I have already remarked that — in my view — the bridges between the Jungian theology of Drewermann and Creation Spirituality have not been studied enough, and that I feel called to engage in such a study.
In a 1991 interview, Drewermann says a few relevant things that I would like to report here, in order to see the points of contact with Creation Spirituality that deserve attention and development. Answering a question about how religion tends to be anxiety-inducing, Drewermann says:
I maintain that in the Christian West there is a structural chasm between thinking and feeling, as it can be seen from the fact that historically the interpretation of Revelation [he means the contents of the Christian faith, not the book of Revelation] has happened substantially by means of logical categories. Myth has been fought against, and consequently also those strata of the human psyche where myths are formed. Revelation has been understood as a communication from God in the form of commandments and rationally understandable contents. In such a way, dreams and their echoes in the inner space of the soul have been feared. The instinctual world became something morally unsound and has been fought against. All that was not understood within the soul has been demonized…. These are spiritual obstacles that Christianity brought into the West. We cannot declare ourselves innocent about this. Add to the mix sexual morality! But this latter issue, the mistakes made about it, should be clear to all by now.
The next question that the interviewer asks revolves around Drewermann’s motto “It should not be permissible to capitulate before the power of evil.” Does Drewermann consider himself a kind of priest/healer?
The question is what do we mean by evil. More than 50 years ago, Paul Tillich said that “the notion of original sin probably should not be kept because it produces equivocations and wrong associations.” [Yes, Tillich was a precursor of Matthew Fox, but limited to this one sentence]. This, however, is true for the notion of sin in general, a notion through which Christian theology has circumscribed the concept of evil. The meaning of “sin” in turn means the transgression of certain specific commandments which God promulgated, and we can respect as we are equipped with free will. If this is it, then Christianity is ill-equipped to confront its own ethical premises. Today we should learn from sociology and psychology that with the term “sin” we describe alienation states essentially. We could learn from existential philosophy what it means to live an unauthentic life. We could learn from depth psychology what it means to internalize, from an early age, several tyrannical figures which act in our adult life on the Ego terrain as demonic powers. We could learn from sociology how much structural violence is in place.
There is nothing in this program that feels alien to, or even distant from, Creation Spirituality. Nonetheless, it is to be remembered that the cosmic aspect, the enlarging of the soul to the dimensions of the universe — the soul capax universi according to Aquinas’ saying — and the radical relationality with non-human creatures is a gift of Creation Spirituality which is unrivalled.
Drewermann, perhaps, is all-important to me because of his focus on angst and his underlining of the therapeutic teachings against angst in the Bible. I have seen Matthew Fox doing something extremely important in this regard, that is, when people are beset by angst. He asks them to break out from their worries and connect with their body and with the bodies of other creatures, be they trees or animals or stars and so on. First, via positiva!
I concur that any psychology which starts from examining unresolved issues, rather than from the body, is at risk of navel-gazing. At the same time, I have experienced the enormous help of working on my own via negativa in a Jungian setting, and I am not afraid anymore — despite Jung’s clear caveats — of proposing a Jungian theology and spirituality.
Most of Drewermann’s essential works are not translated in English. The main point of reference for studying him is Matthias Beier, A Violent God-Image: An Introduction to the Work of Eugen Drewermann (Continuum: 2004).
Banner Image: Exploring the Jungian concept of the shadow. Image by Lex McKee on Flickr. CC-by-NC-SA 4.0.
Queries for Contemplation
What aspects of Drewermann’s answers seem relevant to explore for you individually?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life
Natural Grace: Dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
The Beloved Will Guide You: St. John of the Cross and the Triple Dark Night of Our Times (available for pre-order)
11 thoughts on “Jungian Theology”
Today’s reflection fits in well with my search for a deeper spiritual outlook. Thanks! It is, though, a bit of a tease. My intuition and spirit driven musings seem mild and without hard conceptual underpinnings. That is why I have been returning to Jung and the broadening search for ties between human and God. I am committed to an ecological outlook that ties the human species evolution to that of earth. ( Some of the human species. That may be where evil, the Devil, lifts his ugly head. A mythological beast, an archtype? But I need to confront all this within myself before projecting it onto others. Your post has reassured me that my meditations that incorporate Jungian internalization are on a positive track for my spiritual health.
The second video about befriending sharks resonated deeply in me as a metaphor for my own spiritual path. Many, many hooks were lodged in my young inner shark by the type of obscene preachers featured in the first video, preachers whom I call “soul abortionists.” Mine were Catholic. I first hated them, then I felt sorry for them because they surely had been wounded children too. Resilience saved me from their lethal soul-fishing lines: I snapped many and swam away with painful implanted hooks. Then came a feminine diver in the form of self-help and mutual aid groups where the hooks were removed one by one: toxic anger, toxic shame, toxic fear, toxic sadness. This long and patient hook-removal phase was followed by a spiritual awakening: I trusted a Higher Power, by convention I called it God, the walls of the aquarium shattered and I swam freely in an ocean of life, love, peace and wonder. Then I discovered Creation Spirituality, befriending the Earth community, a taming school fittingly led, like in The Little Prince, by a friendly Fox. Alleluia.
Beautifully shared about integrating today’s DM and your own spiritual journey! Amen…
I’m not very familiar with Jung or Drewermann, but there’s something interesting about the connections between thinking and feeling, and mind and body. This is something I’ve struggled with personally. I’ve always had a sharp intellect, and had no problems engaging with the world intellectually, but I was always ashamed of my body. I still am but much less so than in the past. A big part of my journey today is focused on listening to my body, and falling in love with the miracle that it is.
To me, spirituality and a connection to god is felt, not imagined. Reason and logic doesn’t seem to be relevant when having a truly spiritual experience. It’s all about the body and the feeling, not the thinking. It helps me to consider the body a bridge between the earth and the cosmos, and a node of god.
The concept of sin is a slippery one for me having not been raised with that term. It has no power over me, and it’s come to mean the state of being that occurs when I ignore direct guidance. I try not to do this of course but it still happens from time to time.
It’s not hard for me to understand why there is so much angst. Religion disconnects us from our natural state of affairs and deep connection to god and forces us to navigate a labyrinth of rules and dogmas, and if we don’t get it right we are doomed. I’m angsty just thinking about that!
I wish you would have named and identified Cristina Zenato, as the amazing woman in the video who peacefully interacts with sharks. She deserves to be named. Watching her humane, non-violent interaction with sharks has restored my hope in humanity’s potential.
Also, maybe consider less references to Thomas Aquinas. He believed women ‘lacked the natural preeminence of mature reason and authority’, and promoted subjugation to the male, and denial of women’s ordination.
I deepy appreciate the theme on non- violence, but it gets watered down when you keep referencing someone with patriarchal, misogynistic ideology.
Loved the shark video and Daniel’s lovely sharing. My hooks came in my later teens- falling for evangelical Christianity. Took years to get over and reject. Now am horrified at the ugly, evil, destructive force it has become. My rule now is: the very second, the millisecond, that any doctrine comes before kindness and compassion to people, animals and the earth, you have totally lost the plot and have entered darkness and cruelty. Period. Fullstop. Religious fundamentalism, authoritarianism of any kind, racism and greed are the greatest threats to the survival of anything good.
When I was considering going back to college to get a degree in Psychology, I picked up a couple of Psych 101 books to try them on for size. Neither of them contained a single mention of Carl Jung, which I thought was odd, because I’d been led to believe that he was one of the founding fathers of the science. But maybe he is more accurately considered a theologian, and that resulted in him being discredited as a scientific therapist?
“But maybe [Jung] is more accurately considered a theologian, and that resulted in him being discredited as a scientific therapist?”
Except for “more accurately,” that is exactly it, Rosanna, the same “hook” prevents Thomas Berry’s prophetic integral ecological vision to spread as widely as it should in some scientific circles and, in general, in left-brain-dominated circles.
I was a Psych. major, graduated 1979 from University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the premier Psych departments back then. We didn’t study Freud or Jung– at all. It was monkey studies and other animal and human behavior, and we were all required to take Experimental Psych, which helped us understand statistics and bias. There was no emphasis on, or even mention of Jung — he was long past.
As to what Clare Carbone mentioned about Aquinas’s anti-feminist viewpoints, I’d like to also add that Aquinas was NOT an experienced (G*d)-Mystic, even though he offered his INTELLECTUAL Idea of the Mystical Truth. He didn’t understand that you CAN’T substitute intellectual “ideas about” God for the actual Mystical EXPERIENCE.
This has always been true — they are radically different. His erasure of *directly experienced G*d*, as THE primary Theology in Christianity, for an idea-based-on-ideas led to the eventual breakdown, in the West, of the Mystical Truth that the first book of Genesis, the Revelation to Moses, several stories of Jesus, and the opening song in the Gospel of John were all centered around. The West chased after the idea — and then, moved on to other interesting ideas.
I was a Psych. major, graduated 1979 from University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the premier Psych departments back then. We didn’t study Freud or Jung– at all. It was monkey studies and other animal and human behavior, and we were all required to take Experimental Psych, which helped us understand statistics and bias. There was no emphasis on, or even mention of Jung — he was long past.
As to what Clare Carbone mentioned about Aquinas’s anti-feminist viewpoints, I’d like to also add that Aquinas was NOT an experienced (G*d)-Mystic, even though he offered his INTELLECTUAL Idea of the Mystical Truth. He didn’t understand that you CAN’T substitute intellectual “ideas about” God for the actual Mystical EXPERIENCE.
This has always been true — they are radically different. His erasure of *directly experienced G*d*, as THE primary Theology in Christianity, for an idea-based-on-ideas led to the eventual breakdown, in the West, of the Mystical Truth that the first book of Genesis, the Revelation to Moses, several stories of Jesus, and the opening song in the Gospel of John were all centered around. The West chased after the idea — and then, moved on to other interesting ideas.
The advice of connecting with the body, when one is full of angst, is very important. I appreciate this reference to the via positiva, to creation as the natural setting which helps us move forward from anxiety. Thanks!