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Summary: Answer to Job
Review: Jung's life journey was an investigation into who and what we are as human. Like it or not, in discovering who we are, he had to confront God as part of that discovery process. I can understand why Answer to Job caused so much controversy. Don't shake the status quo after it has found an easy to accommodate understanding of God. Many have shaken that tree and were martyred. Or in one case, crucified.
If you truly want to find out who and what you are, read this book. Other books that will help include /Edward Edinger's "Transformation of the God Image; The New Myth for our Species",and "Creation of Consciousness". The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran is also available through Amazon. Introducing yourself to these books will open you to the "Christ" within.
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Summary: one of Jung's greatest books....
Review: ...and daring in its conjecture that the God-image (NOT God) could only evolve out of its amoral unconsciousness through an encounter with a man of unbending integrity. Highly recommended, especially for open-minded theologians outgrowing the need to idealize images of the deity.
Rating:
Summary: one of Jung's greatest books....
Review: ...and daring in its conjecture that the God-image (NOT God) could only evolve out of its amoral unconsciousness through an encounter with a man of unbending integrity. Highly recommended, especially for open-minded theologians outgrowing the need to idealize images of the deity.
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Summary: Girard's "Job: Victim of His People" much better
Review: A much better take on the book of Job and the problem of suffering is René Girard's book, "Job: The Victim of His People". Jung's analysis pales and bores in comparison with Girard's.
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Summary: Surprised at how poorly Jung understood God
Review: Carl Jung is highly respected by psychologists, both private and religious. I read some works by Jung on dreams and people who claimed they saw flying saucers. These so much impressed me that I also formed a high opinion of Jung. I then read Jung's "Answer to Job" when I researched a book I wrote about "Revelation and the Fall of Judea." I had read commentaries by many authors to make sure I understood what others had said. "Answer to Job" touched on the same topic. What an eye opener! This man, so highly revered as an expert on human thinking, doesn't himself understand who God is and what God has done, even with Job.Jung claims that God once was in a state of unconsciousness and was prodded by Lucifer, who was inclined to make use of God's omniscience, into acting unfairly with Job. Job proved himself morally superior to God. God then became the human being, Jesus Christ, so he could suffer the way Job was made to suffer. Jung's position surprised me because God was never in a state of unconsciousness. God is unchanging. Jung mentions Lucifer. I'm surprised that Jung didn't believe the biblical text that it was Lucifer who brought suffering onto Job. Lucifer did it to demonstrate before God that Job would blaspheme God if Job experienced misfortune. God gave Lucifer permission to harass Job but set limits on what Lucifer could do. Job actually proved himself morally superior to Lucifer because, even when suffering misfortune, Job would not rebel against God, whereas, Lucifer, without any suffering, rebelled through pride. Job had three friends who tried to convince him that he offended God somehow, and that is why misfortune came. Their opinions were not true. Scripture has it that Lucifer brought misfortune to goad Job into rebellion. God permitted this because God had already informed Lucifer how faithful Job is. Now, under fire, Job's faithfulness is tried and proven. Spiritual growth came out of Job's suffering. That's why God permitted it. When the book of Job ends, God told Job to pray for his three friends because their untrue advice had offended God. I'm surprised Jung didn't pick up on that. God's asking Job to pray for his friends is one of the keys to understanding the book of Job.
Rating:
Summary: Surprised at how poorly Jung understood God
Review: Carl Jung is highly respected by psychologists, both private and religious. I read some works by Jung on dreams and people who claimed they saw flying saucers. These so much impressed me that I also formed a high opinion of Jung. I then read Jung's "Answer to Job" when I researched a book I wrote about "Revelation and the Fall of Judea." I had read commentaries by many authors to make sure I understood what others had said. "Answer to Job" touched on the same topic. What an eye opener! This man, so highly revered as an expert on human thinking, doesn't himself understand who God is and what God has done, even with Job. Jung claims that God once was in a state of unconsciousness and was prodded by Lucifer, who was inclined to make use of God's omniscience, into acting unfairly with Job. Job proved himself morally superior to God. God then became the human being, Jesus Christ, so he could suffer the way Job was made to suffer. Jung's position surprised me because God was never in a state of unconsciousness. God is unchanging. Jung mentions Lucifer. I'm surprised that Jung didn't believe the biblical text that it was Lucifer who brought suffering onto Job. Lucifer did it to demonstrate before God that Job would blaspheme God if Job experienced misfortune. God gave Lucifer permission to harass Job but set limits on what Lucifer could do. Job actually proved himself morally superior to Lucifer because, even when suffering misfortune, Job would not rebel against God, whereas, Lucifer, without any suffering, rebelled through pride. Job had three friends who tried to convince him that he offended God somehow, and that is why misfortune came. Their opinions were not true. Scripture has it that Lucifer brought misfortune to goad Job into rebellion. God permitted this because God had already informed Lucifer how faithful Job is. Now, under fire, Job's faithfulness is tried and proven. Spiritual growth came out of Job's suffering. That's why God permitted it. When the book of Job ends, God told Job to pray for his three friends because their untrue advice had offended God. I'm surprised Jung didn't pick up on that. God's asking Job to pray for his friends is one of the keys to understanding the book of Job.
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Summary: Penetrating analysis of our changing relationship to God
Review: Doctor Jung expresses concern in his Introduction that readers will misinterpret the ideas contained in this book. Jung presents examples of the unconscious, capricious behavior of Yahweh (GOD) who self-righteously proclaims his moral superiority over humankind and enforces a strict adherence to his sense of justice. This self-delusion reaches culmination in the collusion of Yahweh and his 'shadow son' Satan in the undeserved sadistic persecution of a righteous man, Job, in a cosmic wager. Job's principled response to this persecution demonstrates humankind exhibiting a higher morality than shown by Yahweh. Yahweh, reaching a higher level of consciousness, realizes that he must atone to humankind for the wrong he has done. His attempt to make this atonement through incarnation as Jesus Christ is only partially successful. The later appearance of the Holy Ghost is Yahweh's attempt to perfect himself further through a personal incarnation into humankind in general. Jung moves on to a psychological analysis of the Book of Revelation, where the shadow side of the author, the Apostle John, is evident in the torments predicted to befall humankind. Jung's theological ideas are radical and open to misinterpretation. His thinking on the 'problem of evil' and the evolving relationship of God to humankind is the attempt of a wise, old man to make sense of the conflicting images present in the mythology of the Bible.
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Summary: Answer to Job more aptly titled Answer to Freud
Review: For me this book is a wonderful example of how Jung was able to work with archetypes and myths when dealing with his own relationships. One familiar with the letters between Freud and Jung will find in the description of Yahweh and Jung's complaints against this punishing, abandoning, and at times unself-aware image of God the very real feelings he experienced with Freud.
I believe Jung did in this book what he could not do in his real life experience with Freud. That is reconcile parts of the relationship that hurt him deeply while finding a way to understand the limitations of both Freud and the PsychoAnalytic community which he felt abandoned him after the break with Freud.
He did this by attributing to God the containment of all things of the paradoxial nature of being both light and darkness/ evil and good.
Rating:
Summary: Answer to Job more aptly titled Answer to Freud
Review: For me this book is a wonderful example of how Jung was able to work with archetypes and myths when dealing with his own relationships. One familiar with the letters between Freud and Jung will find in the description of Yahweh and Jung's complaints against this punishing, abandoning, and at times unself-aware image of God the very real feelings he experienced with Freud.
I believe Jung did in this book what he could not do in his real life experience with Freud. That is reconcile parts of the relationship that hurt him deeply while finding a way to understand the limitations of both Freud and the PsychoAnalytic community which he felt abandoned him after the break with Freud.
He did this by attributing to God the containment of all things of the paradoxial nature of being both light and darkness/ evil and good.
Rating: 
Summary: Why have you forsaken me?
Review: Freud was merely a rational atheist. Jung not only believes in God but in 'Answer to Job' he has the temerity to psychoanalise Him. . . The reuslts are provocative. Jung reasons that God was a schmuck towards Job (and by extension to all innocents who suffer from 'acts of God') due to His not being fully conscious. A strange theory since, it would seem that by definiton God is Omniscient. However God, in Jung's model, contains all opposites and paradoxes--including choosing not to consult Himself. Had He done so, He could have seen that Job would have been faithfull to the end and not needed to take Satan's "bet".
The devil is still able to waltz into heaven in the book of Job and complain about how rotten mankind is. Unconsciousness accounts why God allows evil, why He breaks His own covenant and commandments, and why throughout The Old Testament accounts in His dealings with Israel He often resembles a petulant child given to fits of rage towards his pet hamster. In short, why the Jews were right to "fear" Him, big time. In the end of, God pulls out all the stops and counters Job's anguished pleadings for an answer to his misery with a 'might makes right' speech; while all poor Job can do is declare that he knows that his 'Advocate' lives, and then shut up. Job is the moral winner while the seed of doubt is implanted in God that He's not exactly playing cricket, and His desire to Know culminates in the 'tour the force' (Jung's words) of The Incarnation. Jesus (the Advocate) now had to be born so that God could experience how we poor slobs muddle through down here. Christ's mission therefore is not only to save humanity, but also God from His worse half. On the cross, when God shouts to God: 'Why have you forsaken me?' He's finally made the grade.
The union of God and Man.
Four stars only due to Jung's heavy prose and his peppering his paragraphs with untranslated Greek-- At first the book seems like a joke (perhaps it is but is it a joke or a Joke?) but going from syllogism to syllogism Jung does builds a powerful if disturbing thesis. Despite his protestations that this is a work of psychology, inevitably 'Answer to Job' becomes a fascinating and bizarre work of theology.
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