The Way of Christ: Imitation or Individuation?

For a man who was known for his strong critiques of Christianity and the so-called ‘Christian’ culture of Western Europe, Carl Jung was a big fan of Christ himself. In fact some of the most beautiful and powerful words I’ve ever read about Christ and the possibilities within Christianity were from Jung’s own pen. As is so often the case, the conflict arose not because Jung came to different answers from traditional Christianity, but because he posed the fundamental questions differently.

As we saw last time, for Jung, the basic problem facing humanity is that we are not whole: through the influence of our parents, culture, religion, and experiences, we have become cut off from important parts of our personality, leaving us with outward personalities (personas) that are partial and inhibited, and inner selves (the shadow) we cannot see, but which will eventually always find a way out, often in unhealthy and unhelpful ways (e.g., the phenomenon of anti-LGBTQ legislators found in gay trysts, or people-pleasers suddenly lashing out and saying no to everything). Defining the problem in this way, the solution becomes unifying and integrating all aspects of our personality, thereby becoming and embodying our true self, a process Jung called individuation.

Obviously, this has little in common with the ways the Church has traditionally defined the fundamental human problem. While the Scriptures have used many different images for this, some common ones include bondage to sin and death and moral trespass. Such different definitions require different solutions, and in a Christian context, these different solutions involve different emphases about what Christ accomplished and how he accomplished it. If you emphasize bondage to sin and death, the solution is a Christ who acts decisively to free or redeem humanity (as in the Christus Victor, satisfaction, and substitution models of the atonement). If you emphasize the moral problem, the solution is a Christ who acts as a teacher, or example to be imitated. For Jung, however, neither of these emphases were helpful: Focusing on Christ solving our problem for us can easily lead to a lack of personal accountability, much like a child who fails to learn, grow, and develop because his parents do everything for him. But focusing on Christ as a moral teacher can easily compound the shadow and reinforce partial personas by labeling not only behaviours but even thoughts and feelings, as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. And focusing on Christ as an example to be imitated can take people off the course of living their own lives and trying to live Christ’s instead.

But this does not mean that Jung had no time for Christ. In fact, for him, Christ was the greatest exemplar and prototype of just the kind of wholly integrated individuation that is his solution to humanity’s problem. This works whether we look at his life as recorded in the Gospels, or in the traditional Christological doctrines of the Church. On the former front, Jesus is presented as very much his own man. We see this, for example, in his teaching about avoiding projections and finger-pointing and taking accountability for ourselves (e.g., Matthew 7.3) and in his healthy, adult disidentification from his family of origin (e.g., Matthew 10.34-36). But mostly, this is seen in his total commitment to his ministry, mission, and unique destiny in the world. No one — not his mother, not his friends, not political authorities, not religious leaders — was going to keep him from accomplishing his life’s purpose. On the latter, theological front, the doctrine of the two natures of Christs insists that he is simultaneously, as Edward Edinger put it, “a human being living a particular, limited, historical existence in space and time” and “the ‘anointed one,’ the king, the Logos that has existed from the beginning beyond space and time, the eternal deity itself” (Ego and Archetype, 131f).* In other words, he perfectly integrates the human and divine, the immanent and transcendent. In all this, we can rightly say that Christ is an example to be imitated, but not in the way the Church traditionally taught. As Jung posed the question:

Are we to understand the ‘imitation of Christ’ in the sense that we should copy his life and, if I may use the expression, ape his stigmata; or in the deeper sense that we are to live our own proper lives as truly as he lived his life in its individual uniqueness? It is no easy matter to live one’s own life, as truly as Christ lived his?” (“Psychotherapists or the Clergy,” Collected Works 11 par 522, quoted in Edinger 135)

In other words, for Jung, to follow the way of Christ didn’t mean copying his every move or his mission, but to follow him in living out our own lives and destiny to the best of our abilities; that is, we are to take up our own crosses, not Christ’s. (He already carried his.) And in this process, we become our own christs: “No one can be spared the way of Christ, since this way leads to what is to come. You should all become Christs” (The Red Book 137).

What can we say to this as Christians today? I don’t think it’s a simple matter of either accepting or rejecting Jung’s critiques or proposals. I think he’s on the right track in a lot of ways. But ultimately, I don’t the chasm between his ideas and those of the the New Testament are as wide as he — and many Christians — think.

First let’s look at his criticisms of traditional understandings of salvation and Christ’s work in it. We would do well to take these seriously, because they are easy ditches for Christians to fall into. I don’t think the language of Christ ‘dying for our sins’ or ‘the imitation of Christ’ are bad, but if we aren’t careful, and if we don’t supplement our language with other of the myriad metaphors our Scriptures use for salvation, they can lead us astray. Listening to many Christians talk today, especially those most deeply embedded in substitutionary atonement theology, there is absolutely a lack of personal accountability: Christ has saved them, they belong to Christ, full stop. It’s an unconditional love and nothing they can do can change it. None of this is ‘wrong’ in and of itself, but it is partial. It emphasizes faith as trust in God’s grace and love, but forgets that faith in the Scriptures is always a two-way street. It’s a relationship grounded in mutual, reciprocal responsibilities. And, as per the teaching of the Scriptures, those responsibilities on our part are largely expressed in how we treat others, in ‘God’s economy’ of paying forward the love and grace we’ve received. The New Testament also has a lot to say about our accountability, not just for our actions, but also for how we live in relation to our self. We are called to receive God’s love as little children, but then to grow up into mature adults:

• …or everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5.13-14)
• … until all of us come … to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ …. (Ephesians 4.12-15)
• It is [Christ] whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Colossians 1.28)

The last two of these passages speak specifically about maturity as it relates to Christ, which is a nice segue into Jung’s second critique, against the imitation of Christ. His point here is twofold: First, that this idea causes the faithful to try to live Christ’s life rather than their own, and second, that the religious instruction involved in the imitation of Christ strengthens the shadow. Again, I think these are important critiques that we need to take seriously if our faith is going to be healthy. On the first front, it is without question that Christians, historically and today, have often resisted any rightful place for the self or individuality, essentially equating the self with selfishness. But Jung is not talking about a rampant libertarian individualism here, for the authentic path of individuation always leads to the care for the community. Selfishness is an immature quality, not an expression of the true, mature Self. Instead, the individuation of the Self of which Jung speaks (much like Maslow’s idea of self-actualization) has less to do with selfishness than self-acceptance as a means of self-transcendence. To put this in more Christian terms, it’s interesting that the gifts of the Holy Spirit diversify the faithful, leading each to have their own unique vocation and destiny. Following the way of Jesus cannot therefore mean simply mimicking his life, but living out our own as fully as possible. While I don’t have the space here to elucidate in full, I think where Jung’s understanding of Christianity falters is that he (along with much of the Western Christian tradition of the second millennium) lacks the New Testament’s participatory understanding of the Christian’s relationship with Christ. It isn’t a matter of Christ dying ‘in our place’, thereby letting us off the hook, but rather a matter of our participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, thereby empowering us to break free from the ways of death and into true freedom to love.

Finally, on the charge of Christian teaching pushing more and more into shadow instead of helping us deal with it, again, I think this is absolutely a risk, but is representative of an unhealthy Christian teaching. As we saw this Fall in the series on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ teachings opposed any kind of legalism, self-righteousness, or purity culture. Even Paul, much-maligned for his seemingly stricter teaching, wrote that “everything is permissible” and tried to get his churches to move past the simplistic, black and white, moralism (1 Corinthians 6.12-20). But a) the religious instinct always seems to gravitate towards these things (which is why throughout that series I referred to Jesus’ teaching as an ‘anti-religion’), so there’s no doubt that Christianity has historically been used to double down on such ideas that promote the shadow. And b) any ethical framework that promotes some behaviours and thought patterns over others runs this risk, so it’s a bit unfair for Jung to level the charge specifically at Christianity. This is to say, any time we encourage say honesty over lying, it can both promote honesty and inspire either self-deception in order to justify to ourselves that we are in fact being honest when we are actually lying, or projecting honesty outwardly to others while secretly lying. The brighter the light an idea casts, the darker the shadow it casts. The question then shouldn’t be if Christianity’s moral teachings risk growing the shadow, because of course they do, but whether Christianity also contains the resources needed to deal with the shadow well. And, as we’ll see throughout this series, I think it does.

So, I definitely think there is something to be said for Jung’s criticisms of the ways Christianity talks about Jesus. We need to be sure we don’t become too dependent on one or two images or metaphors so as to avoid being one-sided, and we need to be aware that every idea, no matter how brilliant or true it may be, casts a shadow we need to be aware of. Our faith should never be an excuse to lack accountability for ourselves and our actions, but open up new paths, ways and means for us to grow in accountability and faithfulness in all of our relationships. And, our imitation of Christ means taking up our own crosses and living out the race marked out for us, and not simply aping Jesus’ life. And, while we should be clear not to equate Jung’s idea of individuation with the Christian idea of salvation, we would also do well to recognize that there’s far more overlap there than a knee-jerk rejection of it would suggest. God did create us all as unique persons in unique circumstances, and we have no life to live but our own.

* See the bibliography for the series for full information.