Christ, the son begotten by God, is the first-born who is succeeded by an ever-increasing number of younger brothers and sisters.
Psychology and Religion: West and East (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 11)
The continuing, direct operation of the Holy Ghost on those who are called to be God’s children implies, in fact, a broadening process of incarnation.
Christ, the son begotten by God, is the first-born who is succeeded by an ever-increasing number of younger brothers and sisters.
These are, however, neither begotten by the Holy Ghost nor born of a virgin.
This may be prejudicial to their metaphysical status, but their merely human birth will in no sense endanger their prospects of a future position of honour at the heavenly court, nor will it diminish their capacity to perform miracles.
Their lowly origin (possibly from the mammals) does not prevent them from entering into a close kinship with God as their father and Christ as their brother. In a metaphorical sense, indeed, it is actually a “kinship by blood,” since they have received their share of the blood and flesh of Christ, which means more than mere adoption.
These profound changes in man’s status are the direct result of Christ’s work of redemption.
Redemption or deliverance has several different aspects, the most important of which is the expiation wrought by Christ’s sacrificial death for the misdemeanors of mankind.
His blood cleanses us from the evil consequences of sin.
He reconciles God with man and delivers him from the divine wrath, which hangs over him like doom, and from eternal damnation. It is obvious that such ideas still picture God the father as the dangerous Yahweh who has to be propitiated.
The agonizing death of his son is supposed to give him satisfaction for an affront he has suffered, and for this “moral injury” he would be inclined to take a terrible vengeance.
Once more we are appalled by the incongruous attitude of the world creator towards his creatures, who to his chagrin never behave according to his expectations.
It is as if someone started a bacterial culture which turned out to be a failure.
He might curse his luck, but he would never seek the reason for the failure in the bacilli and want to punish them morally for it.
Rather, he would select a more suitable culture medium.
Yahweh’s behaviour towards his creatures contradicts all the requirements of so-called “divine” reason whose possession is supposed to distinguish men from animals.
Moreover, a bacteriologist might make a mistake in his choice of a culture medium, for he is only human.
But God in his omniscience would never make mistakes if only he consulted with it.
He has equipped his human creatures with a modicum of consciousness and a corresponding degree of free will, but he must also know that by so doing he leads them into the temptation of falling into a dangerous independence.
That would not be too great a risk if man had to do with a creator who was only kind and good.
But Yahweh is forgetting his son Satan, to whose wiles even he occasionally succumbs.
How then could he expect man with his limited consciousness and imperfect knowledge to do any better?
He also overlooks the fact that the more consciousness a man possesses the more he is separated from his instincts (which at least give him an inkling of the hidden wisdom of God) and the more prone he is to error.
He is certainly not up to Satan’s wiles if even his creator is unable, or unwilling, to restrain this powerful spirit. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Paragraph 658.
