Questions to Jung on ‘Answer to Job’

In his writings Jung rarely expressed negative affect as freely as he does in ‘Answer to Job’. He admits that his exegesis is based on a ‘purely subjective reaction’. His reaction to Yahweh is expressed as a ‘shattering emotion which the unvarnished spectacle of divine savagery and ruthlessness produces in us’ (Jung 1952, para. 713). The god-image that Jung reacts to is an aspect of God as portrayed in the prologue of the Book of Job, in particular God in His interaction with Satan (Mitchell 1987). (The term god-image is used to describe the image representations of God which can be psychically experienced. God (capitalized) refers to the God archetype whose essence is essentially unknowable or to the possibility of a transcendent God beyond characterization as an archetype.) Jung's emotional reaction is so charged that he cannot disengage from this negative aspect and does not appreciate the relationship which develops between God and Job in the main body and epilogue of the Book of Job, a relationship where Satan is no longer a factor. A complex has been evoked in Jung which leads him to overlook significant aspects of the Book of Job and interpret what he does see through the distorted medium of his subjective reactions. The resultant negative portrayal and interpretation of God leads Jung to construct a psycho-mythology to explain the necessity for God's incarnation and evolution.

Are we to accept Jung's idea that we are dealing with a primitive and unconscious God who is in need of man's consciousness to enable His evolution or are we dealing with man's, in this case, Jung's undifferentiated god-image? This incomplete god-image could reflect a personal complex but is more likely due to a shadow projection of dark and unconscious aspects of the self.

Jung, in his prefatory note to the reader of ‘Answer to Job’, reiterates that images and statements about God are based on psychic processes (Jung 1952, para. 555). Yet, from this initial standpoint, Jung goes on to f