~82) 

Women Doctors of the Church?

“Doctor of the Church” is a title given by the Roman Catholic Church to saints recognized as having made a significant contribution to theology or doctrine through their research, study, or writing.

Up until 1970, there had been thirty named as Doctors of the Church. The first four, so designated in 1298, were Ambrose (340~397), Jerome (c.343~420), Augustine of Hippo (354~430), and Gregory the Great (540~604).

Over the next 672 years, twenty-six other men were similarly declared as Doctors of the Church. But then on September 27, 1970, Pope Paul VI declared Teresa of Ávila (1515~82) the first female Doctor of the Church. Just a week later, Catherine of Siena (1347~80) was also so designated.

Since then four more Doctors have been added to the list, and two of them are women: Thérèse of Lisieux (1873~97) and Hildegard of Bingen (1098~1179).

In spite of this high recognition of four outstanding women of the past, though, the Roman Catholic Church still does not permit women to be ordained as priests.

Women Pastors in the Churches?

Before 1970, hardly any Southern Baptist (SB) women had become preachers/pastors. During the time I was a graduate student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, though, in 1964 Addie Davis (1917~2005) was ordained in an SB church in North Carolina.

Other Protestant denominations had ordained women much sooner. For example, Anna Howard Shaw was ordained by the Methodist Church way back in 1880, and women were similarly ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in 1888.

According to this 10/18 Christian Century article, at seminaries and divinity schools affiliated with mainline churches, women have been about half of M.Div. students since 1998—but are still only 27 percent of pastors in congregations.

The church that June and I are members of belongs to the Western District Conference of Mennonite Church USA. An Aug. 2019 article in Mennonite World Review reports, “Today, 40 of Western District’s 85 active pastors are women.” This includes Ruth Harder, who has been June’s and my pastor for the past six years—and a fine pastor she is!

My Experience with Women Pastors

Long before being a member of a church with a woman pastor here in the U.S., from the early 1980s I began to have more and more female students in the seminary classes I taught in Japan. Many of them went on to become pastors in Japan Baptist Convention churches.

One of my students was Okamura Naoko-san. While a student, she began attending the Fukuoka International Church, of which I was the founding pastor, and then after graduation she became the assistant pastor. A few years later she became my co-pastor, and that worked out well.

It was my privilege to preach Okamura-sensei’s ordination sermon. And it was partly because of that close relationship with a woman pastor that June and I could not conscientiously sign the statement that we would work “in accordance with and not contrary to” Baptist Faith & Message, 2000.

That historic doctrinal statement of Southern Baptists as revised in 2000 stipulated that women should not serve as pastors. Our refusal to sign our agreement with that statement led to our being unilaterally placed on retirement status in 2003 by the International Mission Board of the SBC.

The Catholic Church, in spite of now having four female Doctors of the Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention since 2000 are, by far, the largest Christian churches/denominations that do not ordain women.

What a shame!

Are You, Am I, “Popish”?

The solemn declaration of papal infallibility by the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) took place 150 years ago this week, on July 18, 1870.

The Meaning of Papal Infallibility

In the history of the RCC, there have been 21 “ecumenical councils,” the first being the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the last one was the Second Vatican Council in 1962~65.

Dictionary.com explains that the ecumenical councils of the RCC are “convoked and presided over by the pope and composed of cardinals, bishops, and certain other prelates whose decrees, when confirmed by the pope, become binding.”

The 20^th ecumenical council of the RCC was held in 1869~70, and the most important decision made in that solemn meeting was about papal infallibility.

Succinctly, the doctrine of papal infallibility means that when the Pope speaks “ex cathedra” (from the papal chair) on matters of faith and morals, by the power of the Holy Spirit that pronouncement is unfailingly without error.

Since that time, the only example of an ex cathedra decree took place in 1950, when Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary as an article of faith.

The Rejection of Papal Infallibility

It goes without saying, perhaps, that there has been universal rejection of the doctrine of papal infallibility by Protestants. In some circles, the response to the Catholic assertion of infallibility led to an emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible, dubbed the “paper Pope” by some.

But there has also been some opposition within the Roman Catholic Church. One hundred years after the declaration of papal infallibility at Vatican I, Hans Küng wrote a book entitled Infallible? An Inquiry (published in 1971).

Several years later, in 1979, Küng was stripped of his license to teach as a Roman Catholic theologian, although he was able to continue teaching as a tenured professor of ecumenical theology at the University of Tübingen until his retirement in 1996.

The one example of the use of papal infallibility, the bodily taking up of Mary, the mother of Jesus, into Heaven at the end of her earthly life, tends to strengthen the non-Catholic rejection of the dogma.

Still, papal infallibility remains a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Tendency toward “Popishness”

“Popish” is an offensive term that has from time to time been used by non-Catholics to refer derisively to the Roman Catholic Church.

But it is also sometimes used in a derogatory sense meaning to act or speak in a manner similar to the pope—a usage that is based on the common misunderstanding of the meaning of papal infallibility, that is, thinking the Pope is always right in whatever he says.

Some of us have strong ideas or beliefs that we think are absolutely right. Holding on to those ideas or beliefs despite strong counterarguments can cause one to be thought of or criticized as being “popish.”

There is nothing wrong with having strong ideas/beliefs, though. Michael Polanyi, one of my favorite philosophers, in his magnum opus Personal Knowledge (1958) referred to what he called “heuristic passion,” which then is turned into “persuasive passion.”

But Polanyi’s main emphasis is that all knowledge is “personal knowledge.” Consequently, we must always admit the possibility that we might be wrong.

We can avoid being “popish” if we keep in mind the paradoxical situation we are in: because of our heuristic passion we often are certain we are right and seek by persuasive passion to convince others of the truth we have embraced; nevertheless, we must acknowledge that, indeed, we might be wrong.

That’s how you, and I, can keep from being “popish.”

Is it Bad to be “Woke”?

Over the last few years, the word “woke” has been used, and praised, in some circles, largely misunderstood and/or ignored in others, and castigated in some. But what about it? Is it bad to be “woke” as some charge? 

Definition of “Woke”

Perhaps it is best to start with a good definition of “woke.” Here’s one: “Woke means being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice.” This is from Dictionary.com’s “slang dictionary,” which also summarizes the historical development of “woke.”

The above article also includes this explanation:

Woke was quickly appropriated by mainstream white culture in the mid-2010s, to the criticism of many black observers. In many instances, woke did spread in keeping with its activist spirit, referring to awareness of other forms of injustice, such as sexism, anti-gay sentiment, and white privilege.

Criticism of “Woke” in Religious Circles

In my May 30 blog post about the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), I made a brief reference to the new movement calling itself the Conservative Baptist Network (CBN). I first learned about it in “Conservative Baptist Network launched amid 'woke' trend in SBC,” a Feb. 15 Christian Post article

Being “woke” was linked to ideas CBN deems objectionable. On their website they state clearly, “The Network rejects various unbiblical ideologies currently affecting the Southern Baptist Convention such as Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, and social justice.”

Russell Moore and Al Mohler are two prominent SBC leaders whom CBN finds most problematic. Moore is a former professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS, where Mohler is president) and since 2013 has been the president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

It seems quite ironic to me that Mohler, whom in my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism I discuss as one of the four most influential fundamentalist leaders after 1980, is now being attacked by conservatives for being too “woke.”

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization was started by people who affirm Marxism. So perhaps partly in response to the criticism of him earlier this year for being “woke,” last month Mohler wrote an article titled “Black Lives Matter: Affirm the Sentence, Not the Movement.”

The BLM movement is criticized mainly because the founders are Marxists.

Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is supposedly being (or has been recently) taught at SBTS is seen by some as linked to Marxism, or Marxist ideas at least. (If you need a neutral description of CRT, check out this Encyclopedia Britannica article.)

Among Christian conservatives and others, it seems to be widely held that the concept of “systemic racism” is a Marxist idea. That is one main reason why they, as well as conservative (Republican) politicians, are prone to deny there is systemic racism in the USA.

Intersectionality basically means that “people are often disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression: their race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and other identity markers.” This, too, gets linked to Marxism and thereby criticized.

So, SBTS is being criticized by CBN for being “woke,” that is, too much in favor of Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, and social justice, all linked, in one way or another to Marxism—and by extension, perhaps, to socialism, currently the big bugaboo to the Christian Right and DJT's base.

Criticism of “Woke” in Political Circles

DJT has made some attempt to reach out to Black citizens in the U.S. He wants and badly needs their votes if he is to have any chance of winning the Nov. 3 election.

A webpage on the DonaldJTrump.com reelection campaign website has a page advertising a Woke cap (for $35). The sales appeal says, “Proudly wear your official Woke hat and show your support for our great President.” 

But in reality, DJT seems to have been moving in the opposite direction in recent days. A July 2 article in the online Intelligencer is titled, “Trump Believes That He Is Losing Because He Hasn’t Been Racist Enough.”

That piece quotes DJT as saying that he wants “no more of Jared’s woke s[**]t.”

Enough said.

Honoring/Dis-honoring Andrew Jackson

The Apostle Andrew was always a favorite of mine. But I have not been fond (to say the least) of the two U.S. Presidents named Andrew. This blog post is about the first of those two, Andrew Jackson, who was the seventh POTUS and in office from 1829 to 1837. 

Statue of Andrew Jackson in front of the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Mo.
The statue was sculpted by Charles Keck and placed here in 1934.

Honoring Andrew Jackson

Before becoming President, Jackson was a noted military man. His victory in 1815 against the British at the Battle of New Orleans made him a national hero. Jackson then led U.S. forces in the First Seminole War, which led to the annexation of Florida from Spain in 1819.

On December 15, 1826, almost two years before Jackson was elected POTUS, a new county in the rather new state of Missouri was established and named after General Jackson. It is now home to three of the six largest cities in Missouri: Kansas City, Independence, and Lee’s Summit.

Jackson County, Mo., is one of 24 counties (including Jackson Parish, La.) in the U.S. named after Jackson. There are also numerous cities, towns, and villages named Jacksonville or Jackson. Jacksonville, Florida, was so named in 1822 in commemoration of Jackson who was the first military governor of Florida Territory.

If you are a white American, and especially one who believes in white supremacy as DJT seemingly does, honoring Jackson probably seems good and reasonable to you.

DJT tweeted on June 30, “This [fight for preserving the statues] is a battle to save the Heritage, History, and Greatness of our Country!” And as you probably know, he has a portrait of Jackson on the wall near his desk in the Oval Office.

There is much heritage, history, and greatness linked to Jackson, no doubt—as well as to Robert E. Lee.

But how many Black Americans have you heard wanting to save the heritage, history, and greatness of the country by honoring/protecting the statues/monuments of Lee?

And how many Native Americans have you heard wanting to save the heritage, history, and greatness of the country by honoring/protecting the statues/monuments of Jackson?

Things look different when seen through eyes other than those of people who have always enjoyed the many, often unrecognized, benefits of white privilege.

Dis-honoring Andrew Jackson

Twice recently I have written in opposition to the “lynching” of statues or monuments, that is, toppling or destroying them by violent, illegal means. But I am a strong advocate of removing such statues or monuments by legislative bodies.

The word dishonor means “bring shame or disgrace on,” and that is not particularly what I am advocating. As someone said to me recently, if we were living at the same time and in the same region (as Jackson, or whomever we see as a problem in the past), we likely would have done, or supported, the same thing we find objectionable today. Quite probably so.

What I am advocating is that we dis-honor such people, that is, remove the statues or monuments of those whom we no longer wish to honor.

Clearly, having a statue or monument of someone standing in a public place, or having a city or county named after a person of the past, honors that person.

Jackson County, Mo., obviously took its name in 1826 because of the desire of the decision-makers who wished to honor Andrew Jackson as a military hero. I seriously doubt that there would have been any single person of the Seminole Nation who would have agreed with that honoring.

And after Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, I can’t imagine there were any Native Americans who thought Jackson deserved the honor bestowed on him.

There are Native Americans who live in Jackson County right now. In honor of both their citizenship and ethnicity, I urge Jackson County officials to remove Jackson’s recently defaced statue (which is now under a tarp, as you see below) from its current location and to begin the process of changing the name of the county.