Theological Reflections

[In January 1960 a meeting at the premises of the London Society of Analytical Psychology was convened to discuss the relation of analytical psychology to theology. It was given the provocative title “Who shall have the last word: psychologist or theologian?”; the aim was to stimulate debate. Kenneth Lambert was to open and Victor White was to be one of the discussants. So as to forward the discussion, Lambert sent Victor White a number of questions and his answers to them were to follow. To the great regret of everybody Fr. White could not be present at the meeting owing to ill health, but at my request he sent me his replies and agreed to allow their publication. They raise a number of interesting issues and it is hoped that they may promote further discussion in these pages. Editor.]

I should like to say how very grateful I am for being invited to participate in this evening's joint gathering of the Society of Analytical Psychology and the Analytical Psychology Club—especially as I fear I do not qualify to belong to either, much as I should like to.

But I am slightly disturbed to see that you have been promised an argument, and I am not at all sure I can (so far as it depends on me) offer you anything so exciting. I am also a little afraid you may have supposed that I am to maintain anything so dubious as that theology has some “last word”, which is certainly not a position I would care to argue. In fact, it is axiomatic for any theology to which I could subscribe that it has not the last word even about its own subject-matter, let alone any other. It is, or should be, axiomatic for any theologian that “No man hath seen God at any time” even though “His only Son has revealed him” (John i. 14). Axiomatic that “now we see only in a mirror darkly; and only then [in another world and dimension] face to face … and know even as I am known” (1 Cor. xiii. 12). Axiomatic that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of any man, what things G