...If one has no religious beliefs, then one does not like to admit the feeling of deficit, but prates loudly about one’s liberal-mindedness and pats oneself on the back for the noble frankness of one’s agnosticism. From this standpoint, it is hardly possible to admit the numinosity of the religious object, and yet its very numinosity is just as great a hindrance to critical thinking, because the unpleasant possibility might then arise that one’s faith in enlightenment or agnosticism would be shaken. Both types feel, without knowing it, the insufficiency of their argument. Enlightenment operates with an inadequate rationalistic concept of truth and points triumphantly to the fact that beliefs such as the virgin birth, divine filiation, the resurrection of the dead, transubstantiation, etc., are all moonshine. Agnosticism maintains that it does not possess any knowledge of God or of anything metaphysical, overlooking the fact that one never possesses a metaphysical belief but is possessed by it. Both are possessed by reason, which represents the supreme arbiter who cannot be argued with. But who or what is this “reason” and why should it be supreme? Is not something that is and has real existence for us an authority superior to any rational judgment, as has been shown over and over again in the history of the human mind? Unfortunately the defenders of “faith” operate with the same futile arguments, only the other way about. The only thing which is beyond doubt is that there are metaphysical statements which are asserted or denied with considerable affect precisely because of their numinosity. This fact gives us a sure empirical basis from which to proceed. It is objectively real as a psychic phenomenon. The same applies naturally to all statements, even the most contradictory, that ever were or still are numinous. - C.G., Jung. Answer to Job. (Routledge Classics) (pp. 117-118).
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 22:44:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015