Carl Jung: Your idea of writing a doctoral thesis about sin is brilliant.
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950
To Pastor Fritz Pfaffiin
Dear Pastor PfafHin, 9 March 1937
Your idea of writing a doctoral thesis about sin is brilliant.
That is something I would definitely like to know, what sin really is, seeing that theology has been talking about it for thousands of years.
In my theological impartiality I would say that only the good Lord can decide, as stands clearly written in the Acts of the Apostles.
Everything else is man-made law, wholly time-conditioned and relative.
Men would never have talked of sin and the forgiveness of sin had this not been a fundamental psychological fact that existed long
before there were any laws.
Deviation from the will of the gods was a preoccupation of humanity even in primeval times.
In this sense “the old man” would have a very great deal to say.
But this sense is far more comprehensive and in a way more inexorable than any human law.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 253-254
