I am a great admirer of John Locke (1632-1704), who in many ways is a similar figure to Confucius. He has been described as the apostle of the Revolution of 1688, the most moderate and the most successful of all revolutions. His thought represents a moderate and tolerant liberalism; and he was perhaps lucky that he wrote when the politicians of the day were exactly of the same opinion. The country was sick of the tyranny of the Stuart kings, and of intolerant religious sects having undue influence; and the politicians of the day knew it. But I think it helps if someone is able to articulate the public mood. I am sure it helps the “doers” of this world, to do what they know instinctively has to be done, if they know there is a theoretical justification for it. So it is one thing to proclaim correctly what is wrong. It is another to proclaim what the remedy is, and articulate what it is that has to be done.
In his excellent appreciation of Dr.Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist, Laurens van der Post in his last Chapter makes a withering attack on the failure of the modern Christian Churches to command the allegiance of ordinary people today. When Churches talk about “the Soul” and psychologists talk about “the Psyche”, they are talking about the same entity. Even if you dispute that people have souls; they are at least talking about the same “concept”. And Laurens van der Post criticizes the Churches for turning their backs on science, yet again. It would be invidious to quote him, because I think he himself is repeating the opinions Jung expressed to him. But many people would agree that there had been a time when the creeds and dogma of the Church had fulfilled, so far as words can, the aspirations of the Western Spirit. That was why great painting and art at that time had a religious motive. Probably this began to fade when the Puritans first raised their heads in Elizabethan England; and ceased to be true within a generation or so of Cromwell’s Commonwealth. But that was 300 years ago. Yet the clergy went on preaching, and do today, as if a restating of the message of the cross, and a reminder of the healings and parables of Jesus is enough. But you do not need to read Jung’s book, Modern Man in search of a Soul, to realize how starved and empty the modern soul has become. You see it in the inability of people to leave their iPads alone for more than a few minutes together. The Church has virtually given up trying to persuade people to want to become complete human beings. The Clergy of all churches are tied to the Council of Nicea in 325, and cannot or will not to look at what modern medicine has to tell them about the nature of the human soul. Their attitude is similar to the Jesuit bigots who refused to look down Galileo’s telescope to see the moons of Jupiter, because, “they knew better; they knew there were no moons, so there was no point in looking”. This was because the existence of moons round any planet upset their theoretical cosmology, and their view of Man’s place in the Universe. Rather than risk that, they refused to look. Very few clergymen are prepared to contemplate the possibility that there may be intelligent life somewhere else in the Universe. Even less the question, whether, if it contains creatures like men, will they too need to have someone like Jesus to lead them out of Plato’s cave of shadows into the bright sunlight outside? If they do need a “Saviour”, will they not think of him as “the only begotten Son of God”? What happens then to the Doctrine of the Trinity? So vested interests are firmly in favour of refusing to consider whether modern psychology casts doubt on the sacred doctrines of the Churches. Too much is at stake; the fear of the Churches is that doctrine would not just need to be modified, it would need to be recast entirely.