‘The ultimate fate of every dogma is that it gradually becomes soulless. Life wants to create new forms, and therefore, when a dogma loses its vitality, it must perforce activate the archetype that has always helped man to express the mystery of the soul.
Note that I do not go so far as to say that the archetype actually produces the divine figure. If the psychologist were to assert that, he would have to possess a sure knowledge of the motives that underlie all historical development and be in a position to demonstrate this knowledge. But there is no question of that.
I maintain only that the psychic archetype makes it possible for the divine figure to take form and become accessible to understanding. But the supremely important motive power which is needed for this, and which sets the archetypal possibilities in motion at a given historical moment, cannot be explained in terms of the archetype itself.
Only experience can establish which archetype has become operative, but one can never predict that it must enter into manifestation. Who, for instance, could logically have foretold that the Jewish prophet Jesus would give the decisive answer to the spiritual situation in the age of Hellenistic syncretism, or that the slumbering image of the Anthropos would waken to world dominion?
The limitations of human knowledge which leave so many incomprehensible and wonderful things unexplained do not, however, exempt us from the task of trying to understand the revelations of the spirit that are embodied in dogma, otherwise there is a danger that the treasures of supreme knowledge which lie hidden in it will evaporate into nothing and become a bloodless phantom, and easy prey for all shallow rationalists.
It would be a great step forward, in my opinion, if at least it were recognized how far the truth of dogma is rooted in the human psyche, which is not the work of human hands.” ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, paragraph 488-90
