The prologue to John’s Gospel speaks of our seeing his grace and truth; and we are so used to those majestic words being read every Christmas day, that we tend to think it was all effortless. After all, was he not God, as the Creeds recite? It only seemed easy, because of his incredible self-discipline. And I can well understand the relief with which he said it was all finished, as he was dying. It was not easy to live his life; it must have been unbelievably hard. Whether you think he saved the world, or whether you think he was deluded, it makes no difference. He could not possibly have got involved with the secular world, as well as coping with his Ministry, and enduring his Passion.
But we have to, unless we too have a vocation to heal the sick, make the lame walk, and the blind see, which is unlikely. Not many people do have this vocation; certainly not many clergymen. And anyway, someone has to keep the secular world going, or society will disintegrate into chaos. Certainly we still need the inspiration of self-sacrifice; but we need organizing ability too. And it is difficult to maintain an integrity in the secular world. Even if one is determined to do it, it is best not to talk about it too much; better to attempt to achieve a just result when it is possible, and accept there will be occasions when it just is not possible. Those who attempt to achieve a just result on every occasion, only make fools of themselves; and demonstrate that they have no understanding of the way the world works. There is a certain merit in having the humility to admit one has been out-manoeuvred and defrauded. And it is not every day that innocence is on the scaffold. So was Jesus’ sacrifice worth it all? Or has the Almighty created a world in which his own Spirit is unwelcome? It sometimes looks like it. But I do not think he has. I was a schoolboy in the Second World War; and if there is one secular event which I am sure was right it was Winston Churchill’s defiance of, and determination to fight, Hitler. Yet without the alliance with Russia, there was no hope of defeating the Wehrmacht. It had its guts torn out in Russia; and without Stalin, Russia would probably have crumpled as it did in 1917. The German army’s offensive power was finally broken in the titanic tank battle in the Kursk-Orel salient in the summer of 1943. And without that battle, would we ever have got ashore in Normandy, or won the great victory at Falaise? In some mysterious way, for right to triumph, it needs the cooperation of evil; I do not understand why, but I know that those who think right is sufficient by itself seriously misunderstand the laws of creation. So my view is that the Almighty knew very well what he was doing, although His ways are higher than my ways, and are beyond my understanding.
If the first lesson the Church must learn to avoid terminal decline, is to come to terms with the secular world, which is not all “mammon”; the second lesson it needs to learn is to come to terms with science, and in particular modern psychology. For me that means Jung, who is poor at making himself understood, but whom I much admire. And no doubt a lot of work has been done since his day. But unless you want to imitate medieval monks drawing pictures of flowers, not from life, but from other books of pictures of flowers, you cannot shut your eyes and ears to the experience of modern knowledge. Not even when it seems to discredit your most preciously held opinions and prejudices. Aristotle was right; you cannot turn your back on experience, whether it is the experience of getting results from a scientific experiment, or the imaginative experience of the Creator talking to you. If you do, you cut yourself off from all community; which is exactly the predicament of the C.of E. today.
Psychological Types was Jung’s first substantial book, written in about 1920 at the end of his daring and perilous descent into the unconscious. I read it about 50 years ago; essentially it is a book of classification, and I was much taken by his remark that a theory of thought was a seven-sealed book. When considering why the big transformations overtaking mankind were never brought about by intellect, Jung wrote, “the all-important laws of mental development are still a book with seven seals”. Well, my theory of consciousness turns over the first pages. Other works of his, I read more recently; and the two abiding impressions left on me are his view that the largely unconscious Psyche is vastly bigger than the self, or ego, which is like a cork floating on the surface of the water.