More than a dozen years ago I began posting replies to inquires concerning religion. Most of those early reflections consisted of the re-editing of previous works. As time went on I realized many questions were raised because the philosophical backgrounds to the enunciations of church teachings were not understood. To ameliorate that situation I undertook a brief review of Western philosophy. The focus was upon the theories concerning how we come to formulate our knowledge of things, and how those evolving theories have created nuances in our ongoing talk of God and soul. However, as I continued to reflect upon responses to my work I realized the philosophical approach to the items of religion was not resonating in the ruminations of the general public. Most are not given to see the world as a subset of substance and accidents, matter and form. I began, therefore, to turn increasingly towards the considerations of Jung in his analysis of the psyche, the soul. Surely, everyone could introspect and realize that there is within each an animating power of conflicting forces and seemingly infinite depth, and that in so doing could come to see them as reflected in the teachings of the Christian faith. In this sense the doctrines and creeds, and indeed their enactment in ritual, are projections of the workings of psyche. They, in a sense, constitute the story of soul and how it functions.
There is to every soul a depth unfathomable, and a power of projection that is oriented towards creativity, outwardness, and integration. That, sparsely but I believe accurately, is that which Jung names the God-image, the imago Dei, hidden in the secret most recesses of every human life. It is that which constantly propels us forward, evoking us to become all that we are “intended” to be, to become fully human, to become homo sapiens, the hominid with not mere rationality, but with the capacity for wisdom. That God-image is in the envisionment of religion the Godhead or God the Father, the almighty creator. Jung’s God-image has its own operational reflection: the power of individuation. This power moves one to confront the varied powers within that vie for dominance, orchestrate them into a harmonious whole, and so rise above a repertoire of masks and ego postures. In the doctrine of the Trinity, the reflection of the eternal Creator is the Son, the divine Word, the sacred enunciation, the perfect image of the Creator. It is thus that Jung refers to this power of individuation as the Christ-image, or the Christ archetype or co-ordinating force within the psyche. The interaction between the imago and the archetype emanates a dynamic to accomplish itself, to move reality forward as both the adequation of self and the world. That reiterates the dynamic between the eternal Father and Son which spirates, breathes out, the Sacred Spirit. The dynamic of the Trinity is replicated within every psyche. The careful consideration of one’s own progress into individuation finds its mirroring in the founding doctrine of Christianity. From there, all other doctrines are aligned.
Admittedly, there have always been arguments to claim that God, without regard as to how conceived, is a mere projection of human nature or its desire for “surety,” which might be better termed wholeness, for which holiness ought to be considered a synonym. I concede the point. Man always projects out who he is within. The blessings of civilization are a projection of a confluence of souls seeking to fulfill the sociality and creativity that are the aching thrust at the base of each. In like manner, the chaos and conflicts which plague societies on so many levels are projections of the unnamed and unresolved antagonisms in myriads of pained souls trapped into grasping for ways to avoid the difficulties of trust and of hope that every soul needs to meet to satisfy the demands of self-acknowledgment and growth.
Furthermore, while every aspect of religion can be said to be a projection of the inner workings of the human psyche, there is no evidence to be produced by man, not now, not ever, that the human psyche, with its seemingly infinite recess of layers and powers, is itself not a projection, a reflection of something more profound, more primitive, more integrating, more integral. Psyche is either its own beginning and end, or it has a source and purpose. If we accept the theory of evolution, we negate the first of those possibilities. Thus we have psyche as the imagination of something prior to it. It is a pro-ject in time and space. A projection, an image, is always of something. Eventually there comes a need to say there cannot be an infinite series. Somewhere, if we are in time-space, there must be a beginning. Somehow, if we are confining ourselves to a universe of cause and effect, there must be a “because of this and nothing else.” There needs to be an ultimate cause. That beginning point—from our finite point of view—may itself be an infinite regress. Some mystics opine it may be understood as an ever-receding platform. It is at least a theoretical foundational form, a primal format, formatting, formula. Faith alone can reenvision that theoretical formulary as a person, as a society of persons, as a living wholeness that expands itself into, that expresses itself as, a cosmos of forms evoked from within by the founding dynamic to re-create itself into a mirroring wholeness. Faith alone can see revealed in nature the Triune God and the purposefulness of creation. However, reflection upon the nature of the reality within and without can bring man to the point of wonder, to the majesty of the mystery that surrounds us, encompasses us, and so open man to the grace of seeing himself as something more than the possibly random configuration of time and circumstance. It can position man to accept himself as not tossed into existence, but as purposeful, as graced, as in fact that which man from the inner-most well of his soul pines to be: Beloved.
I have written of ritual, the embodiment of doctrine and creed, as psychotherapeutic drama. It is in acting out the words that the words take on flesh. As in any analysis of psyche, words and actions are not to be taken at surface value. They appear as symbols to be absorbed. They are items that have a power to connect things, to connect things unacknowledged into the light of knowing, things felt into feelings that can be given both name and voice, and so rendered items of dialogue and discipline. We do not go to the aptly named divine service to sit and rationally dissect readings and prayers. We go to allow them to flow over us, to flow into us, to speak to us, and to notice when they tinge some inner part of us, to hold on to that, treasure that, reflect upon that, and allow that to reveal to us—not God—but our own souls, our own psyches. Here is the light that lightens the darkness, feeds the soul’s need to see itself, see into itself, amend itself, refresh itself, and so grow day by day into the Wisdom and Grace that are at its very root.