Job and the Wisdom Jung Overlooked
- Matei I.
- May 27
- 9 min read
Today's article is a little different. It is an invitation to knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
Knowledge is the totality of facts, information and skills acquired by an individual through life.
Understanding is knowing how to apply the knowledge.
Wisdom is the ability to apply the knowledge that you understand with prudence.
Therefore, it is safe to say that wisdom tells you when to do, what to do and when to rest.
In order to illustrate wisdom, I will use Carl Jung's view of the story of Job and explain some interesting events that occur. I am not aiming at ridiculing Carl Jung or his work, harnessing attention or preach about God. I am aiming to describe wisdom.
While Jung offers profound symbolic insights, his interpretation of Job alters the narrative’s foundations, shifting the moral and metaphysical focus.
Carl Jung's Vision
God:
Carl Jung described the God of the Old Testament as follows:
"Yahweh is not a human being; He is not answerable to man; He is not humanly just, nor is he unjust, but simply acts as He pleases." - Answer to Job, 640.
Jung thought of God as lacking in reflective self-knowledge within this story. He sees Job's suffering as unjust punishment from God who allows Satan to persecute Job, inflicting something close to absolute suffering in order that God may prove a point. Carl Jung explained God, Job and Satan as archetypes within the psyche, becoming symbols of psychic forces. He then explains how Job was holding fast to his integrity, forcing God to look into Himself, and becoming a mirror of divine morality.
Job:
"Job is the suffering righteous man and as such he is the one who compels God to look into Himself" - Answer to Job, 640; and also:
"Compared with this insensate power, the human being is more conscious, more ethical." - Answer to Job, 626.
Carl Jung offered Job as an example of a human morally superior to God, sitting in contrast to God even.
Satan:
Moreover, Carl Jung described Satan as God's shadow: rejected and unconscious counterpart of divine omnipotence. Something God will have to integrate in Himself.
“Yahweh’s dual nature long remained hidden from mankind... Job, however, had the doubtful privilege of being the first to see through this disguise.” - Answer to Job, 740.
He then explains how God repents in action. The incarnation of Christ is seen by Jung as a proof that God has taken Job seriously. God is not static, but living, changing and suffering also. It implies that the divine psyche evolves through human suffering, and Job is an example of such events.
Job - Summary of the Biblical account
The book of Job in the Bible starts by presenting Job as a just and upright man full of integrity and loyal. Job was very rich and there was no one like him in all sight, living in accordance with God's command and having wealth like no other. He was also loved by everyone, had many children and a big family. Then describes the angels that roam the earth together with Satan reporting to God. God praises Job in front of all angels for being "blameless and upright", adding that "there is no one on earth like him". Satan then tries to deceive the angels and their trust in God's word by portraying the possibility of God being wrong. Satan tells God that Job's faithfulness is due to all the splendour that God wrapped him in, asking God to give Job in his hands and so proving God wrong. This creates the setting of what is going to happen. Though the scene unfolds in Heaven, Satan’s dishonest (he could not know Job will betray God) and dangerous (could result in angels doubting God) upfront results in Job’s earthly suffering. However, Job suffering is turned into proof for the angels and proof against Satan.
Job ends up alone, suffering, all his children having died, sick and cursed by everyone. His own friends have turned against him. Until the story of Job, the biblical narrative described suffering as a consequence of sin. Even his own wife tells Job “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” - Job 2:9. Yet Job endures and trusts the Lord, knowing what kind of God he is and having faith in Him that everything has a purpose.
He continuously alternates between sentences like
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” (Job 13:15)
And:
“Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me?” (Job 10: 8-9) constantly questioning God or pressing Him for answers. Oscillating between dispar, confusion, challenge, patience, loyalty, integrity, etc.
Then, God comes down and talks to Job:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2)
God starts questioning Job, illustrating to Job how He is beyond comprehension throught questions showing how everything is much greater than what he formerly thought through the questions asked.
However, at the end, when Job talks again, he recollects these words somewhat different. He states "Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?" This hints at a deeper connection between God's plans which can be hinted at in the event in Heaven at the beginning of the book and Job.
"Then Job replied to the Lord:
2 “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.” - Job 42:1-6
At the end, God is angry with Job's friends for speaking falsly about Him, telling them that Job will pray for them and God will answer Job and deal with them mercifuly. Then God restores everything back to Job twice and makes his loved ones love him again. "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part." - Job 42: 12
Cross Examination
This is fascinating! This does not sound like a man who won a moral argument against God; but more like a man who was broken open and allowed to see into a higher truth.
Now if Job understood what was it all about and said it was "too wonderful for me to know". The statement "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you" shows a deeper realisation which Job had during that encounter. This realisation was enough to make someone who thought until that very moment that he was suffering without cause, to say "I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes". Now from a Jungian perspective, this wouldn't make sense; having in mind that Job is the one who looks into himself as a result of that story, and not God. Who can know for sure what Job experienced? Yet we can deduce from these mentions that the reality of it demolished much of Job's view of reality; which seems obscured by the veil of mystery.
However, I do appreciate the great work of Carl Jung in drawing parallels between the psyche and the biblical stories. His work helped humanity step into a realm unknown to the cold and material eyes of the common scientific narrative, unveiling layers of reality that are easy to miss. But now, let's get back to the point:
Let’s examine where Jung’s symbolic interpretation diverges from the original narrative.
1. Carl Jung's concept of God is an evolving psychic force that has to integrate his shadow. The story however relies on a God who is unchanging, personal and holy (perfect).
2. In Jung's view, suffering is a negative experience. In the Bible it is seen as refining fire that purifies the soul (Wisdom of Sirach 2:1-2). An opportunity to test out what you learned in peace.
3. The flow of salvation is inverted. In Jung's view, God becomes conscious through man. In the Bible man becomes restored through God.
4. Jung described Job's confrontation with an immoral deity, while in the Bible Job was confronting with mystery.
A theory describing the creation of a state, if it leaves the history of the state aside, will not be able to fully account for the creation of that state.
Similarly, if you have to change a story to the degree of having the subject inversed in order to prove a point, you have either chosen the wrong example or the point is weak and illusive. Even if you understand these to be self induced visions of the subconscious symbolism, by changing the story you are creating a story of your own which is based on an original story. By changing the story, even the points addressed are only points against the story you have created, and not the original story. Also, if you have a lens that half of it is an exact replica of another lens' half, does not mean that the two lenses are the same. Similarly, Carl Jung's interpretation is based on pre-constructed ideas about a story, which changes it to the core. The preconceptions of the theory is what brings the theory down. You change the reality of the world so that your thoughts can be right. Regardless of religious opinions, the text itself disproves Carl's interpretation.
An answer to this argument would be that Carl Jung was examining the story symbolically. Yet he leaves more symbols out than he integrates in the theory or opinion. I can see a great point in this story about Job seeing himself in comparison with the objective. How even a suffering like Job's can be silenced in the vastness of objective, selfless truth. However, I cannot see how Carl Jung's evaluation of this event can be correct in the context of the event itself. Carl Jung might have recognised that for his theory to work the story must be tweaked out of its own details. Details have to be replaced and reinterpreted for the theory to stand. Therefore, the only honest conclusion taken from this would be that there is an element of foreshadow between the human psyche development and the biblical events. However, claiming that they may be the exact same thing or that one is the result of another is unwise. This does not deny the observations of the psyche or the biblical accounts, it just exposes the dishonest/incomplete parallels with biblical events, which had to be changed in order to accommodate Carl's vision.
Why this matters? some may ask. The answer comes from the question "What are the dangers of misapplying Jung's lens?" - this question I will leave you all to answer.
Final Notes
In this context, wisdom calls you to search out a matter with honesty and humility. Humility means knowledge without theft. Honesty means staying true, holding on to all the words of the original story (in our context both stories). If any word is against your parallel, then better find another parallel that matches your view.
After all these, we can affirm that the analogy was wrong and as such has to make the bible wrong in order to stand right. However, the example used was wrong; but the study and work is outstanding. The comparison is wrong, but the things discussed are highly beneficial to our society.
Now that the argument is over, what should we think of the motives of God in this story?
The story shows that the main event took place elsewhere. This shows us that though we think of ourselves as the epicentre, especially while suffering, the reality might be completely different. Most clues point towards Job suffering as a consequence of Satan's upfront. God seems to allow it being sure that Job will be alright in the end and will complete this work successfully. Allowing Job to complete a work far grater than appears to be possible: to suffer for the strengthening of angels and the humiliation of Satan. The future of the events were known to God, while to Job, the angels, Satan and everyone else was not. Hence why Job was panicking and Satan was so determined. Regardless of whether or not you think it happened, this is what the story illustrates; if you stay true to the text.
Always welcome truth and see the world as it is, regardless of how much of you it may demolish.
