Problems of Carl G. Jung for Adventists

---He was a Swiss Psychologist.

---Jung claims that he deals with religion from a "purely empirical point of view, that is, I restrict myself to the observation of phenomena and I eschew any metaphysical or philosophical considerations. I do not deny the validity of these other considerations, but I cannot claim to be competent to apply them correctly.“ Carl G. Jung, "Psychology and Religion: West," Psychology and Religion: West and East Vol. 11, 2nd ed. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969), page 6.

---Thanks for the honesty of incompetency dealing with faith. His father was a pastor and his grandfather the illegitimate child presumably of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Sophie Ziegler.

---Jung claims that "psychological existence is subjective in so far as an idea occurs in only one individual. But it is objective in so far as that idea is shared by a society - by a consensus gentium.“With the elevation of the public opinion here we are back at Durkheim's scenario as opposed to Spencer who elevated the individual. It is as if Jung is bringing together in his philosophy the individual and the society but the most important aspect is the public opinion of the society.

---Adventists are reminded here by the words of Ellen White in Great Controversy and mentioned by Edward Heppenstall in Christ our High Priest, that truth is not determined by the vote of the majority.

---Religion is seen as "a peculiar attitude of mind...which means a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors that are conceived as `powers': spirits, daemons, gods, laws, ideals, or whatever name man has given to such factors in his world as he has found powerful, dangerous, or helpful enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful, and meaningful enough to be devoutly worshipped and loved.“Carl Jung 1969 page 8.

---What he is basically doing here is to throw his father’s good sermons and his mother’s Christian instruction to him on the streets with comments that you will hear only in “bar-wisdom“ by drinkers like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

---Dreams is viewed as the voice of the Unknown, qualified as "ever threatening new schemes, new dangers, sacrifices, warfare, and other troublesome things.“Carl Jung 1969 page 18.

---Here Jung is trying to silence any possibility of the Holy Spirit whispering repentance to himself or others. 

---Magical rites "exist for the sole purpose of erecting a

defence against the unexpected, dangerous tendencies of the unconscious." Jung includes the Hebrew Prophets here. C.G. Jung, "Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits, The" (1920/1948) in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche vol. 8 (1960/1969), page 594.

---He tries his best to make his father’s religion nothing but a self-created medicine for his own mind. A human construct, period. Already Adventism has their yellow card out for him.

---Dogma and Ritual is seen as the very quintessence of Christianity and pagan religious experience. The God of his father and mother is not in view at all for Jung.

---Religion is seen as more than just an individual experience. He is coming in with his doctoral dissertation on the Occult phenomenae. Another yellow card from Adventism. African wisdom says: “If you play with snakes, they will bite you”. 1902 Jung gets his Ph.D. at the University of Zurich with a doctoral dissertation On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena.

---Analogical to ancient myths, Jung suggested that in the body of a man, a male and female (called anima) existed together. The masculine form that exists in females he sees as animus. For those who do not know, animus is the Latin word for “will”. What a weird view. Only men has wills. So seeing a will in a woman is suddenly seeing the male in her. Thanks but that is not biblical, Adventism will point out. Males and females were created equal.

---About religious change, he said, "Social, political, and religious conditions affect the collective unconscious in the sense that all those factors which are suppressed by the prevailing views or attitudes in the life of a society gradually accumulate in the collective unconscious and activate its contents.“

---“Certain individuals gifted with particularly strong intuition then becomes aware of the changes going on in it and translate these changes into communicable ideas.”

---“The new ideas spread rapidly because parallel changes have been taking place in the unconscious of other people. There is a general readiness to accept the new ideas, although on the other hand they often meet with violent resistance.”Carl Jung 1969 page 21.

---He is trying to curtail the spread of the gospel on the streets or in civil life by making it a human only event. He did not listen anything to his father’s sermons.

---The forms of morality, he thinks, belongs to the category of transitory things. As he said, "We should never forget that what today seems to us a moral commandment will tomorrow be cast into the melting-pot and transformed, so that in the near or distant future it may serve as a basis for new ethical formations." He swallowed the ABC of Relativism by Bertrand Russell hook and sinker.

---He was immersed in his interest for Buddhism. Michele Daniel (2007) Jung's Affinity for Buddhism: Misunderstandings and Clarifications, Psychological Perspectives, 50:2, 220-234, DOI: 10.1080/00332920701681718

“Much of the West's understanding of Jung's thinking about Buddhism comes from reading his essays on Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, in which his commentary focuses upon particular doctrinal teachings of these two forms of Mahayana Buddhism.” ”Like the teachings of Buddhism, Jung viewed self-development as being ‘mind-led’, and this might shed some light on Jung’s interest in it.” See also David Zuniga, PhD, Austin Psychologist “Jung's Interest in Zen Buddhism and the Tibetan Book of the Dead” 11/7/2017 Comments https://www.drdavidzuniga.com/

---It will do Adventism well, to shelve his books and ideas since they are coming from someone who turned his back to true religion and the attempts of his parents to lead him to Christ.