The shadow archetype in the Answer to Job, lies not so much in Satan, as it does in the dark side of Yaweh Himself.
O- Correct. But what do you think? Do you agree with Jung’s interpretation of scripture?
— Satan in the Book of Job is not so much the principle of evil, as he is the sly and manipulative prosecutor exposing the dark side of Yaweh.
O- But not just in Job. In fact such interpretation goes back to even Saul. The “angel” which makes Saul commits all kinds of sin is “sent” by God, just like “Satan” is “sent” to Job, or allowed to do this or that to Job. Isaiah and Jeremiah, not to mention other prophets also believe this. At no time is man outside the control of God even when afflicted, he can only turn to an omnipotent God who has allowed his suffering. But as Jung points out, there is a certain paradox running in Job, as to whether your assailant can also serve as your judge, or whether God can rule against Himself, which, if Job is righteous as God Himself concedes at the beginning of the book, then He should rule against Himself.
Now, suffering was not new to the world of the jews and they, like Job’s friends, understood suffering as retaliation from God for their behaviour or, later, as the sounding, the testing, of righteousness. Jung points that out too, but then where is His omnisense? God knows the result of the experiment, or wager with the Devil, beforehand, so what is the use of making Job suffer?
Something Jung does not add is the fact that there has been some doubt about whether the prelude to Job that occurs in Heaven is not a later addition to the story. Because if the “beginning” had always been there, then, the answer to Job might have been easier. None of his friends proposes testing of righteousness by God as a possible explanation, nor does God answer Job with the sensible answer that He wanted to test Job or to show off to Satan the glory of His pottery etc (which is some of the explanations I have been given). It is completely irrational. Job is silenced by His sheer power, not by the irresistable logic of it all, but by his own mortality and limitation.
The second book of Esdras is similar to Job, but visibly more recent and in it the case for God is again presented and defended in the face of the righteous sufferer. What comes across is the message that we cannot judge the Judge. That it is impossible to judge what occurs in Heaven when one cannot even judge what occurs on earth. If we understood completely what happened on earth, at our level, then perhaps we could understand His ways. And I think that is God’s point at the end of Job. God lists his tasks, His resume to remind Job of his limits of reason as well as power- an explanation already ventured by Job during the dialogue, but perhaps half-heartedly-- only now, in the presence of God does he beging to understand what before he only could imagine and guess at.
— For Jung, the journey to selfhood and self-realization is the union of opposites. The ‘good’ lies not so much in identification with what is seen as good from the relativist perspective of any particular human, but in a sense it lies in going beyond good and evil altogether.
O- I disagree with your interpretation. I think that while he did believe that self-realization had to have an agenda for completeness (rather than perfection) that he did not go “beyond” good and evil or pretended that evil was relative etc. Rather, I think, he wanted a choice to be made in which one aspect could gain dominance over another. It is, then, not about going beyond good and evil but about raising one’s personal good above his personal evil.
— For the dark side of life is an essential of existence too. Accepting the existence of those facets of ourself that are socially unacceptable, and amoral is as necessary as our rationality and our virtue.
O- If you mean as I said above then we obviously agree.
— For Jung also points out that it is in the shadowy netherworld of our dark side that the impetus towards creativity is born.
O- At least in the greek-inspired worldview. Is it any surprise that the same piece of wisdom is found in Nietzsche, Buber and Jung? What were the Germans drinking in their water?
— We are after all a reflection of God. To the extent that our conception of God is a true one then, the darkness of our own lives must be contained within God too.
O- Is the New Testament then, a testament to God’s own attempt at reconcilliation-- not of mankind to Himself-- but of His darker side to his better side? The God that survives at the end is certainly a questionable God, limited, flawed-- we can be these things, but God? That is a question of faith…
— Perhaps Jung’s analysis is right, and Job was the moral superior to Yaweh in the Book of Job.
But could it be that Jesus was correct too in stating that only God is good?
O- What could one expect fron this Son of God? But the other son of God, the one even God would never acknowledge, well, all he has to do is point to his own continued existence to put into question Jesus optimist claim. The statement is incomplete, though perfect. Or perfect, though impotent. “God is both good and bad”. Who would dare to say that?
— As Satan so adeptly points out in luring Yaweh into accepting his amoral wager, if we are to accept the truth of this adage of Jesus, the goodness of God must therefore lie beyond accepting the conventional morality of what is good and what is evil.