Page 94 - Eclipse of God

Religion and Modern Thinking 67

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They have already been overstepped if it is said of reli-
gion that it is “a living relation to psychical events which do
not depend upon consciousness but instead take place on the
other side of it in the darkness of the psychical hinterland.”
This definition of religion is stated without qualification. Nor
will it tolerate any. For if religion is a relation to psychic events,
which cannot mean anything other than to events of one’s own
soul, then it is implied by this that it is not a relation to a Being
or Reality which, no matter how fully it may from time to time
descend to the human soul, always remains transcendent to it.
More precisely, it is not the relation of an I to a Thou. This is,
however, the way in which the unmistakably religious of all
ages have understood their religion even if they longed most
intensely to let their I be mystically absorbed into that Thou.
But religion is for all that only a matter of the human re-
lation to God, not of God Himself. Consequently, it is more
important for us to hear what Jung thinks of God Himself. He
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conceives of Him in general as an “autonomous psychic con-
tent.” This means he conceives of God not as a Being or Real-
ity to which a psychical content corresponds, but rather as this
content itself. If this is not so, he adds, “then God is indeed not
real, for then He nowhere impinges upon our lives.” According
to this all that which is not an autonomous psychical content
but instead produces or co- produces in us a psychical content
is to be understood as not impinging upon our life and hence
as also not real.
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Despite this Jung also recognizes a “reciprocal and indis-
pensable relation between man and God.” Jung immediately
observes, to be sure, that God is “for our psychology . . . a func-
tion of the unconscious.” However, this thesis is by no means
intended to be valid only inside the boundaries of psychology,
for it is opposed to the “orthodox conception” according to
which God “exists for Himself,” which means psychologically